by ISMAEEL UTHMAN and OLUFEMI ADEDIRAN
Seven months after the Supreme Court delivered its landmark ruling granting full financial autonomy to local governments, implementation remains stalled amid political maneuvering and bureaucratic bottlenecks, ISMAEEL UTHMAN and OLUFEMI ADEDIRAN report
The implementation of local government autonomy has faced numerous hurdles seven months after the Supreme Court judgment.
Legal practitioners have expressed concerns that the delayed implementation of the Supreme Court ruling was disrespectful to the apex court and showed how the Nigerian government often seeks to circumvent judicial decisions.
On July 11, 2024, the Supreme Court ordered that local government allocations must be paid directly to them, as requested by the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, in a suit filed at the court.
Fagbemi had instituted the lawsuit on behalf of the Federal Government, seeking to grant full autonomy and direct funding to all 774 local government councils in the country.
He urged the apex court to issue an order prohibiting state governors from unilaterally, arbitrarily, and unlawfully dissolving democratically elected local government leaders.
However, the 36 state governments, through their attorneys general, filed a counterclaim, arguing that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case.
They further contended that the AGF lacked the locus standi to institute the suit on behalf of the local governments.
Despite this, the Supreme Court affirmed its jurisdiction. In a judgment read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the court ruled that states’ retention of local government funds is unconstitutional.
“The demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law. It is the position of this court that the federation can pay local government allocations directly to the LGs or through the states.
“In this case, since payment through states has not worked, the justice of this matter demands that LG allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the LGs,” the court ruled.
The Supreme Court further granted an order of injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, or privies from spending local government allocations. It also declared that no state government should receive funds meant for local governments.
Additionally, the court ruled that state governments have no power to appoint caretaker committees and that only democratically elected local government councils are legally recognised.
“A democratically elected local government is sacrosanct and non-negotiable,” the court affirmed.
Above all, the apex court directed the Federal Government to comply with the judgment immediately.
“An immediate compliance with this judgment,” the Supreme Court ordered.
However, rather than complying with the Supreme Court verdict promptly, both the Federal and state governments have been manoeuvring around the ruling and making efforts to circumvent its implementation.
Legal practitioners have raised concerns that the Federal Government’s reluctance to enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling undermines the authority of the judiciary.
The Supreme Court is the final appellate jurisdiction, and its judgments are binding on all lower courts and concerned parties, in accordance with Section 233 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
9news Nigeria reports that the first attempt to frustrate the implementation of local government autonomy was the three-month moratorium granted to governors by the Federal Government in August 2024.
The Federal Government and state governors had agreed to the moratorium over concerns regarding its impact on salary payments, operational viability, and the conduct of local government elections, among other issues.
As a result, direct payment of allocations to local governments was scheduled to commence in October 2024.
In anticipation of the deadline, many states hurriedly conducted local government elections, with ruling parties in those states winning most of the contests.
In further attempts to frustrate LG financial autonomy, some governors moved to enact laws requiring local government councils in their states to remit allocations into a joint account.
For instance, the Anambra State House of Assembly passed the Local Government Administration Bill 2024, despite condemnation from civil society groups and opposition parties, including Labour Party lawmakers in the assembly.
Defending the bill, Governor Charles Soludo argued that the law did not contravene the Supreme Court’s ruling on local government autonomy.
He challenged anyone who disagreed to seek redress in court.
The controversy surrounding the implementation of local government autonomy deepened when the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation claimed that it was not directly responsible for enforcing the Supreme Court’s judgment.
According to the AGF, the responsibility for implementing the ruling and ensuring direct allocation to local governments falls under the purview of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
This stance has further fueled concerns that the Federal Government may be deliberately stalling compliance with the Supreme Court’s order.
Adding to the complexities, the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced a new condition requiring all 774 local governments to provide at least two years of audited financial reports before they could receive their allocations directly.
The apex bank insisted that the local governments must meet this requirement before opening accounts for direct remittance of their allocations.
The condition raised concerns among local government officials and legal experts, who argue that it serves as yet another bureaucratic hurdle to delay the implementation of financial autonomy.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government, through the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare, assured that local governments would start receiving direct allocations by January 2025.
However, there has been no official update on local government autonomy, leaving stakeholders worried about further delays.
Speaking on the issue, a former Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Monday Ubani, SAN, described the delay as unnecessary and emphasised that disobedience to court orders remains a major challenge in Nigeria.
“Enforcement of court orders or judgments has always been an issue in Nigeria. That is why some of us have been advocating for a separate enforcement unit within the judiciary.
“As long as enforcement remains in the hands of the executive, they will stifle it and frustrate any judgment creditor, which is exactly what is happening now,” Ubani said.
He criticised the Federal Government for granting a three-month moratorium to governors after the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting that seven months had passed with no concrete action.
