As the controversial issue of local government autonomy continues to undergo litigation between the federal government and the states, the Senate has said that it will not take a stand on the matter.
Yemi Adaramodu, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, clarified this while addressing reporters in Abuja.
Sen. Adaramodu, however, insisted that the National Assembly was unable to make a decision until the Supreme Court’s final ruling.
He said, “We might not be able to say much about it (LG autonomy) but then, we are talking about distributing funds to local governments.
“There are indices that inform the distribution of funds to local governments. Equality, land mass, social indices. So, when we talk about one of seven of the schools in Akure, that’s social indices. That is where they indicate how many hospitals.
“How many dispensaries? How many primary schools? How many junior secondary schools? Then population. So they distribute based on that. So, definitely there’s a local government that has only one primary school, and there’s another one that has 37 primary schools that are not going to get the same thing because of that formula. So just for education.
“But for local government autonomy, we’ll not discuss further until the Supreme Court rules accordingly.
“When the Supreme Court rules, then the National Assembly will know where to take it from, whatever the ruling is.”
Further checks revealed that the Supreme Court had since reserved its ruling.
