Constitution amendment: Why we endorsed LG autonomy –Ihedioha

Deputy Speaker of the House of Rep­resentatives, Eme­ka Ihedioha has said the National Assembly decided in favour of full ad­ministrative and financial autonomy for local govern­ment areas in the consti­tution amendment bill to shield them from abuse by state governments and to enhance devolution of pow­ers in the federation.

Addressing a delegation of parliamentarians from the Na­tional Assembly of Kenya on a courtesy visit to the House of Representatives, the deputy speaker said developments in the polity had shown that local governments were subject to abuse and usurpation of their roles and entitlements by state governments. The practice, he said needed to be corrected.
Ihedioha cited the example of Imo State where the state governor dissolved elected lo­cal councils and replaced them with caretaker structures, noting that with the proposed amend­ment, such incident would no longer be allowed. “The House carried out extensive altera­tions of the constitution with respect to local governments,” he told the guests, adding that “the House made it a full third tier of government complete with the structure, finance and its operations imbedded in the constitution itself.”
He regretted a situation where more powers were con­centrated in the centre at the detriment of the states, not­ing that “a favourable balance therefore needs to be struck in such a way that the centre will not be too weak to the point of the unity of the country being threatened or remaining too strong to the point of emascu­lating the component units.”
On the issue of oversight functions, the deputy speaker said the National Assembly had been discharging that con­stitutional responsibility credit­ably and would continue to do so in the general interest of the country.
Speaking earlier, leader of the Kenyan delegation, Njoroge Baiya, said they were on the visit to learn from Nige­ria’s experience in the area of constitution amendment and how the National Assembly performed its oversight func­tions with respect to federal bodies, agencies and depart­ments.