Protesting members of the organized labour on Friday, besieged the venue of the meeting of the 36 state governors and speakers to disrupt it.
The Labour leaders took over the entrance of the Fraiser Suit, Central Area venue of the meeting to continue the agitation for autonomy for local government and the state judiciary.
Leaders of the NLC led by its President, Mr Ayuba Wabba mobilized workers to the venue by 3pm with placards demanding autonomy for the local government areas and the judiciary.
Ayuba Wabba said that the organized Labour was at the venue to prevail on the governors and speakers to include the sensitive issue autonomy for local government areas and state judiciary in the agenda for the meeting.
Wabba said that the security situation in the country has almost collapsed because of the continuing neglect of the local government.
He said, “All of us could recall that the issue of autonomy and independence for these three arms of government to operate independently, has been an issue in Nigeria. And that has led to a lot of challenges.
” I can say as a matter of fact, that because the local government system is not working. That is why the security architecture of Nigeria today has collapsed.
“There is no security anywhere because that tier of government that should provide all the necessary information is not functioning.
Some of their responsibilities, including fixing roads and creating employment opportunities have been taken over.
“And that is why you see people now moving enmass from the state capitals and the local governments to the city centers, it is a very chaotic process.
“We must put this to an end. We can have the system reversed because we have competent people, people well educated that are in our local governments. In the local government, we have all carriers, we have professors.
“And that tier of government if given the chance, it will be able to attend to all these challenges that now bedevil in development of our system.
“And that is why we have taken it as a major campaign to every nook and cranny that every politician, be chairman of a local government, be it members of the State Assembly must endorse this bill, on the autonomy of the local governments.”
“They must endorse this bill for the autonomy of the judiciary and theyvmust endorse the bill for the autonomy of the parliament.
“We said this with passion because we know it is going to improve the problems that Nigeria is going through today, it is not only about siphoning their funds, it’s also about having a credible election in the local government system because that is why true democracy has been practiced.
“If we destroy democracy at the local government level, then you are assured that what we are going to have at the center will be a mirage.
“Do we want this to happen? So that is why we are here as I said we are here because the governors Forum and the speakers of the assembly, will be meeting here. If they are meeting here, they must put the issue on the agenda, that is why we are here.
“What is our demand? Autonomy must be on the agenda of the meeting. That is why we are here. The next level of our campaign comrades, because I’m aware that the meeting is supposed to be here, anybody coming in must be able to listen to us. I will tell them why we are here is because of autonomy. We must remind them why we are here to. We will do that very peacefully.”
The Senate had passed bill to grant financial, administrative autonomy to the councils.
Each of the local government council is to have a special account to be called Local Government Allocation Account into which all the allocations will be paid.
