By Abiola Olawale
The Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) has said it is happy with the ruling of the Supreme Court which granted Financial autonomy to Local Government councils in Nigeria.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, and Governor of Kwara, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, on Friday, said all the 36 states’ Governors have received the judgment with excitement, adding that they are all in support of the ruling.
Abdulrahman who addressed the press before a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the judgement has relieved the governors of a burden.
He said: “We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, compliance is a given and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we’ll study carefully.
“But by and large governors are happy with the devolution of power concerning local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors.
“Our people don’t know how much states expense in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”
However, the Kwara governor maintained that the NGF has requested for the enrollment of the judgment and will be reviewing it next Wednesday to decide the way forward.
He continued: “The forum will meet next Wednesday, to look at the issue wholly and then come up with a resolution on that.”
“As I said, we haven’t seen the enrollment of the court order and so we don’t know what is in there,” he stated.
As for Kwara State in particular, AbdulRahman said the judgment will not negatively affect it as the state government has not been tampering with council funds.
He stated further: “It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue.
“What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rule get their 5 and those are the main issues.”
The New Diplomat reports that the apex court on Thursday declared that the various state governments’ collection of funds meant for local government areas (LGAs) is unconstitutional, illegal and against the spirit of the Law. A seven-man panel of the Supreme Court on Thursday delivered the ruling.
Justice Emmanuel Agim gave this verdict while delivering judgment in the suit marked: SV/CV/343/2024, which was filed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, against the 36 state governors seeking full autonomy for the 774 local governments in the country.
