A former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ladi Adebutu, has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) believes in a united Nigeria living in peace.
Adebutu stated, however, that the party is insisting on equity and justice for all Nigerians.
The former lawmaker disclosed this Thursday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during the Ladi Adebutu Good Governance Symposium held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library.
Adebutu blamed the agitations for secession on how the local government had been rendered incompetent in Nigeria.
According to him, governors have killed the local governments by hijacking funds that belong to them from the federal allocation.
He advocated that local government elections should no longer be run by state electoral bodies.
His words: “When we fail at the grassroots, everything has failed. Deliberately, governors have killed the local governments for the purpose of revenue hijack. Money coming from the federal allocations are hijacked by the state government. To make sure money does not get to the local governments, governors will go to any extent.
“In Ogun State, the APC government wants to steal the money belonging to the local governments, that is why they want to shut PDP out of the coming elections. We are terribly struggling now to make sure our party participates in the election.
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“The problem we have in Nigeria now is self-inflicted because we prevent the local governments from functioning, stealing their and rendering them incompetent, and this leads to agitations from the grassroots.
“The only way out is to take elections from state bodies and allow credible elections to take place throughout the nation, so that people can genuinely choose their leaders. If that is denied, people will do otherwise.
“I pray for a successful and united nation. I truly believe that one of the ways forward is to create a successful tier of government and that is the local government.
“We are not perfect. We are of the PDP extraction, but we believe in a united country. We believe in peace, we believe in co-existence. Am I speaking for all of us? We believe in one Nigeria. We are not secessionists. For those who are here to record our goings on, let it be said clearly. But, we want and we insist on equity and justice.”
InfoStride News reports that the second edition of the symposium was tagged: ‘Local Government Autonomy, A Panacea For National Development’.
It had in attendance, guest speakers like Chief Mike Ozekhome, Dr Olukemi Aluko, Comrade Adedeji Akinwalere, who all spoke on the importance of havinga functioning local government administrations across the nation.
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