APC Criticizes Osun Lawmakers on Management of LG Funds

Regarding local government allocations, the state House of Assembly has been accused by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Osun State chapter of going beyond its constitutional authority.

The APC claimed that the Assembly was going beyond its legal bounds by trying to tamper with federal funds intended for local governments in a statement released on Tuesday by Kola Olabisi, the party’s director of media and information.

The House of Assembly recently addressed letters and resolutions to a commercial bank over the payment of local government funding, raising questions about their legality, according to the statement.

“Given the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s Constitution explicitly states that states have the authority to enact laws, not resolutions or letters pertaining to local government finances, when has it become the constitutional role of a House of Assembly to write its own resolutions and letters?” The statement said.

According to the APC, the letters were “a needless exercise in resolution and letter writing which does not, in any way, have the potency of any known law.”

The statement claims that the Assembly is not authorized by the constitution to enact legislation governing local government financial management, but rather to look into organizations that administer laws.

How come the ostentatiously accommodating Osun State House of Assembly has forgotten that there is no legislation in place? Nothing needs to be looked into or enforced,” it continued.

Additionally, the party said that municipal governments do not qualify as organizations in the sense that Black’s Law Dictionary defines them.

“Local governments are not divisions or corporations. They are governments. The Local Government Service Commission is the sole entity that fits this description of a “organization,” the statement stated.

The Osun APC also maintained that any state assembly taking supervisory control over local government funds was unconstitutional.

“The objective of the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s autonomy ruling, which ensures the financial independence of local governments, is to establish this third level of government as a government in all its meanings,” the statement read.

Declaring the resolutions and letters to the bank to be unlawful and humiliating to the people of Osun State, the party requested the House of Assembly to revoke them.

The statement concluded, “It is our considered golden advice for the House of Assembly to, without further delay, withdraw the disgusting and odious letters and resolutions in order to save itself from the avoidable collective corporate shame needlessly attracted to the law-abiding and well-informed people of Osun State.”

However, Adewumi Adeyemi, who represents Obokun State Constituency in the Osun State House of Assembly, insisted on Tuesday that the 1999 Constitution (as amended) granted state assemblies the authority to enact laws and supervise the state’s local governments in an interview with Rave 91.7FM, Osogbo.

The Assembly was looking into the accounting of the local government, Adeyemi clarified.

The House of Assembly is trying to put an end to it all,” he stated. The Assembly does not rely on rumors, which are all over the place.

The Assembly resolved to audit the local government account yesterday for this reason. To put it simply, we are looking into the account. It goes beyond just this year. The constitution states that it is one of our responsibilities.

To put an end to all of the circulating rumors is what guided the choice. The duty of ensuring that public monies are not wasted falls on the House of Assembly.

He emphasized that although local governments were autonomous, the House of Assembly nevertheless had constitutionally mandated responsibilities.