Lagos Governor Reaffirms Commitment to Local Government Autonomy

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has reiterated his administration’s commitment to upholding local government autonomy. Speaking in an interview monitored by RadioNow’s Newsdesk, the governor said that Lagos State operates in full compliance with the principle of local government independence.

Governor Sanwo-Olu emphasized that his government does not interfere with local government funds but instead fosters a collaborative relationship. He explained that local councils in Lagos have the freedom to manage their procurement processes and identify projects, with state government approvals only required for major undertakings such as construction.

“Local government autonomy, labels have been a full compliance in autonomy, not have I touched, you know, any of my local government funds since I became governor from day one. We have a means in which we let them breathe, they are working, they are doing great things in their individual local government, and it’s also time, they are an arm of government that is important. So we don’t touch their funds. We work, we collaborate, we work with them, I give them approval for constructions they want to do that are beyond their own approval, but we don’t, we don’t, we don’t interfere. They go through their own procurement process, they go through their, you know, their identifying the projects that, if there are projects that we want to jointly finance, they bring their own funds, we bring ours. The case in point was security, you know, when we supplied the last, you know, security vehicles, you know, that were handed over to security operators, the local government contributed, they contributed 100, 120 vehicles, you know, we did, you know, 170 vehicles. So that is the kind of collaboration that you see between the two of us.”

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Citing a recent example, he highlighted the joint effort between the state and local governments in providing security vehicles. Local councils contributed 120 vehicles, while the state government supplied an additional 170, demonstrating the synergy between the two tiers of government.

On the Supreme Court’s recent judgment concerning local government autonomy, the governor assured that Lagos’ Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) would remain unaffected. Describing the LCDAs as integral to Lagos State’s governance framework, he referred to them as “part of the state’s DNA.”

“These are babies that have been given birth 24 years ago. So these babies are alive, they’re well, they’re working, they’re breathing. And so they’ve been part of our DNA. In our case, we’ve never said that ours were illegal. They’ve been well set up. We’re not asking for additional funding from the federal, federating account. What we have, we’ll continue to utilize it. But we will be conducting a lecture in the 20 and 37 LCDs, by the grace of God, once the Lagos Independent Electoral Commission gets their foot together.”