LG autonomy: Soludo, Otu hail Supreme Court verdict

Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State, on Thursday, commended the Supreme Court’s verdict on Local Government Autonomy, describing it as “great and final.”

He also blamed a series of litigation in court for his inability to conduct local government elections in Anambra state despite his campaign promise.

Soludo stated this when he addressed State House correspondents after closed-door talks with President Bola Tinubu alongside the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq of Kwara State, Usman Ododo of Kogi and Bassey Otu of Cross River State at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

On the Supreme Court judgement granting local government autonomy, he said, “That’s great. I mean, the Supreme Court is supreme, it is the final authority, and I’m a democrat. I believe in the rule of law.

“And once the Supreme Court has spoken, it has spoken. And the Governors Forum is meeting to review this. But at a fundamental level, yes, we need resources to get down to the grassroots and we need the people’s money to work for them at all levels, whether at the federal or the state and the local government.

“We need to promote accountability. We need to promote transparency in the utilization of public resources at all levels, to be able to lift the burden of the common man.”

The President had earlier said the judgement would ensure that “only those local officials elected by the people…will control the resources of the people.”

However, there have been no council elections in Anambra state for nearly a decade.

Reacting to questions on this, the governor said a series of litigations have stalled council elections in the state.

According to him, “When I was elected into office, that was one of the things I promised our people because in Anambra, we haven’t had that, to be honest with you.

“I think the first local government election we had was in 1998 or something thereabout, and then the next one was in 2014 or 2013. And that was it. I promised the people of Anambra that we were going to have a local government election. We’ve just passed the Independent Electoral Commission law of Anambra state and we’re putting together the institutions to be able to organise that.”

“And so, for my state, there has been a lingering litigation that stopped local government elections in the past, and that particular litigation is still in the courts, so to speak. We’re going to see how we handle all of that and to organise a local government election as appropriate.”

Meanwhile, the Cross River State Governor, Bassey Otu, said that the governors have taken the Supreme Court judgement in good faith.

He told State House correspondents, “I believe that the judgment is taken in very good faith. All Nigerians should be happy about it. I don’t think anybody is against development in the local governments. I don’t think so.

“I believe that the application of it should add some pet to our local government restriction.”

The Cross River governor said that he was at the State House to discuss boundary matters with President Tinubu.

Otu said, “Actually, I came to meet with Mr. President about security and boundary issues in my state. I believe that the meeting will still continue because there are a few things that will need some other officials to also participate.

“Cross River State boundaries are quite very big. You can drive about five to 600 kilometres along the boundary.

“In between those boundaries, we just have about four military platforms, which I’m trying to tell Mr. President that we actually do need more, and we do need some high-level security more than what we have now and then some drones to also fly the area in order to make it safe.”