Nigerian state governors have lost their control of Local Government in the country. It took the Supreme Court to end the tyranny of 36 state governors for many years since the country returned to democratic government in 1999.
On Thursday, the apex court in a historical judgment ordered the federal government to now pay local government allocation to them directly.
That was not the case until today when the nation’s highest court ordered the federal government to stop paying allocations meant for local government to a Joint Account set up by state government.
Whenever the Joint Account was credited during the monthly sharing of Allocations by federal and state government, what governors did was to hijack the funs in the accounts, and do whatever they wanted with it.
The development, political analysts say, had hindered the development at the grassroots level due to paucity of funds by those saddled with managing the local governments.
The Supreme Court judgment has automatically put a stop to the financial tyranny of governors, who had filed an objection to the suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi on behalf of the federal government against the 36 state governors, according to analysts.
According to the judgment, henceforth, no more payments of local government area allocations will be made to state government accounts. The court also prohibited the governors from receiving, tampering with, or withholding funds meant for local governments.
Furthermore, the court barred the governors from dissolving democratically elected officials for local governments and deemed such actions a breach of the 1999 Constitution.
The federal government had approached the Supreme Court with a suit seeking to compel the governors of the 36 federating states to grant full autonomy to local governments in their domains. The suit, marked SC/CV/343/2024, was filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), on behalf of the Federal Government.
The Federal Government accused the state governors of gross misconduct and abuse of power in its suit, which was based on 27 grounds. In the originating summons, the FG prayed the Supreme Court to make an order stating that funds standing to the credit of local governments from the Federation Account should be paid directly to the local governments rather than through the state governments.
The justice minister also requested an order restraining governors, their agents, and privies from receiving, spending, or tampering with funds released from the Federation Account for the benefit of local governments when no democratically elected local government system is in place in the states.
Finally, the Federal Government sought an order stopping governors from constituting caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments, contrary to the constitutionally recognized and guaranteed democratic system.
The magazine reported that jubilations have rented the entire country following the judgment, as Nigerians applauded the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration for the courage to seek judicial decision over the matter.
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