The South-South Zonal leaders of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) have expressed the willingness of the zone to pull out of the central labour organisation, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), over what they considered to be outright endorsement of the abolition of the Local Government Autonomy by NLC National President, Comrade Omar Abdulwaheed.
This was contained in the NULGE communiqué issued after its zonal meeting held in Benin City and made available to The Tide.
The union said the NLC President’s stand does not guarantee the union’s cause on local government autonomy, adding that the zone was therefore calling for the pulling out of the union from the NLC.
The communiqué signed by the union’s National Vice President, Comrade Lucky Gospel Ewa, Deputy President, Comrade Edeki Friday Joman, chairperson, National Women Committee, Zonal Chairman, Comrade Pedro Chindah, Comrade Wadys Nweye, among others respectively.
The zonal leaders condemned the purported endorsement of the NLC president on the abolition of local government as contained in the recommendation of the committee on political restructuring at the on-going national conference.
The communiqué accused the NLC leader of nursing morbid hatred and dislike for local government workers’ struggle in the country.
According to the communiqué, the national conference Committee on Political Restructuring’s recommendation calling for local governments in the country to be run by the state governments was a decision of some people.
The union said the decision was at variance with the views of Nigerians as expressed in the last constitutional review exercise.
The South-South leaders of the union stressed that what was needed now was the conclusion of the amendment of the 1999 Constitution to give autonomy to the 774 local governments in the country.
The union said that constitutional backing to the local government autonomy would ensure a stronger system of the third tier administration with direct funding to enable it perform better.
The South-South NULGE noted that the existence of local government as a tier of government has been guaranteed by section 7 of the 1999 Constitution.
NULGE called on Nigerians to come out and defend their decision as expressed during the public hearing organised by the House of Representatives in the six geo-political zones, stressing that the recommendations of the National Conference Committee on Political Restructuring were an aberration and complete rape on the collective wishes of Nigerians.
The communiqué appealed to Nigerians to prevail on members of the National Conference to reject the report during the plenary sessions.

Philip Okparaji