Protest as Ondo Assembly votes against LG autonomy

Members of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Ondo State Chapter, on Tuesday walked out of the Ondo State House of Assembly gallery when it became apparent that the house failed to pass the autonomy for Local Government clause in the 4th Alteration Bill to amend the 1999 Constitution.
They immediately began a protest march at the premises of the assembly complex chanting solidarity songs and demanding a change of government in Ondo State.
They also threatened to vote against the People’s Democratic Party in the next election coming up in February 2015.
The lawmakers, before coming out for plenary, spent about an hour behind closed doors, to agree on the items acceptable to them.
At the sitting, the Chairman of the ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution, Hon. Afolabi Akinsiku, laid his report, but there were no comments or debate from members.
The report was neither made available to individual members at plenary nor members of the media.
Speaker of the house, Hon. Jumoke Akindele, said, “As a coronary to the motion that I should use my good offices to adopt the resolution of the members at the parliamentary session, we hereby adopt the decisions reached at the parliamentary meeting.”
The House simply moved on to another business of the day, while members of NULGE walked out noisily disrupting the session for about five minutes.
After plenary, the Speaker turned down efforts by journalists to get clarifications on the content of the clauses passed by the house.
There was also no statement from any member of the House on the issue, as it was gathered that only one copy of the document was produced and that was what the Speaker had.
Reacting to the development, the President of the Ondo Chapter of NULGE, Dr. Eni Ayewu, said there was no reason for the rejection of the autonomy clause by the house.
He said, “Out of the 17 papers presented at the public hearing, only three were against autonomy for local governments, the others supported. So what is the basis for reaching that decision.
“This is not fair. They did not take the opinion of the people of the state into account. We shall meet in February.”
The protest was taken to a women empowerment programme venue organised by the state Ministry of Women Affairs and the Wife of the Governor, Oluremi Mimiko, but were prevented by the police from gaining access.