Many Governors’ll Have Been Impeached If State Assemblies Are Autonomous – Prof. Darma

A Professor of Development Economics and Public Finance, Nazifi Abdullahi Darma, has said that many Nigerian governors will have since been removed from office if the legislature, especially at the state level, had financial autonomy.

He said most state houses of assembly have turned themselves into ‘puppets’, who only do the biddings of the executive in their respective states.

As such, they are easily pocketed by the governors, who he also described the governors as “emperors”.

Darma, a don at the University of Abuja (UNIAbuja), spoke at a workshop on ‘Understanding National and State Budgets’, organized by the DailyTrust Foundation with the support of MacArthur Foundation.

He noted that the absence of financial autonomy for state assemblies is the reason why they find it difficult to check the excesses of the governors.

Darma, the Chairman, DailyTrust Board of Economics, expressed dismay in the way the media profiles certain ethnic groups in the country.

“Journalists will likely set Nigeria ablaze, with the way they promote division among the citizens. Journalistic profiling was responsible for the Rwandan genocide and civil war in Sierra Leone,” he said.

Earlier, in his opening remark, Mallam Bilya Bala, Chairman, DailyTrust Foundation, expressed belief that the workshop will not only ‘avail participants with the rudiments of budget preparation both at the federal and state level, but also how to effectively track their implementation.

According to him, the problems associated with poor implementation of national and state budgets will become history, if journalists engage in conducting special and investigative reports of the expenditure on approved capital projects.