Wrong position on LG autonomy
By Adekunle Adekoya I WAS thrown off my feet earlier in the week when a former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General in Oyo State, Mutalubi Adebayo, faulted the clamour for local government autonomy by many sections of the Nigerian polity, adding that it simply shows that the people do not understand the concept of federalism. Adebayo spoke while answering questions on a live radio programme monitored in Ibadan. Indeed, the lawyer averred that in Nigeria, local governments were not designed to function the way many Nigerians wanted them to. Let me quote him: "Federal or national government is the making of the component states or units in the federation that agreed to come together to form a government at the centre. There are just two tiers of government in any federalism, and they are just the national, central, or federal government that they (all the component units or states) agree to create or form, and the state governments. "Local governments are not a tier o...