By Our Reporter
A Chieftain of and former presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamu Garba, has criticised the role of local governments in Nigeria, describing them as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) for state governors.
Garba, who took to his X handle to make the remarks, argued that local governments have become ineffective and serve only as channels for sharing money rather than functioning as genuine governance structures.
He said: “One of the most inefficient, ineffective back pocket of some state governors is the local government councils.
“Local governments takes their legislation from the state assemblies and you know what that means. Autonomy or not, the LGs are still ATMs of some state governors.
“In reality, there is no any country on earth that has third tier of government except Nigeria.
“Since it proved to be non-workable, why not scrap it?”
Garba further branded the councils as “paper-only, money-sharing third tier of government,” stressing that implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling on LG autonomy would remain practically impossible.
He went on to propose an alternative, advocating for traditional rulers to take charge of grassroots governance.
“Instead of struggling to get constitutional authority to our traditional rulers, they should be handed over the local government councils and let them run it according to the local culture and tradition of the people within their domain,” he added.
