A
abujagirl
Guest
Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara is unhappy with State Governors.
Dogara on Wednesday called for the impeachment of state governors for hijacking local government funds. He also said that the failure to conduct council elections by governors must be treated as gross violation of the Constitution, and must bear consequences.
He said failure to conduct council elections amounts to “serious violation of the provisions of the constitution”, which he said was “one of the biggest grounds for impeachment”. The Speaker went on to say, “As a matter of fact, joint account is one of the biggest evils because it gives the authority to local government ministries in the state.
“In most states, especially in the north where we don’t have oil and co, the ministry of local government in the state is regarded as the ministry of petroleum resources. So we all know when funds are allocated to the councils. Instead of getting to the councils, they are hijacked at that (state) level and appropriated according to the whims of the powers that be. On what is to be done,
''We will have to make this local government system a bit independent. I am not saying absolute independence because we may not achieve that since ours is a strong federation. It is not a weak federation like what you have in the United States where councils and states join their own money and then appropriate it and pay royalties in taxes to the federal government.
“So, what we can therefore do is make sure that in the spirit of the constitution, the local government administration is democratically-elected to ensure that by provision of the constitution, that any local government that is not democratically constituted will not have access to any funding from the federation.''
Dogara on Wednesday called for the impeachment of state governors for hijacking local government funds. He also said that the failure to conduct council elections by governors must be treated as gross violation of the Constitution, and must bear consequences.
He said failure to conduct council elections amounts to “serious violation of the provisions of the constitution”, which he said was “one of the biggest grounds for impeachment”. The Speaker went on to say, “As a matter of fact, joint account is one of the biggest evils because it gives the authority to local government ministries in the state.
“In most states, especially in the north where we don’t have oil and co, the ministry of local government in the state is regarded as the ministry of petroleum resources. So we all know when funds are allocated to the councils. Instead of getting to the councils, they are hijacked at that (state) level and appropriated according to the whims of the powers that be. On what is to be done,
''We will have to make this local government system a bit independent. I am not saying absolute independence because we may not achieve that since ours is a strong federation. It is not a weak federation like what you have in the United States where councils and states join their own money and then appropriate it and pay royalties in taxes to the federal government.
“So, what we can therefore do is make sure that in the spirit of the constitution, the local government administration is democratically-elected to ensure that by provision of the constitution, that any local government that is not democratically constituted will not have access to any funding from the federation.''