A former chairman, Com
munity Development Area (CDA), Iponrin Estate, Surulere, Lagos,  Mr Olukayode Adeyemi, has said that granting financial autonomy to local councils would enable them to complete capital projects.
National Assembly recently approved the constitutional amendment seeking to give financial autonomy to the third tier of government.
Adeyemi told newsmen in Lagos that the autonomy would go a long way in speeding-up growth in the LGA because the councils would no longer be at the mercy of the state governments.
“It’s a good step the federal government has taken if you look at the past years, when the local government allocations were being paid into state governments’ accounts- Each local government was at the mercy of the state government.
“But now that the autonomy has been given to them, they can now embark on capital projects by themselves. Not only patching of roads, they can now construct their roads.
“In the past when they were autonomous before the power was taken out of them you saw local governments buying all types of caterpillars to do and undo things by themselves because they weren’t taking orders from any governor.
“They could manage their resources very well, they could plan as they liked  not at the mercy of anybody.
“I can tell you without mincing words that with this autonomy, you will see many local governments even competing with the state government.“
The chairman also said that independent candidacy for election was a welcome idea .