LG Autonomy: Tinubu ignores govt call for extension

President Bola Tinubu may have ignored some governors who demanded an extension of the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling that granted financial autonomy to the country’s 774 local governments.

This happened despite the fact that some of the areas with Local Council Development Areas, which are not in the constitution, have promised to retain them.
Sources close to the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) meeting last Wednesday told the Sunday Telegraph that the governors are in a difficult position as the court ruling has left them on the wrong foot.

It will be recalled that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had sued the state governors over the joint appropriation accounts administered by all the states, which deprived local governments of statutory allocations from the Federal Appropriation Accounts (FAAC).

The Supreme Court in the judgment prohibited the governors from receiving, retaining or spending the LG allocations. The Court held that states receiving LG funds violate Article 162 of the 1999 Constitution. It held that the Constitution provides that all money leaving the Federation Account must be distributed among the three tiers of government.

Since then, they have been meeting to find ways to get out of the position they were in. “They are still meeting. They are in a difficult position because it is the Supreme Court ruling and they cannot do anything about it,” said one of the sources, who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the governors.

“They are all rushing to hold elections because there will be no allocation for them if they run unelectable councils. They are pleading with Mr. President to be cautious and give them some space to resolve the situation before the next allocation.

“How that will work out, I don’t know. It’s a damn difficult situation for them, especially those who run the councils with temporary committees.”

The ruling is still causing a stir, the Sunday Telegraph reported. One well-known political economist even said that the issue of distribution should have been settled: who gets what before the judge rules.

Our source continued: “It is more of a political issue. Some of them approached the President. The President told them that it is a decision of the Supreme Court and since it cannot be appealed, they should ensure that they comply with the provisions of the law.

“Some of them have contacted the President to express their displeasure over what happened. He claimed that it is the law of the land as determined by the Supreme Court and that no one can reverse it. That is why they are rushing to hold elections at the local government level.

“There are about 21 states without validly elected local assemblies. The problem is that some stakeholders are pushing for constitutional amendments. They believe that the independent state electoral commissions, as currently constituted, cannot conduct free and fair elections based on their track records in states where each party in power occupies all the seats.

“Some stakeholders are also telling the President that he should go all the way by bringing in a constitutional amendment that would empower INEC to conduct local government elections and that would be the only time the reforms will be meaningful and useful at the grassroots level. How this will pan out remains to be seen.”

Meanwhile, the state governors swore that they lost the first frontier of the battle, which caught them unprepared. They didn’t think it through when the attorney general went to court, so they slept on it and found themselves where they were. However, they weren’t going to let the second frontier of the battle sleep away.

However, the President and his advisors believe that in order to ensure democracy and fairness in local elections, some of the President’s advisors are pushing him to actually start a process that will lead to that.

Whether they like it or not, it’s another frontier of the fight. Some governors have reportedly said they never paid enough attention to the Supreme Court when the attorney general filed the lawsuit.

They were shocked by the outcome and that they would not fall asleep again. This time they will make sure that the power of the state to organize local government elections is not taken away from the states and that the governors are angry about that.

What is happening is that they were the biggest ally of the President when he was seeking political power. The governors believe that taking that power away is taking away one of the most important powers because there are the Lords of the Manor who are pulling the strings of the local government to the extent that in some states like Anambra, there has been no election for almost 12 years. So the governors see the local governments as an appendage of the state house.

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