True LG autonomy remains panacea to security challenges – ALGON

The Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, has once again advocated true autonomy for Local Governments, saying it will help in managing and solving security challenges bedeviling the country.

Former ALGON President and member of Board of Trustees, BoT, Ibrahim Dasuki, stated this at a news conference, organised shortly after an emergency meeting of the Executive Council, BoT and past Presidents of ALGON in Abuja.

Dasuki said the local governments and traditional institutions have a key role to play in security matters as the security challenges were mostly happened at local government levels.

“If you look at the security challenges we are facing in Nigeria, virtually in every zone are local in nature, it does not happen in the city, be it insurgency, banditry and others are mostly happened at local government levels.

“Why is it so? It is because of the failure of the local government system. If you could look back to the history, our local governments played key roles in ensuring peace and security especially the responsibilities given to traditional institutions.

“Over times, there were reforms, especially in 1976. In the north, we had a native authority, and Emir was a leader then. Whoever comes to town and city, he must be registered, he must be known,” he said.

Dasuki recalled that due to the reforms, the government split the native authority with the emirate system.

According to him, this created a vacuum in terms of checkmating who goes in and out, resulting to missing link in the operation of local governments.

He added that unless and until Nigeria goes back and looks at the older system, the security challenges plaguing the country would be found difficult to address.

Dasuki also lauded the Supreme Court judgment on LGs financial autonomy currently implemented by the administration of President Bola Tinubu.