The Federal Government (FG) had instituted the suit against all the 36 states of the federation.
By Deborah Hassan
365Daily – The Supreme Court has ruled that all funds due to all 774 local government areas (LGAs) in Nigeria should be paid directly to their account and not to governors.
This landmark judgement was delivered on Thursday, July 11, 2024 by Justice Emmanuel Agim.
The apex court has also held that it is unconstitutional for State Governments to retain and use allocation meant for the LGAs on their behalf without transferring same to them as provided in Section 162(3) of the Constitution.
The Federal Government (FG) had instituted the suit against all the 36 states of the federation.
Filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, the FG sought an order to prevent 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.
The suit was on 27 grounds.
In its originating summons, it noted “that the Constitution of Nigeria recognizes federal, state and local governments as three tiers of government and that the three recognised tiers of government draw funds for their operation and functioning from the federation account created by the constitution.
“That by the provisions of the constitution, there must be a democratically elected local government system and that the constitution has not made provisions for any other systems of governance at the local government level other than the democratically elected local government system.
“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 therefore 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.