11th July, 2024
By Paul Dada
The Supreme Court has on Thursday, ordered the Federal Government to withhold the allocations to local governments run by unelected officials.
The apex court gave this order in an ongoing judgement in a suit filed by Minister of Justice and Attorney- General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, against the states over financial autonomy for the local governments.
The Supreme Court held that it is illegal for Governors to dissolve democratically elected local governments.
Governor Sim Fubara of Rivers State recently removed local government chairmen in the state and inaugurated caretaker committees to run the local councils. Local governments in several states are also run by caretaker committees set up by governors.
But the apex court also stopped the Federal Government from further paying LG allocations through the state governments.
In its lead judgment read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the Supreme Court ordered that the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.
The court said governors abuse the funds by retaining them and using them for other purposes than they are meant.
Details later
