Governors are Nigeria’s greatest problems — Lawmaker

A member of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Usoro Akpanusoh, has attributed most of the problems in the Nigerian polity in recent times to governors.

Reacting to the ongoing strike by the judiciary workers, Akpanusoh, who is House Committee chairman on Public Utilities and Rural Development, said some of the governors were power-drunk and would want to dictate the entire political and economic lives of their states while they are in power.

He said there was no reasonable explanation why governors should deny their states’ judiciaries and the Houses of Assembly financial autonomy even when such had been so expressed by the constitution.

“Somebody said President Muhammadu Buhari is the problem of this country; but I say it is the governors.

“We are not talking about memo but implementation of the constitution. I, as a member of the House of Assembly, will leave, another member will come. Remember when we were agitating for financial independence in the Sixth Assembly, some of our members kicked against it.

“But those members who rejected the autonomy are saying there must be implementation of the autonomy because they’re now in positions to manage it whereas then, they were not in positions to manage it,” Akpanusoh said.

He wondered why governors, acclaimed to be intelligent people, should approach the same judiciary up to the Supreme Court asking them to use their mouth to pronounce that they (judiciary) do not want autonomy.

“Sometimes, they do this because of positions. a former governor of the state, never wanted independence of the legislature. But immediately he finished his tenure and moved to the Senate, he became a champion of independence of the legislature. He didn’t want it because by then as governor, he wanted to control everybody.” (Daily Sun)