The Federal Government has formed a 10-member committee tasked with implementing the Supreme Court’s July 11, 2024, ruling that grants financial autonomy to local governments throughout Nigeria.
This development was announced by Segun Imohiosen, Director of Information & Public Relations in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), in a statement issued on Tuesday in Abuja.
The committee, chaired by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, includes high-ranking officials such as the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, the Accountant General of the Federation, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, a representative of state governors, and a representative of local governments.
The committee’s main objective is to ensure that local governments receive full autonomy, enabling them to function independently without interference from state governments. This move aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to enforcing the Constitution, which acknowledges local governments as the third tier of government.
It would be recalled that in May this year, the federal government, through the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court against state governments for undermining local governments.
On July 11, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment affirming the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local governments and condemning the practice of dissolving elected local government councils by state governors.
A seven-member panel led by Justice Mohammed Garba found the plaintiff’s case meritorious, ruling that local government allocations from the federation account should be paid directly to the local governments, bypassing state governments that had been withholding these funds.
Before this ruling, funds for local governments were typically remitted to a joint account at the state level, where each local government was supposed to receive its share according to Section 162 of the Constitution.
However, state governors often retained these funds, disbursing them as they saw fit, which Justice Agim described as unconstitutional. This practice had crippled many of the country’s 774 local governments, depriving citizens of essential services and the benefits of democracy at the grassroots level.