The senior lawyer said the Federal Government was insincere in implementing local government autonomy, adding that there was no reason for the government to delay the direct payment of LG allocations.
He also condemned the introduction of new conditions for local governments to access their funds, arguing that it amounted to a deliberate obstruction of justice.
Ubani called for legal action against those obstructing the enforcement of the judgment.
“I don’t know what is delaying the implementation of the judgment. They are now asking local governments to provide this and that, but was that part of the judgment requirement?
The judgment simply directs the Federal Government to pay money that belongs to local governments directly to them to enhance their financial autonomy and allow them to carry out the responsibilities assigned to them by constitutional provisions.
“So, if we are doing something entirely different from that judgment, we are in breach; we are in disobedience of a court judgment.
I think that those masterminding this disobedience should be brought before the court by filing a contempt proceeding before the Supreme Court.
There is flagrant disobedience of the judgment of the highest court of the land, and it is not sending the right signal to the international community as a nation.
“The judgment must be obeyed. We must allow local governments to have access to the funds allocated to them so they can carry out their constitutional duties, just as the federal and state governments receive theirs.
Why would the Federal Government allow state governments to interfere with the money assigned to local governments to fulfil their constitutional roles?”
He argued that the Federal Government pays allocations through the Federation Account Allocation Committee, the Minister of Finance, and the Central Bank of Nigeria, maintaining that they should be held responsible for the delay in the implementation of local government autonomy.
Speaking with 9news Nigeria on the matter, a senior lawyer, Supo Ojo, said the President and Attorney General of the Federation were responsible for the delay in implementation.
The former President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights said, “The President and Attorney General of the Federation should be held responsible for the delay. It is the responsibility of their offices to ensure that the court order is obeyed.
“They have all the machinery of government to enforce compliance with the court order. If they don’t have the political will to enforce compliance, then we should hold the two of them responsible.
“The Federal Government went to the Supreme Court to secure the judgment. Let them perfect that judgment and ensure compliance.”
Similarly, the National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Hakeem Ambali, condemned the delay, accusing the CBN of deliberately frustrating the process.
He hinted that the union might embark on mass protests or strikes if the delay in the implementation of LG autonomy persists.
“We are not ruling out strike and other industrial actions if necessary to ensure the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment.
“The condition given by the CBN that local governments must provide a two-year audit report before opening accounts is a calculated attempt to sabotage the Supreme Court ruling.
This is anti-democratic,” Ambali said.
He urged President Bola Tinubu to take decisive action against elements within his administration who are undermining the policy.
“The President cannot start a process that has been widely commended by Nigerians and allow saboteurs to frustrate it.
We will continue to put pressure on the government, mobilise, and, if necessary, embark on industrial action to ensure compliance,” he warned.
Ambali also called for collaboration with the Nigeria Labour Congress to push for full implementation of the ruling.
Commenting on the matter, the Executive Director of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, accused the Federal Government of unwillingness to ensure the implementation of local government autonomy.
Adeniran stated that the Federal Government appeared to be stalling, possibly due to political considerations and its strategic alliance with state governments, which have historically resisted local government autonomy.
He said, “The Federal Government is looking at 2027 and courting the favour of state governors. That might be one of the reasons they are not taking steps to implement the judgment of the Supreme Court.
“NULGE should insist on the implementation of local government autonomy.
They must approach the Supreme Court and ask the court to compel the CBN to relax the conditions and ensure that the bureaucracy being laid out by the Federal Government and other agencies is removed for easy implementation of the court judgment.”
However, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Kunle Adegoke, argued that the three-month moratorium and the CBN’s account-opening requirement for local governments were necessary steps for the smooth implementation of financial autonomy for LGs.
“What the Federal Government has done, with respect to the moratorium given, was to enable parties to implement the judgment effectively because, without such a moratorium, it would be difficult for some states, particularly those without democratically elected local government officials, to implement the judgment,” Adegoke argued.
Adegoke explained that without the CBN requirements and the moratorium, it might be impossible for both the federal and state governments to implement the Supreme Court judgment.
“For the implementation of the judgment, there is a procedure because the Supreme Court will not specify certain steps to be taken, although the court directed that there must be compliance. That is binding on all parties concerned, but there might be some steps necessary for the government to implement the judgment. One of these steps is that a party in favour of whom money is to be paid must have a particular account.
“Now, I learnt recently that the CBN requested audit reports of the local governments as a requirement to open their accounts. Without such an account with the CBN, it might be impossible for the judgment to be fully implemented,” Adegoke said.
The senior lawyer said although the CBN’s condition amounted to a delay in the implementation of the judgment, it should not be “an opportunity for either party to waste time and create an impossibility for the implementation of the judgment ultimately.”
