Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has stated that the two-thirds of state government didn’t approve the 8th Senate passed Local Government autonomy bill for it to scale through.
He noted that Houses of Assembly and not the National Assembly should be held responsible for the delayed autonomy for local governments in Nigeria.
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Recalled that the 8th National Assembly passed a bill to grant autonomy to the LGs but the proposal did not get the nod of two-thirds of the states to scale through.
Gbajabiamila disclosed this in Abuja when answering questions from journalists at a leadership training sponsored by the Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, for council chairmen and councillors from Delta State, South-South, Nigeria.
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He said:
“It is not for us as legislators (of the National Assembly) to do that. I am sure you are surprised, but it is actually for the people to address, the reason being that we have a constitutional amendment, we will throw it to the people and they will make their decision.
“We did it the last time but we went back to the states and we couldn’t get two-thirds. There is a process; we followed due process. We amended it (the Constitution) the last time but two-thirds of the states did not agree with us.
“So, it is the people that will decide whether they want autonomy or not. We will do what we need to do as the Constitution provides.”
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