Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has blamed the rot in Nigeria’s local government system on military rule and politicians.
Obasanjo stated that the rot started with the top brass of the military, who wanted to have local government councils in their respective areas, saying that the political elite took the rot further with monumemntal corruption.
The former president in a statement by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, was quoted him to have said this on Tuesday while receiving the new President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Comrade Akeem Olatunji Ambali, at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Penthouse residence in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Obasanjo noted that the survival of the current state of local government administration in the country “is in the hands of God.”
He lamented that the situation in the 774 local government councils had become worse as they could not even afford graders to make their roads motorable among other functions highlighted by the 1976 Local Government Reform.
He accused state governors of degrading the reform.
The former president, however, urged local government workers in the country to be prayerful for things to get better.
Earlier, the new NULGE national president appealed to Obasanjo to intervene and make his contribution to the planned delisting of local government from the 1999 constitution by the National Assembly.
Ambali said the bill was part of the plans to kill local government administration in Nigeria.