By Doris Isreal Ijeoma
Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has declared that the Federal Government is not superior to states in exercising each other’s constitutional roles.
Makinde made this known in Ibadan at an emergency consultative meeting with stakeholders on Monday to appraise last week’s Supreme Court judgement, which granted financial autonomy to the local government areas across the nation.
He maintained that the judgment had created a constitutional lacuna that would throw up different challenges at the local government level.
The Governor stressed that though he was not opposing transparency in the councils, the Supreme Court judgment “is not a silver bullet that will wash away Nigeria’s problems.”
He said, “I called this meeting because I felt that even though we have not seen the Certified True Copy of the judgment of the Supreme Court, we have to be proactive and discuss the decision of the Supreme Court as it concerns the financial autonomy of the local government councils because I believe a lacuna has been created between the decision and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that we all swore to uphold.
“The law is the law and when there is a conflict, yes, we should go to the court. But it behoves on us to look for our own homegrown solutions that can ensure that we have transparency and that our people do not suffer. This is because when two elephants are fighting it is the grass that will suffer.”
Speaking further, Makinde said his administration has been doing what was right, including clearing the backlog of debts owed to workers and pensioners at the council level and fixing the infrastructure deficit in the PHCs and the inner roads.
He added, “I am saying this because Oyo State will get out of this even stronger. We are people that know what is good for our people. We can run our own affairs, the Federal Government is not superior constitutionally to the state government. Well, they have more resources than the state, but their jurisdiction is coordinated, so we can do what is right in Oyo state, and we have been doing what is right.
“Before we came in, leave bonuses were last paid in 2017 and we have paid for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. The Primary Health Care facilities, inner roads were all in bad shape. But we have been working collaboratively with the LGs to deliver dividends of democracy to our people.
“We were able to clear those salary arrears. We paid N18 billion in pension and gratuities over this period. We upgraded about 209 PHCs, equipped about 264, and completed 60 model schools. We constructed and renovated hundreds of primary school classrooms and fixed some of our roads.
“But there are still challenges that we have to address. We still have a backlog of gratuities and pensions. The local governments owe about N55 billion in pension and gratuities. We are developing infrastructure that would push the economy and raise the living standard of their people and push their economy towards sustainable goals.”
