By joshua 
By Ikhili Ebalu , Benin City.
The President, National Union of Local Government Employee (NULGE), Edo State Chapter, Comrade Lazarus Imokhai Adorolo, said, inherent deficiency in the Nigerian 1999 constitution(as amended) has been the major challenge affecting the smooth running of NIGERIA’S democracy, vis-a-vis national development.
Comrade Lazarus Imokhai Adorolo,
who stated this while chatting with Newsmen in Benin City, said “the current constitution operated by Nigeria did not consider certain factors which include the administration of local government councils in Nigeria, except these sections and subsections are amended, the average Nigerians who form the majority at the grassroot will not enjoy the dividend of democracy”.
Comrade Adorolo said, the “Constitutional imposition of both the Federal and state Governments in the day-to-day running of the councils has crippled the essence of creating the local government councils as a third tier of government.”
The NULGE President opined that “the fact that the various states were Constitutionally empowered to conduct elections into local government councils is an aberration which now made the 3rd tier of government an appendage”.
“Imagine the style of state Governors who conduct elections through their various State Electoral Commissions with the mandate to return their candidates as elected without recourse to the tenet of democracy as they take joy in saying my party won 18- over-18 local government. Also imagine if the Federal Government says all Governors should come from the same party then the nation would have been thrown into been a one party state”
“This error was never envisaged when the 1999 constitution came into force, while the various amendment have also been blinded by partisanship to the effect of correcting the error in the interest of our democracy”
According to Comrade Lazarus Imokhai Adorolo, ” we at NULGE are resolved to crusade for this constitution to be amended to the effect of growing our democracy and making it relevant to the grassroot”.
He then called on all the state houses of Assembly to align with this effort whenever the amendment comes before them”.
Comrade Adorolo said the state house of assembly can really help in the actualization of the local government autonomy if the bill is sent to them and it’s given the needed attention it deserves and passed it into law.
The Edo state NULGE President however frowned at what he called “the deliberate policies of Edo state government aimed at crippling the 3rd tier of govt, stressing that IGR policy of state government which deliberately took the rights of local government revenue collection from the councils is a direct affront on its existence”. He therefore called for “a reversal of the policy as, according to him, the councils have the capacity and manpower to drive their IGR.”
He maintained that the NULGE under his leadership has been able to meet the demands of staff of local government councils through constant dialogues with the state government on how to improve on the welfare of staff just as he said protest and being confrontational, sometimes do not yield the needed results.
While refuting the claim that local government councils are overstaffed, thereby resulting to high debt profile, said the numerical strength of the council staff are under-utilized and it should be used to its advantages.