DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND COUNCIL CHAIRMEN: BEDROCK OF BETTER DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA- ALGON NATIONAL PRESIDENT.

Oru Leonard

The National President of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Hon. Alabi, Kolade David has said that no meaningful dividends of Democracy can have a trickle down effect to the Grassroots unless the system is guaranteed as entrenched in Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution as (Amended). According to him, it needs to be allowed to flourish unhinderedly to have it’s gains.

Alabi who did not hide his joy spoke from Lagos this morning through his Abuja Media Office.

The National President praised the Nigerian Governor’s Forum and hand full of Governor’s who are rising up more than before to respect the provisions of Constitution by conducting LGAs/Councils Elections in due times.

Retrospectively, he went down the memory lane taking stock on numbers of State’s that have shown compliance this year alone by conducting elections.

In his words, “the kind of relationship we are having alongside the support and understanding between the Federal and the States has led to some obvious achievements in Councils presently. I am particularly happy that our Governor’s are becoming more ‘local government friendly’ and the results are visible in most of the Councils with people-oriented infrastructures and other meaningful developments,

I thank them sincerely even with the economic trajectory as well as insecurity and Covid-19 put together. Only this year, we have had elections in Delta, Kaduna, Oyo, Lagos, Bauchi, Jigawa, Borno, Kano, Taraba, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Plateau, and more are coming before the year winds up.

It has never been like this before, so I must commend our Governor’s. Under my leadership as the National President of ALGON, we are keeping our Chairmen to task on services delivery in line with their Campaign promises and oath of office though within the available funds allocated to them with emphasis on priority subheads.

The National President further stated that development is key to Man and in his words ” we are introducing many startegies to up-scale our growing relationship with our Governor’s, by linking up with them, supporting their efforts across the states, drawing strength from their corporation and critically evaluating our own services especially through our Zonal NEC meetings introduced under my watch to bring us closer to the people, unite ALGON and see each other as they are and learn as well. It is becoming a great innovation and I am particularly happy that many State Governor’s are supporting the idea, we have had in Asaba-Delta in South-South, Kano in North West, Enugu in South East and their Governor’s have really commended the meeting”. My appeal to state Governor’s on behalf of my Collegues, NEC BOT Management is that those other states where elections are yet to come should please give it a trial and certainly, the gains out weights any loss or fear imagined.

ALGON is presently re-tooled and we are going to continue to advance the course of our huge functions as enshrined in the 4th Sçhedule to the 1999 Constitution, no matter the economic situation and other distractions, a visit to our National Office says much about us presently and we shall continue to do our best in line with international best practices (UK, County Councils, Mayor’s, UCLGA, UCLG Africa and so on”.

He ended by welcoming the newly elected Chairmen of Plateau and Nasarawa to ALGON fold.