Senate Vote In Favour Of LGA Financial, Administrative Autonomy

The bill seeking to amend the Constitution to separate local government and state bank accounts has been passed by the Nigerian Senate during the plenary session on Tuesday.

A total of 92 out of 94 registered Senators voted in support of Bill No 1 (22) which is on Local Government financial autonomy while 88 senators voted in favour of Bill No 2 which is on Local Government Administrative Autonomy.

Presenting the report on the amendment, deputy president of the senate and chairman of the review committee, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege noted that the bill seeks to create and maintain a special account for the Local Governments which will be called Local Government Allocation Account, into which all the allocations will be paid.

For administrative autonomy, the bill seeks to allow local governments to conduct their own elections.

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan had earlier announced that only bills that are passed in both chambers of the national assembly will be sent to the state houses of assembly.

“For today’s exercise, we will use electronic voting. We have tested the system and it is working. Omo-Agege will present the report. We will listen to his presentation and we can take comments and we will thereafter go into the voting process.

“I will announce the bill then we will take it as it is presented in the report and senators will each register with our cards. It will take us 30 seconds to vote. You will press the button for registration. Then there is registration, ‘Yes, no and abstain’. Voting will take another 30 seconds.

“If you don’t vote within 30 seconds, you have lost your vote. If a bill passes in the senate and the house, such bill would have passed in the national assembly and will be sent to states. If a bill passes in the senate but fails to pass in the house, that bill is dead – and vice versa”, he had said.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had, in a public advocacy march in Abuja on Monday, demanded for the autonomy of the local governments, legislature and judiciary. They had demanded that lawmakers vote in favour of autonomy for local governments and the judiciary.