Editorial: THE IMPLICATION OF FINANCIAL AUTONOMY ON THE NATION’S 774 LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
Thursday July 11, 2024, will remain ever green in the political history of Nigeria. The reason is not farfetched as it was on that day that the nation’s Supreme Court affirmed the financial autonomy of the nation’s 774 local governments.
What Ika Weekly Newspaper considers most significant is that the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement included a decision that overturned the longstanding practice where state governments received federal allocations on behalf of local government areas and withheld the funds.
The implication of this development is that every allocation coming from the Federal Government and meant for the Local Councils need not pass through the state government but goes straight to the local Government coffers.
However, like every new invention which comes with opportunities and challenges, this latest development is expected to, definitely increase the money available to the Local Government councils in the country as the judgement has brought to an end, the thoughtless slashing of local government allocation by the state governments before it gets to the local council authorities.
With adequate funds, Nigerians, particularly those at the grassroot would expect more performance in socioeconomic development and infrastructural provisions from the Local Government Chairman of the 774 Councils in Nigeria.
Also coming side by side with the judgement is the awareness that the people are now ready more than before to hold the Local Council leaderships more accountable.
Therefore, as the newly elected Local government chairmen and councilors in the State (Delta) settle down to perform their constitutional responsibility to the people, Ika Weekly Newspaper calls on them to remember that all eyes are on them. The people are wiser now. They are left with no other option than to perform as failure to do so will remain unpalatable in the estimation of the people.
As the Newspaper congratulates them for the electoral victory recently secured at the polls, one point they should not fail to remember is that the Freedom of Information Act is still very much alive, active and enforceable. The Act, as we all know empowers every Nigerian, media inclusive to inquire into the financial activities of those in government.