Pressure mounts on Ondo lawmakers to vote against LG autonomy

By Akintunde Jacobs, Akure

Members of the Ondo State House of Assembly, have expressed anger over pressure to vote against the Local Government Autonomy in the new constitution being reworked by the National Assembly.

Some members of the Assembly who spoke with journalists on Monday evening in Akure said the government has been putting pressure on the members to make sure that the local government autonomy does not see the light of the day.

A reliable source within the Assembly where the issue of constitutional amendment was discussed said majority of the lawmakers were on shouting match over whether or not the issue of local government autonomy should be jettisoned or not.

The majority of the lawmakers said they would reject the pressure of the government officials not to abolish Joint Account Committee so that the Local governments would be in control of their funds.

The source said the members were afraid that the signatures at today’s (Monday) meeting might be used as consent to rejecting the local government autonomy during the plenary session on Tuesday.

The members, however, said they wanted to make their decision known so that the people of the constituencies would know that they were not part of the decision to reject local government autonomy.