Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, on Monday said the House of Representatives was not responsible for the delay in grating autonomy for local governments in Nigeria.
The Speaker spoke in Abuja while speaking with journalists at a leadership training sponsored by the Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, for council chairmen and councillors from Delta State.
While fielding questions on what the federal parliament was doing to prevent the third tier of government from going into extinction, the Speaker said, “It is not for us as legislators (of the National Assembly) to do that. I am sure you are surprised, but it is actually for the people to address, the reason being that we have a constitutional amendment, we will throw it to the people and they will make their decision.
“We did it the last time but we went back to the states and we couldn’t get two-thirds. There is a process; we followed due process. We amended it (the Constitution) the last time but two-thirds of the states did not agree with us.
“So, it is the people that will decide whether they want autonomy or not. We will do what we need to do as the Constitution provides.”