[NATION]Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has condemned the calls for local government autonomy.
The Ekiti State governor said the NGF had agreed that issues about local government should be left to the states to decide.
Fayemi spoke at the opening session of a two-day “Multi-Stakeholders’ Meeting for the Furtherance of Peace and Inclusive Security in Nigeria,” organised by the NGF in collaboration with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) yesterday in Abuja.
The Ekiti State governor and Plateau State deputy governor, Professor Sonni Tyoden, who also spoke at the event, called for the adoption of multi-level policing system to address the nation’s intractable security challenge.
They argued that the inadequacy of existing security arrangements accounts for why the nation’s security challenge appears insurmountable
By multi-level police, they envisaged an arrangement where the states and local governments are allowed to maintain their policing system to co-exist with the current federal police.
Fayemi, who faulted the call for local government autonomy from the perspective of federalism, said: “The principle of federalism is very clear about federating units. Local government, as a federating unit, is a unique innovation in Nigeria. I have not seen it in any research work, in any book on federalism.