The Nigeria Governors Forum has demanded the dissolution of the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Autonomy of State Legislature and Judiciary.
They also agreed to continue to support measures put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19.
These were part of decisions taken after the 17th Teleconference meeting of the NGF held on Wednesday.
This was contained in a communique signed by the Chairman of the NGF, Kayode Fayemi, which was made available to reporters.
It read in part, “The NGF resolved to call for the immediate dissolution of the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Autonomy of State Legislature and Judiciary as this Committee is now acting as a permanent committee basically misguiding and overheating the relationship between state governments and the other arms of government.
“The NGF agreed on the need to continue to maintain COVID public health guidelines and vaccination protocols to ensure that the transmission of the virus is kept at the lowest level possible.
“The NGF agreed on the need for states to meet their SFTAS obligations and resolved to put the necessary legal frameworks and institutions in place.“
Earlier, the governors received briefings from several of its committees reviewing issues and areas of interest to states.
The communique further read, “The NGF Chairman briefed the Forum on an ongoing consolidation exercise between the Forum
and the Budget Office of the Federation to consolidate public finance data of the federal, states and local governments into a national budget portal.
Governors meet Thursday to deliberate on petrol subsidy, COVID-19 vaccines
“He urged his colleagues to share details of their local government budgets and financial statements in addition to State government data already published.“
On the vexed issue of Executive Order 10, the communique read, “ Talks have reached an advanced stage with the Ministry of Labour, Conference of Speakers, National Judicial Council and the NGF. All parties are working earnestly to resolve the issues surrounding the implementation of the order.
“There are however legal aspects of the order that need to be tied up, but which cannot take place if officials responsible for
these final processes are on strike.
Governors are happy to implement the demands of the Judiciary and the Legislature.
“The NGF-NESG Economic Roundtable (NNER) Steering Committee was inaugurated on Wednesday 21st April 2021.
“The roundtable is a sub-national platform expression of the NGF and NESG, based on a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between both institutions at the 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) in October 2017.
“The goal of the partnership is to promote strategic cooperation between State governments and the private sector to drive investments, economic growth, productivity, and shared economic reform agenda across the 36 States of the federation. Membership of the Steering Committee include governors of the six geopolitical zones and 6 captains of industry.“
The forum equally received briefings from the Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa-led Committee interfacing with the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 on the activities of the PSC.
Similar briefings were received from the Minister of Agriculture Mohammed Nanono, the World Bank team led by the Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, in the company of Prof. Foluso Okunmadewa, Sector Leader of the Human Development Team, and Yue Man Lee, Task Team Leader for the States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability, Program-for-Results on the Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus – Program for Results.
The governors also called for industrial harmony in Kaduna State after expressing support for the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai for his handling of the situation. They urged labour unions to return to the negotiation table.
