Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki has warned politicians in the country to henceforth stop their subtle campaigns for the 2019 elections.
The Senate President noted that it was insensitive of elected political office holders to abandon serious issues of serving their constituents and preoccupy themselves with the 2019 elections.
Saraki noted that 2019 was still a long period for serious-minded politicians to concentrate their energy on to the detriment of good governance.
He admitted that elected public office holders had not met some of the expectations of Nigerians, adding that they should rather be committed to rendering services and fulfilling their electoral promises.
The Senate President stated this on Sunday during an interactive session with newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara State.
Saraki stated, “The year 2019 is a long way. Any serious-minded politician, who is interested in his people, should not be talking about 2019, especially if we want to be honest with ourselves; some of the expectations of our people have not been met. I think it will be insensitive if we have left that and we are now talking about 2019. We need to work hard to make sure that we meet those expectations.
“The economy is already moving in the right direction, which is why we are addressing the issue of security, which is good. We are fighting corruption; we need to do more in that area. By the time we work tremendously over the next one year, I think we will be in a place where we can beat our chest and say we have done well.”
Saraki added that though financial autonomy for local government areas might be approved during the ongoing constitutional review, it would be more desirable for the LGAs to be adequately funded to address their statutory responsibilities.
According to him, the current allocations to the local governments in the country are not adequate to meet their needs.
He said it might be desirable to reduce the burdens of the councils such as education, which he said would be better handled by the state government.
Saraki stated that without the support of state governments, about 95 per cent of local governments in the country would not be able to pay salaries, talk less of providing infrastructure.
He said, “The finances are not just there. All the 36 states cannot be doing something wrong. I do not think there is a place where the revenues of the LGs can meet their expenditure, despite that they still have responsibilities like primary education.
“We need to review that. Maybe we will go back and look at whether state governments should truly take over primary education, because the arm of government that cannot even meet administrative expenses, you now put on it a very important sector as education.
“There must be something structurally wrong with it and we need to put our heads together and take decisions on the way forward. Maybe we need to review what kind of responsibilities they have.”