UniAbuja academics, CSO make case for LG autonomy

Academics from the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) and some members of a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) have called on the Federal Government to make the local government an autonomous structure under the state. They made the call at the second edition of the Development Forum organised by the Department of Political Science and International Relations […]

Academics from the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) and some members of a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) have called on the Federal Government to make the local government an autonomous structure under the state.

They made the call at the second edition of the Development Forum organised by the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the  university on Monday.

The Country Director of Plan International Nigeria, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, who presented the forum’s lecture with the theme: “Local Government Restructuring, Corruption and Governance in Nigeria”, asked Nigerians to to dialogue and decide on the type of local government they wanted.

“I do not actually think that we can run a three-tier government or system. I think we can have an autonomous local government under the state,” he said.

He tasked citizens to demand accountability from their chairmen at the   local government level so as to follow how the monthly subventions were spent.

He advocated that the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) should give to the local governments what was due to them to avoid diversion of the funds by  the state governments in the name of joint account.

The Head of Department of Political Science and International Relations, Prof. James Nda Jacobs, said the forum would continue to engage the academia and CSOs in national discourse.

He pointed out that the recommendations made by the discussants would be forwarded to the key agencies of government for implementation.

The Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Prof. Yusuf A. Zoak, frowned at the level of corruption prevalent in all tiers of government.