According to the report from the Vanguard, Former Director-General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council, Dr Doyin Okupe, criticized the federal government's court case against states over local government autonomy. In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, Okupe expressed his view that the legal battle is unnecessary and unfortunate. He emphasized that in a true federal system, there are only two components: the federal government and the states.
Okupe argued that local governments are solely the responsibility of the states and should not be considered a third tier in the constitution. He proposed that the nation's funds should be shared between the federal government and the states. He also suggested that the state governments should have the freedom to determine the number of local governments needed for grassroots development and fund them accordingly.
It is important to note that the Federal Government has initiated a legal action against the governors of the 36 states at the Supreme Court, alleging their interference in the administration of local councils. The government is seeking full autonomy for all local government areas in the country and requesting that funds be directly channeled to them from the federation account. The government is also seeking to prevent governors from constituting caretaker committees and tampering with funds meant for local governments without a democratically elected system in place.
He said: “We should run a true federal system in which two bodies are coming together for a union: the Federal Government and sub-nationalities. The local governments are principally and completely issues of the state, it has nothing to do with the federal government and it (the idea of LG as a third tier)should be expunged from the constitution. Let the nation’s money be shared between the Federal government and the states. The Federal government asking for local government autonomy in a federal system is an aberration.”