State legislatures didn’t endorse autonomy for LGs, says Lagos Speaker

• Says proposals in new constitution does not favour the people
Contrary to the reports that 36 states Houses of Assembly had unanimously endorsed local government autonomy, the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa yesterday debunked the information.

The Speaker who spoke at plenary session disclosed that the Conference of Speakers of state legislatures held in Yola did not arrive at the resolutions that all states supported the Local Government autonomy.

He said: “We did not discuss anything relating to resolving to local government autonomy. We were only given the asked to go back home and get the feeling of our people, there is nothing like that in our discussion.”

In another development, the Speaker expressed reservation on the ongoing 1999 constitution amendment by the National Assembly.

Obasa noted that failure to include devolution of power to States would render the exercise worthless adding that the proposals in the new constitution are not in the best interest of the people.

“The States have nothing to rejoice without devolution of powers. It is not something we should be cheerful about especially now that people are clamoring for restructuring.

“The National Assembly should do something meaningful; something that will be acceptable to Nigerians. The amendments proposed so far are not something we should be talking about now. We will register our grievances.”