By Obinna Uballa
The Supreme Court on Friday struck out a suit filed by the Osun State Government seeking to compel the Federal Government to release withheld allocations for the state’s local government areas.
In a 6-1 ruling, a seven-member panel of the apex court held that the case, filed by the state’s Attorney General, lacked legal competence.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris explained that the state’s local government councils (LGCs) could not rely on the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction through the state government. He stressed that while the Supreme Court can serve as a court of first instance in disputes between a state and the Federal Government, autonomous councils must individually bring any legal challenge.
Justice Idris further dismissed claims that the suit qualified as public interest litigation.
Although the court upheld a preliminary objection from the Attorney General of the Federation, it reminded the FG to honour its earlier ruling granting fiscal autonomy to all 774 local government areas in Nigeria.
Osun State had asked the court to declare that the AGF could not act contrary to prior rulings of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal by withholding funds and to direct payment to dismissed APC local government officials.
Counsel for Osun State, Musibau Adetunbi, SAN, argued that the FG’s action “attempted to destroy the res (subject matter) by directing payments to one of the contending parties,” citing an earlier court order restraining disbursement.
The Federal Government countered that the state had no cause of action, was attempting to frustrate APC officials whose three-year term had ended, and had engaged in an abuse of judicial process.
