State Governors have rendered LGAs ‘impotent’- Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo ruled that the 774 Local Government Areas(LGAs) across the country have been rendered “impotent” and almost “bastardized,” following the massive encroachment into their affairs by the state governors.


 Obasanjo said the glaring injustices and overbearing influence of the governors which they hand down routinely to the LGAs are such that they cannot tolerate it should the Federal Government elect treat them the same way. The ex – President made this known when a 60 – member delegation of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) visited him at his residence on Presidential Hilltop Estate, Abeokuta.

 The delegation led by the NULGE National President, Ibhraheem Khaleel, were in Obasanjo’s home on Wednesday to solicit support towards freeing the LGAs from the alleged asphyxiating grip of the nation’s 36 state governors. The NULGE had through Khaleel, complained to the ex – President that the governors without exception, ” have completely rendered the Local Governments impotent and battered it through massive encroachment, diversion of funds and non-implementation of rules establishing them(LGAs).”

 But Obasanjo who listened to them, said he is helpless about their plights, noting that when the LGA was reformed in 1976, by the then military government which he was a part, it gave LGAs “functions, responsibilities and duties” to peform. He said it is saddening now to observe that state governors’ interference has completely eroded the “sanctity and constitutionality” of the establishing LGAs. Obasanjo, however, said Nigerians should keep talking to the members of the National and States Assemblies as well as other stakeholders towards finding a way to make the LGAs truly functional and democratic as envisioned by founding fathers.