By ENYIM ENYIM

ONITSHA—The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, has threatened to resume its suspended strike should the National Assembly fail to approve local government autonomy at a conference of the two legislative chambers yet to be fixed.

President of the union in Anambra State, Mr. Jerry Nnubia, said in an interview, yesterday, that the three-day warning strike was suspended because of the intervention of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who assured the union that their demand would be met.

The Senate had at its plenary, voted against the controversial issue of local government autonomy, while the House of Representatives voted in favour.

Following the development, the National Assembly is expected to meet at a conference yet to be fixed to resolve the matter once and for all.

Nnubia, who said the union had implicit confidence in the House of Representatives, said the next step was to carry the struggle to the door step of the state Houses of Assembly.

He appealed to state Houses of Assembly to ensure that it did the right thing any time the matter came to its chambers for ratification.

” The local government system is guaranteed in the constitution of this country and as a third tier level of government it should have autonomy because it is the arm of government that is very close to the people at the grass root,” he said.

He said with the autonomy of local government the people at the rural areas would enjoy full blast democracy which the state government because of its commitment would not be able to do.