On Wednesday, the Senate urged state and local governments to promptly adhere to the Supreme Court ruling, especially regarding local government finances and the direct funding allocated to them.
The Senate has also decided to take swift action to amend certain sections of the Constitution, aiming to grant full autonomy to local government administration across the nation.
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This resolution was made public by Deputy Senate President Senator Jibrin Barau, following a closed-door session in which lawmakers discussed efforts by some state governments to bypass the Supreme Court’s ruling from July 11.
This followed an urgent call by Senator Tony Nwoye to stop state governments from using their state Houses of Assembly to pass laws that violate constitutional provisions and the Supreme Court ruling regarding financial autonomy for local governments, in accordance with the Constitution.
The motion was co-sponsored by 12 additional senators in response to claims that certain state governments were attempting to bypass the implementation of the judgment by enacting counter laws through their respective state Houses of Assembly.
The motion states that “Further concerned that the modus Operandi of subverting this financial autonomy of Local governments by state governments through their houses of assembly is to insert clauses in their laws requiring the Local Governments upon receipt of their allocation from Federation Account to remit all or majority or substantial portion of their allocation to a dedicated account which the State Governments will keep, control, manage or disburse for them using some nomenclatures like state/LGA joint account, state/LGA Consolidated revenue account, Local Government Joint Security Trust account etc.”
Senator Nwoye claimed that several state governors are already leveraging their Houses of Assembly to pass laws requiring local government councils within their states to deposit funds into State/Local Government Joint Accounts, which the Supreme Court has ruled against.
In July, the Supreme Court determined that it is unconstitutional for state governors to retain funds intended for Local Government (LG) administrations.
The Supreme Court also prohibited governors from dissolving democratically elected Local Government councils across the nation.
In a landmark ruling, the apex court stated that such actions would constitute a violation of the 1999 Constitution.
