One year has passed since the Supreme Court’s declarative judgment on the direct funding of the country’s local government areas. It was a landmark decision, which restored financial autonomy to the third tier of government, and was widely applauded as a fresh lifeline for grassroots governance and sustainable development. The court gave no room for wavering or obfuscation, with its emphasis on “immediate compliance with this judgment.” It was delivered on 11 July 2024.
Yet, the federal government, the plaintiff in the case, against the backdrop of the routine abuse or diversion of the allocations to the 744 local government areas (LGAs) in the country by state governors, through their control of the State/Local Government Areas Joint Accounts, is dithering on its implementation. The 36 state governors were the defendants in the suit filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi.
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The LGAs, the intended direct beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s verdict, are not at ease with the delayed enforcement. Nigerians, in general, are also against the delay, as well as civil society groups. The ever-present watchdog, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sued the federal government over the matter.
The official hesitation on the matter is disturbing, as it smacks of hypocrisy and subterfuge. When a clear decision of the court, more so that of the apex court, is subjected to the whims and caprices of politicians, it should elicit outrage and disapproval from all well-meaning citizens. For clarity, the verdict reads, in part, “Since payments through states have not worked, the justice of this matter demands that Local Government allocations from the Federation Account should henceforth be paid directly to the Local Governments.”
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Shortly after the judgment, which it flaunted as a major achievement of the Tinubu administration, the federal government gave 90 days to all the states without elected officials to organise elections into these positions. The seven-member Supreme Court panel headed by Garba Lawal had outlawed allocation to LGAs run by caretaker committees, who are known to be surrogates of governors. As a result, all states, in default, hurriedly organised council polls.
The government was on the right track, with the 10-member panel it set up in August 2024, chaired by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, to work out the framework for the direct disbursement of the funds to the LGAs. With the Minister of Finance, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), alongside representatives of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), governors and local governments, it was an inclusive committee.
However, it is strange that in spite of the mechanisms put in place for implementation, no light seems to be at the end of the tunnel. More hurdles have been placed in the two years of audited financial statements requested by the CBN for each council to open an account with it. This arouses much curiosity, as the LGAs have not been receiving their allocations, except the tokens released to council chairpersons as each governor pleases, to run their offices.
The Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, had talked about “practical impediments” in the implementation of the judgment, five months after it was delivered. Early this year, the excuse was an ongoing “profiling of individuals” who would be signatories to the accounts.
All this now indicates a farce, after one year. Already, N4.408 trillion belonging to the LGAs in the last 11 months have been remitted to the states through their States/LGAs Accounts, which are at the mercy of the governors.
Drastic legislative action needs to be taken in respect of Section 162 (6) of the Constitution that created the account. Illegal withdrawal from this account, according to the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), in 2019, “poses the biggest corruption, money laundering and security threat at the grassroots levels and to the entire financial systems and the country as a whole.”
It seems to us that SERAP’s prognosis that “It is not politically expedient to do so,” in terms of enforcing the judgement, rings a bell. But we reject any attempt to sacrifice the public good on the altar of partisanship or the selfish political interests of a few. The buildup to the 2027 general election, which has begun in earnest, is very much against the rules of the game, and the quid pro quo that underpins such political romance is inimical to public interest in this context.
Running primary schools, healthcare centres, markets, abattoirs, maintaining rural roads, waste disposal, transportation, and motor parks are the statutory duties of LGAs, which are barely delivered across the federation. Not enforcing the judgment further undermines grassroots governance and the rule of law. In the UK, US and Canada for instance, municipal or mayoral administrations are the fulcrum of delivering basic social services to the people, without which human existence would be meaningless.
Governors have never welcomed the judgment, as seen in their words and actions. The boogie now is to endorse President Bola Tinubu’s second term, in a contest that is still two years away. This is an act of ingratiation that is both self-serving and subversive in equal measure.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State, in his swift criticism of the full financial autonomy of LGAs, said that this could cause “humungous chaos.” Little wonder, therefore, that his state’s house of assembly was the first to pass a bill that purportedly negated the judgment by creating the Anambra State/Local Government Joint Account, into which all federal allocations to the LGAs should be paid. Mr Soludo immediately signed this into law, which mandates each LGA to remit within two weeks of the receipt of its federal allocation, “a state-determined percentage” into the Consolidated Account of the state.
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The federal government’s equivocations in enforcing this court decision have reached ridiculous levels. Therefore, AGF Fagbemi is advised to take steps to end the charade. It speaks ill of this democracy that the Supreme Court’s decisions often dissolve into a ruse, either by the distorted actions or the inertia of the authorities that should give effect to them.
Unfortunately, we have trodden this path before. The federal government gave short shrift to the 17 October 2018 Supreme Court judgment for it to take “deliberate steps” to recover a whopping $62 billion due to Nigeria as its share of the profits accruing from the Joint Venture operations of International Oil Companies (IOC).
But a minister unabashedly, seemingly overruled the Supreme Court, saying: “Nobody can bring out that kind of money; I mean, we can’t get $62 billion.” And no kobo has been recovered to date. What a shame!
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