Some Senior Advocates of Nigeria have carpeted the move by state governments to resist the financial autonomy of local governments using the state Houses of Assemblies.
They described the move as daylight robbery and a misnomer that should not exist in a democracy.
Recall that the Trade Union Congress had flayed governors over the failure of state Houses of Assembly to pass the local government autonomy bill in the ongoing constitution amendment exercise.
Sequel to the refusal of the states to pass the bill, the Senate had on Tuesday directed the Clerk to the National Assembly to transmit the 35 bills that met the requirement of the provision of section 9(2) of the Constitution to the President for assent.
The constitution amendment bills were forwarded to the states Houses of assembly for concurrence in March 2022.
Reacting to this development, a senior lawyer, Mr Afam Osigwe, SAN, in an interview on Friday noted that local governments must have a separate account different from the account jointly owned with the state governments.
Osigwe said, “The idea that money meant for the local governments goes into a joint account which the states are signatories to is corruption. The governors have over the years unduly exploited these local government funds, using them as lush funds.
They do so under the guise that both the local and state governments are contributing to a project, using that to emasculate democracy at the LG level.
