The newly sworn-in Chairmen and Vice Chairmen in the Sixteen Local Government Area of Kwara State have again been charged to make accountability and the welfare of the people their watchword to engender development at the grassroots.
Former Leader, Kwara State House of Assembly in the Second Republic, Chief Stephen Wole Oke who gave the charge in his reaction to Saturday’s Local Government Election in the State called on the Council bosses to ensure judicious use and deployment of their monthly allocation and internally generated revenue for the benefit of the people in their areas.
He called on them to be ready to provide the necessary infrastructural developmental facilities for each Ward, each community, towns and villages that can ensure rapid socio-economic growth and advancement of the well- being of the people within the reasonable period of time of their office tenure.
Chief Wole Oke who is also the Jagunmolu of Shao, stated that “this monthly account is mandatory, legal and constitution- backed. How have the Councils been deploying the money to benefit the people in areas of providing the necessary infrastructural developmental facilities for each Ward, each community, towns and villages that can ensure rapid socio-economic growth and advancement of the well- being of the people within the reasonable period of time of their office tenure”.
In his message tagged ” Local Government Autonomy and the New Councils: expend the people’s money, the monthly Federal Allocation: on the people, for the people, on their visible physical development and on their well-being-no godfatherism, no transfer, no diversion” noted that the people of Kwara State should collectively offer gratitude and praise to the Creator, the Almighty God for sustaining us to successfully carry out the much- anticipated local government council election.
“It has, at last, come and gone. We have cause, as concerned stakeholders in the politics and governance of Kwara State, to congratulate ourselves, to express our gratitude, adoration and praises to the Omnipotent God for the hitch-free, violence- free, and climate favoured exercise” he added.
The APC Stalwart explained that the results of the elections have been announced across the sixteen Local Government Areas of the State and winners have been declared and already sworn in.
Chief Wole Oke opined that a few months before the election, the most trending topical issue in public discussion is that of the Local Government Autonomy.
What is Local Government Autonomy and how has it become thus popular in our daily discourse where autonomy is known and accepted to be:
“The right or condition of self-government; freedom to act or function independently.”
This is a very relevant, brilliant and worthy question at this point in time: a very apt and timeous one. What is its implication for the newly elected Councils across the Country?
He asked further “have local government councils in the country never been autonomous? How much autonomous can the newly-elected Kwara LG Chairmen and their Councils be in respect of the control they can exercise on their finance and in their choice of developmental projects, considered greatly beneficial to the people, the electorates, that voted them into power? How much control can they exercise on the monthly federal allocation coming to their respective councils? Kwarans should be interested in these issues/questions”.
The Former Second Republic House Leader called on the people to demand for monthly account from their LG Chairmen and Councilors on how they are spending their federal revenue allocation and their internally generated revenues, that is, the people’s common patrimony.
“Just as governors are given the mandate by the people to govern, so are local government chairmen, which mandate has now been reinforced by the court
judgment granting the local government the needed autonomy; the right; the power, and the authority to exercise that power and authority in the management of the affairs of their local governments without any interference from the state government. Like the governor, the local government chairman is accountable to the citizens of his LG who voted him/her into office” he emphasized.
Chief Wole Oke advised Council Chairmen not to submit their status/ office to any form of intimidation or harassment as the local government autonomy as prescribed in the court judgment was not aimed at only freeing the local government administration but to revolutionize the achievements, which Local Governments are destined for by the Local Government Reforms of 1976 under a military dispensation.
He concluded “it is a great shame, and an unforgivable sin today, to now have to live with the military’s pro-people policy, but which is now being bastardised by the PEOPLE-ELECTED civilian government.
Those who have decided to contest the council election as chairmen or councillors and have been so elected in the elections, and have been so sworn in, should realize that they have started a new chapter in their life history, the history, which will determine their future political career and which they should not allow any political godfather to vitiate. Their fate is now in their own hands”.
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