Former President Goodluck Jonathan has canvassed for local governments to be made autonomous.
He said there was also the urgent need for them to be vested with powers to generate revenues.
Jonathan lashed out at the appointment of local government chairmen, urging the National Assembly to mobilise members to amend sections of the 1999 Constitution to prohibit the appointment of local government chairmen.
He believes people at the grassroots level should decide who leads them through an election.
The former President spoke when the national and state executives of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) visited him in Otuoke, his Bayelsa State country home.
The NULGE officials sought his support towards stopping a bill seeking to delist the local government structure from the constitution.
Jonathan said the local government system is the oldest globally accepted means to reach people at the grassroots.
He said any bill targeted at delisting it from the constitution was an abuse of democratic tenets and procedures.
Jonathan.argued that, “the problem with Nigeria is that our local government structure is still very weak.
“Whatever restructuring we are talking about, finally, Nigerians must sit down to discuss and the issue of LGA autonomy must be considered.
“As long as we have weak local governments, we would have difficulty managing this country.
“The way it is now, the person who runs the state, runs the LGAs and that makes nonsense of the whole concept of the third tier of government.
“The President should manage the nation; governors should manage the states and chairmen should be allowed to run the local councils.
