January 06, (THEWILL) – Almost six months since the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgement, granting financial autonomy to local government councils in Nigeria, following a lawsuit filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, on behalf of the Federal Government, the third-tier of governance in the country is set to receive direct federal allocations, beginning this month.
The suit had challenged the powers of state governors to receive and withhold federal allocations meant for the third-tier of governance and also to stop governors from unilaterally dissolving democratically-elected local government chairpersons and appointing caretaker committees in their places.
We hope that the Technical Committee set up by the government to work out the modalities for the implementation of the apex court’s ruling will be non-partisan and independent in doing their work.
We say so because in the intervening period, we have witnessed how some state governors have devised plans to thwart the realisation of the courts’ ruling. In one instant, as demonstrated by Anambra State, the Assembly was co-opted to pass a bill that undermines the autonomy of the LGA, despite Governor Charles Soludo’s explanations to the contrary.
Section 13(1) of the bill, for example, stipulates that the state shall maintain a “State Joint Local Government Account,” into which all federal allocations to LGAs must be deposited.
Section 14(3) further mandates that each LGA must, within two working days of receiving their allocations from the Federation Account, remit a state-determined percentage to the consolidated account. This requirement applies even if the allocations are received directly from the Federation Account.
This is, without further explanation, contrary to the intent of the Supreme Court ruling, whose foundation is that the LGA are democratically elected governments which, in matters of federal allocation, should get their direct allocations. After all, the revenue sharing formula is done on a three-tier basis of Federal-52.68 percent State-26.72 percentage and Local Government-20.60 percent.
On the other hand, in this deliberate plan by state governors to sabotage the apex court judgement, is the case presented by Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State. He recently got the Assembly to suspend the 18 LGA Chairpersons and their Vice-Chairpersons in Edo State over what he described as insubordination.
Even when Minister Fagbemi drew his attention to the implications of the Supreme Court, the governor still went ahead with his plans citing constitutional provisions that subordinates LG to the authority of the governors.
Governor Okpebholo noted, “The Supreme Court cannot amend the Constitution, which places local governments under state control, and this remains the law.” But as Minister Fagbemi rightly replied, the same constitution authorises the legislative council to remove local government chairpersons and not the governor. Indeed, as we write, two of the suspended 18 Chairmen have defected to save their seats. Sad.
If the constitution did not recognise the LG as a third-tier of government, only the federal and states would have been deemed as participants in the sharing of federal allocations. Even the state/local government joint account, which has traditionally been used to channel council allocations, was also abolished by the Supreme Court. This legal and constitutional fact is obviously lost on governors playing hide-and-seek with the financial autonomy of LGAs.
This much was clear in the seven-member Supreme Court panel, led by Justice Garba Lawal, which ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional for governors to manage and withhold LG funds and therefore directed the Accountant-General of the Federation to pay LG allocations directly to their accounts.
We call on the Federal Government 10-member inter-ministerial committee to implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on local government autonomy to the letter.
Indeed, as many as 23 states, which had strangulated development at the LG level through caretaker committees, have since conducted local government elections following the Supreme Court verdict in July. That was the first success of the Supreme Court ruling.
The second leg in the success in the court’s ruling must be the full implementation of the court’s ruling.
LGA, as governments closest to the people at the grassroots, must be empowered to deliver democracy dividends at the third-tier of governance, addressing many of the social and economic challenges that mainly originate from there. There should be no more interference from state governments.
