• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

NLC disagrees with governors, backs FG’s financial autonomy for state legislature, judiciary

Ayuba Wabba

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has disagreed with governors of the 36 states, who are pushing to challenge the financial autonomy granted state legislature and judiciary by Executive Order 10 recently signed into effect by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The NLC is asking the governors to backtrack their step and accept the process in the interest of democracy and good governance.

“In the interest of good governance, strengthening of the principle of separation of powers national stability, and overall development of Nigeria, we urge political leaders at every level to respect the wishes of the Nigerian people and allow the full exercise of financial autonomy for the judiciary and legislature in the states.

Democracy must remain the government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” said Ayuba Wabba, president of the NLC in a statement seen by BusinessDay on Monday.

According to the the labour organisation, strong legislative and judiciary institutions of government are pillars of democracy and good governance. A resilient judiciary and a conscientious legislature, the NLC argued, are sine qua non to the deepening of the democratic process, promotion of public accountability and ensuring popular participation.

Wabba decried what he described as long “history of arm-twisting and abuse of the judiciary and legislative arms of government at the sub-national level in Nigeria,” which has gotten worse in recent years.

According to the labour leader, the distortion of due process, checks and balances, and public accountability which are the core ingredients in the principle of separation of powers, got to a head when legislators in some state houses of assembly, sadly, rejected constitutional proposals to grant them financial autonomy during the constitutional review process led by the 7th National Assembly.

He said that until the Executive Order 10, there were little signs to show seriousness on the part of state governors to comply with the clear demands of Section 121 (3) of our constitution, which is a direct violation of the oath sworn by the governors to uphold the Nigerian constitution at all times.

He argued that if our political leaders were alive to the spirit of the constitution they swore to uphold, there would not have been any need for the Presidential Implementation Committee set up on March 22, 2019, adding: This was almost one year after Section 121(3) had been assented into law and at least the exercise of one budget cycle.

Wabba further decried the increasing concentration of powers in the hands of the executive arm of government, which he noted, portends danger for democracy and good governance in Nigeria, and called on the governors to accept the Federal Government’s position on the issue.

President Buhari on May 22, 2020 issued the Executive Order 10 which is primed at promoting Section 121 (3) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution by granting financial autonomy to the legislature and judiciary at the state level.

The Executive Order 10 makes it mandatory for state governments to include the allocation of the judiciary and legislative arms of government as first line charges in their annual budgets.

The NLC said it was pertinent that political leaders at all levels uphold, promote and sustain the virility of our public institutions especially the legislative and judiciary arms of government.