…Urge NAS to grant full autonomy to LGA
By Appolos Christian
The newly elected president of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), has expressed the commitment of the union’s leadership to continue the pursuit of local government autonomy in the country and ensure the successful passage of the Local Government Scheme of Service.
Recently elected to pilot the affairs of LG workers union, Comrade Ambali Akeem Olatunji, called for unity and peace among NULGE members and promised an open and inclusive leadership that would ensure that members concerns are duly considered and attended to.
“We shall pursue vigorously from where our late leader stopped on the issue of Local Government Autonomy and also ensure the successful passage of the Local Government Scheme of Service.”
He went on to say; “NULGE has weathered many storms to arrive at this threshold, we are resolute and never relenting in actualizing the dreams of our founding fathers and keeping to the fundamental principles, therefore I call on you all to join us.
“Comrades, this leadership shall offer an open door system that is all inclusive. We shall pursue genuine and meaningful reconciliation to see that sustainable peace returns to the Union. This is germane to bringing all litigations to a halt.” Olatunji, stated.
On taking NULGE to a greater height, he said “We shall have an evident based reform on NULGE Career Service, which will make our career officers to stand at par with their contemporaries.
“In line with modern practices of trade unionism, unions no longer depends on check off dues system alone, hence this government shall take a bold step in Investments diversification which shall broaden the economic and financial base of our Union.
“Much as we applaud and continue to applaud the National leadership of our Union for everything it has achieved in the past years, we never must stop striving for a better, fairer and inclusive union; we have no choice but to insist that this union stands tall among committees of Trade Unions. This is the time for unprecedented collaboration among trade unions, governments, corporate and international organizations, members and staff alike.”
Earlier, the outgoing president of the union, Comrade Ahmed Labbo, urged the National Assembly to grant full autonomy to the local government administration to enable it foster the needed development in the country.
“Presently, the 9th National Assembly has commenced another process of constitutional amendments, and I would like to make special appeal to all our parliamentarians as well as other stakeholders to see local governments as catalyst for societal development and give its full autonomy in line with the aspiration of our founding fathers.
“In the same vein, we also condemn a bill sponsored by Honourable Soloman Bob to de-register local government as third tier of government and appeal to all progressive members of the National Assembly to kill the bill at the appropriate stage in the overall development of the country.
“I will also not hesitate to condemn another anti workers bill currently before the House of Representatives sponsored by Honourable Datti Mohammad which seeks to remove minimum wage from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list. The National Assembly should not be a rubber stamp to the political elites whose main interest is to continue to inflict hardship on workers so as to maintain their rent seeking activities.”
