A non-governmental organisation, Woman and Family Advancement Initiative, has called on the Federal Government to punish any state government attempting to circumvent the implementation of financial autonomy in its local government system.

The Director of WAFAI, Anambra State chapter, PaulChuks Umenduka, made the call during an interview on Thursday in Abuja.

Mr Umenduka condemned the move by the Anambra State House of Assembly to amend the state local government law after the recent Supreme Court judgment, describing it as ‘a terrible situation to the nation’s democracy.’’

He said, “Amendment of the law making provision for certain percentage of the allocations due the LGAs to be paid into a joint account clearly negates the recent Supreme Court judgment. Eventually, other states will copy Anambra State if the federal government allows this move that will make nonsense of the local government financial autonomy which Nigerians are already praising President Bola Tinubu’s administration for.’’

Mr Umenduka said that the federal government should see the amendment of local government law by Anambra State as a test case, saying if the state should get away with the move, others would definitely follow.

According to him, if democracy must be firmly rooted in the country, it must first be made strong at the grassroots level.

He reiterated his earlier call for the Independent National Electoral Commission to be conducting council elections, adding that the recently-conducted LG elections in most states showed that more was needed to be done to liberate the third tier of government.

“If INEC is conducting the LG elections and the council is allowed full financial autonomy, things will certainly improve at the grassroots. Anything other than this will make the country continue to record weak activities at the grassroots,’’ he said.

Mr Umenduka called on the national assembly to come up with the necessary legislation to guide against the circumvention of full financial autonomy to the local governments.

“National Assembly should come up with legislation to urgently checkmate the move for states to continue tampering with the local government allocations. Experience has shown that the governors who operate the state/local government joint account do so because of their selfish interest, other than that of the masses. The federal government should ensure total liberation of this very important tier if it really wants the people at the grassroots to feel the impact of democracy,’’ the WAFAI director said.

(NAN)