By Soni Daniel

Troubled by the near obliteration of the third tier of government by the state governments, President Muhammadu Buhari, last night, asked the councils across the country to support the amendmentof the law to free them from the clutches of the governors.

“This will limit the damage they can do to you. The quicker you do this the better, so that you can help your people much more,” Mr. Buhari said in a statement signed by his media aide, Garba Shehu.

Mr. Buhari handed down the counsel when he hosted the leadership of the Association of Local Governments in Nigeria in Abuja, ALGON.

He said some ambiguities in the constitution had made it difficult for local governments to operate independently and serve as a loophole for the state governments to manipulate them.

Buhari said: “The relationship between the three tiers of government is not a very nice one, especially that between the local governments and the states.

“The states feel like they own the local government, if they are of the same party. It is worse if they are not.”

“This is a very serious constitutional problem and unless there is absolute clarity and transparency, the relationship will continue to be exploited against the interest of the ordinary people of the country.”

Mr. Buhari, therefore, urged ALGON leadership to quickly draft an amendment to the Constitution and push same through the legislature.

The ALGON chiefs used the occasion to remind Mr. Buhari about a pending $3.2 billion which the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo allegedly illegally deducted from local government allocations as part of the 2005 national debt settlement.

The National Chairman of ALGON, Ibrahim Karaye, told the Buhari that the workers in the third tier of government would be grateful if he could help resolve the financial problem.

According to the statement, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, was present at the meeting.