October 24, 2024
By Samuel Ogunsona
Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has cautioned states against disobeying the Supreme Court’s verdict on local government financial autonomy, stating that no one can rewrite the judgment.
Fagbemi’s comments come after Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo signed a bill granting oversight power to the state government over local government areas, contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Minister emphasized that the 36 states must implement the judgment, allowing the 774 local government areas to receive allocations directly from the federation account.
He noted that while some preparations are necessary for smooth implementation, the judgment remains sacrosanct.
Mr Fagbemi said: “Unfortunately I know it has been in the media that they gave them (governors) three months moratorium which is not the position. The position is that yes the judgment was delivered but we felt that there is a need to put some things in place before the full implementation. That it is going to be implemented is sacrosanct, nobody can run away from it.
“The question is, there are some things we need to put in place such that we will not run into problems when we start the full implementation of the judgment of the Supreme Court. There is no moratorium; moratorium for what? You know that before now some states have slated their local government elections beyond October.
“What we want to look at is; are they genuine when they said they are fixing the election beyond October? When did they first moot the idea? What is the law of their state however imperfect it may be?”
“For instance, in the conduct of elections in some states, they will give six-month notice. If they don’t do that we know that no matter the kind of election you conduct, the court will nullify it. If we now say we just want to go the whole hug, then there will be a problem,” he noted.
