National Assembly Okays Autonomy For Local Governments.

The National Assembly on Tuesday, granted full financial and
administrative autonomy to all the 774 local council
authorities across Nigeria by ammending section 124 of the
nation’s constitution.
The section provides a consequential provision for the
making of the local councils, a full third tier government
without undue interference from the state governments.
The ammendment was one of the 22 others approved by the
House of Representatives last week and ratified by the Senate
on Tuesday.
Both chambers had through a conference committee
harmonised versions of the ammendments into the
constitution carried out by each of them last month.
By the development, the National Assembly had ratified all the
23 clauses and sections that had been ammended by both
chambers.
The newly ammended document which would be sent to
States Houses of Assembly, for approval, also approved the
creation of the Office of Auditor – General of the Local
Government as well as the State Local Government Service
Commission.
The section equally deleted the State Independent Electoral
Commission from the constitution thereby vesting the powers
to conduct council elections on the Independent National
Electoral Commission.
It however, retained the immunity clause in the constitution
for the President and Governors by adopting the Senate
version of the ammendments on the issue and rejected the
House of Representatives version which removed the
immunity clause.
The National Assembly also made provisions for Independent
candidacy in future elections in Nigeria by ammending
sections 65 and 106 of the 1999 constitution.