The Supreme Court declared on Thursday that it is unconstitutional for state governors to hold funds allocated to Local Government administrations, 9News Nigeria reports.
In its lead judgement read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the apex court said the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.
The Federal Government instituted the suit against all the 36 states of the federation.
In the suit filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, the Federal Government is also asking for an order preventing the governors from arbitrarily dissolving democratically elected councils.
The Federal Government also requested the apex court to authorise the direct transfer of funds from the federation account to local governments — by the Constitution.
“That in the face of the clear provisions of the constitution, the governors have failed and refused to put in place a democratically elected local government system even where no state of emergency has been declared to warrant the suspension of democratic institutions in the state.
“That the failure of the governors to put democratically elected local government system in place is a deliberate subversion of the 1999 constitution which they and the president have sworn to uphold.
“That all efforts to make the governors comply with the dictates of the 1999 constitution in terms of putting in place a democratically elected local government system, has not yielded any result and that to continue to disburse funds from the federation account to governors for non-existing democratically elected local governments is to undermine the sanctity of the 1999 constitution.”
The Federal Government asked the apex court to invoke Sections 1, 4, 5, 7 and 14 of the Constitution to declare that the governors and state houses of assembly are under obligation to ensure democratically elected systems at the third tier.
