Soludo opposes LG autonomy, signs law for deductions of LG funds

Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State says granting “absolute” autonomy to local governments in Nigeria could lead to “humongous chaos.”

Mr Soludo stated this on Tuesday at the Governor’s Lodge in Awka, after signing the Anambra State Local Government Administration Bill into law.

The governor published a text of the speech on his Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon.

He also signed the Anambra State Economic Planning and Development Bill into law.

The local government law

The bill, submitted to the Anambra State House of Assembly last Thursday, was signed into law despite stiff opposition by some state lawmakers.

The law compels local governments in the state to remit a portion of their federal allocations into a consolidated account controlled by the state government.

Observers said the law was at variance with a recent Supreme Court ruling which affirmed the financial autonomy of the country’s local governments.

‘Absolute LG autonomy recipe for chaos’

Mr Soludo, after signing the bill into law, stressed that local governments are not usually considered as federal units.

The governor said that although the Supreme Court ruling affirming local government autonomy was intended for transparency, granting absolute autonomy to the local governments would breed chaos.

“Absolute autonomy would mean that each LG would have its own primary education policy, employ its own teachers, and pay them whatever it can afford and whenever it can do so, etc.

“This would be a recipe for humongous chaos, not only for the administration of local government and pensions but more so in the primary education and primary health sectors,” he said.

He argued that the new local government law in Anambra was not at variance with the Supreme Court ruling.

Mr Soludo explained that Section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution empowers the State legislatures to make laws for the management of local government finances.

“The new law by Anambra House of Assembly is therefore consequential to give operational life to the Supreme Court judgment and not to undermine it,” he argued.

The governor suggested that the new law was intended to prevent local government chairpersons from mismanaging their finances.

“The law seeks to create a framework to ensure that the basic functions mandated by the (Nigerian) Constitution for the local governments are discharged as a matter of first-line charge or the irreducible minimum.

“With these laws, workers and retirees from the local government system in Anambra, such as primary school teachers, primary health workers, workers in the local government system under the local government service commission, can sleep with their two eyes closed,” he said.

LGs must collaborate with states

Mr Soludo argued that the Nigerian Constitution did “not envisage” absolute autonomy for the local governments but collaborations with the state governments.

The governor stressed the importance of collaboration between state and local governments and warned that many local governments could face financial crises without proper coordination.

“No tier of government can function without the collaboration of others. The three tiers have the objective of the people.

“The federal government is not completely autonomous of the state. It is a collaborative arrangement to achieve the same objective,” he said.