Ebonyi State governor, Francis Nwifuru has sworn in the elected 13 Local Government Area council chairmen.
The swearing in ceremony took place at the Christian Ecumenical Centre in Abakaliki on Sunday.
Nwifuru, who said that the local government autonomy would be both financial and administrative, charged the newly elected chairmen to rise to their responsibilities.
The governor tasked them to ensure they take good care of stakeholders and appointees of the government, including the ward councillors and traditional rulers so as to continue supporting the peace and unity of the state.
“You are now autonomous both financially and administratively, and I want to assure you that myself and my wife, including all the stakeholders in the state are with you.
“Any statement you make now, we read meaning on it, including the state governor, so, if this your autonomy will make you not to stay two year, there be it, because I will fight dirty and wouldn’t talk and that’s the highest form of fighting where somebody will be fighting and wouldn’t be talking.
“Again, I want you to take care of those things that make our state beautiful and what are those things, they’re our stakeholders; take care of them and don’t be carried away with what you are seeing on Facebook, because if you act based on Facebook post and fight any of them, that’s when you are fighting the governor.
“Your job is to service the stakeholders and the stakeholders are the youth, the elders and the women; empower them and make them comfortable,” Nwifuru stressed.
He equally enjoined them to take the issue of infrastructural development seriously as the state is still on infrastructural struggle and called on them to be prudent and assertive in management of their resources.
The governor warned against imposition of traditional rulers on communities, adding that time has passed when custodians of the tradition of the people were married to one wife or catechist in the church.
He cautioned communities to stop involving those who have no deep knowledge in such a position as its consequences were detrimental to the growth of the state.
In their remarks, the member representing Ikwo/Ezza South federal constituency, Comrade Chinedu Ogah, the representative of national president of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON and Kaduna State chairman, Mr Abubakar Buba and his Ebonyi state counterpart, Mr Ogodo Ali-Nomeh described the approval of the local government autonomy as a good omen and thanked governor Nwifuru for implementing the law.
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