The Supreme Court has affirmed the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local governments. In its judgment on Thursday, a seven-member panel of the court unanimously upheld the suit brought by the federal government to strengthen the independence of local governments in the country.
Emmanuel Agim, a member of the panel, delivered the court’s lead judgment, holding that the local governments across the country should, from Thursday, receive their allocations directly from the Accountant-General of the Federation.
The new arrangement ordered by the Supreme Court empowers the Accountant-General of the Federation to bypass the state governments in the monthly disbursement of federal allocations to the local governments.
in his verdict he pointed out that the local government is Nigeria’s third tier of government, the level of government closest to the grassroots. However, for over two decades, local governments have been almost crippled in most states, where the governors seize their federal allocations and only release funds to them piecemeal to barely keep them going.
The long-running funding arrangement, upended by Thursday’s Supreme Court judgment, had helped governors exert absolute control over the local governments. The governors’ control includes arbitrary dissolution of elected local government executives, despite repeated court decisions adjudging such action as illegal.
The lack of independence of the local governments also stemmed from the governors’ overbearing influence on other institutions, such as their states’ independent electoral commission. With that, the governors’ political parties fielding their hand-picked candidates always recorded near 100 per cent victory in local elections.
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