Poverty, Insecurity Is Caused By Poor LG system

Ineffective running of local government system is the main cause of increased poverty and insecurity in the country, says NUGLE president.

The National Union of Local Government Employees has again stated that  autonomy of the local government system in Nigeria is the only way to fix these challenges.

Lamenting the spate of poverty and insecurity in many parts of the country currently, the NULGE said all these were happening because the local government system has been crippled and rendered useless.

The National President of the union, Mr Olatunji Ambali, stated this while speaking with our correspondent in Akure, the Ondo State capital on Saturday.

He said, “As at today, you can no longer move from one state to another without initially asking if you will get home safely. Insecurity in the South, East and North. This is not the Nigeria of our dream. We are bedeviled with abject poverty, joblessness, hopelessness, threat to the nationhood.

“Everybody now result to ethnic agitation. We have come this far because Nigeria is no longer working. The nation has failed the masses. At 61, Nigeria has abandon her constitutional role in guarantee security and peace in the country.

Ambali declared that the practice of funding of the local governments through state governments must stop, saying the function of the local governments had been taken over by the state governments which had been slowing down the development of the grassroots.

“We need a politically-free and financially dependent local government administration. The local government has been raped over the time; it has witnessed systematic destruction as a result of misrule and stealing of local government funds, thereby militating against progressive development at the grassroots level.

“No wonder, as of today, we are bedeviled by insecurity and poverty. We are deprived and also encumbered by unemployment, homelessness just because we have a failing system in the local government,” the NULGE President stated.

The national Union of Local Government Employees (N.U.L.G.E) is a labour union under the umbrella of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

Its members comprise all the staff of the local government i.e. local government employees. This union has its branches and offices in all the states of the federation capital territories.

National union of local government employees has national, state and local government executives who see to the interest of its members and also oversee the activities of the members.

In all the local government areas in this country, national union of local government employees has branches established with its executives piloting their affairs at the local levels.