The Supreme Court OF Nigeria on Thursday fixed June 13 to hear the suit filed by the Federal Government against the governors of the 36 in the country for allegedly mismanagement of the allocations of local government areas in their respective states.
Justice Garba Lawal, the chairman of the seven-man panel of judges hearing the case fixed the June 13 date during his ruling on the application for abridgement of time argued by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fgebemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who is leading the Federal Government team of lawyers.
The jurist also ordered the 36 governors to file their respective defense to a suit instituted against them by the federal government seeking for full autonomy for the 774 local government in the country
Justice Lawal stated that the suit was of national importance and requires urgent and accelerated hearing.
The court also ordered that the attorney general of the federation upon receipt of the governors defense, must file a reply within two days.
Additionally, the court also ordered that the eight states that were not in attendance at Thursdays proceedings must be served with fresh hearing notice.
The state’s not in attendance on Thursday are, Borno, Kano, Kogi, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Sokoto. The eight states according to records of the apex court were duly served the notices, but their respective attorney generals were absent in court.
The federal government through represented by the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi had instituted the suit marked, SC/CV/343/2024 seeking an order prohibiting the state governors from unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected leaders for local governments.
The suit which is predicated on 27 grounds among other grounds states that the Nigeria Federation is a creation of the 1999 Constitution with the President as head of the Federal Executive Arm of the Federation who has sworn to uphold and give effects to the provisions of the Constitution.
The Attorney General who personally signed the suit is praying the court for an order permitting the funds standing in the credits of local governments to be directly channeled to them from the federation account in line with the provisions of the constitution as against the alleged unlawful joint accounts created by governors
The suit also seeks an order stopping governors from constituting caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments as against the constitutionally recognised and guaranteed democratically elected system
The attorney general further applied for an order of injunction restraining the governors, their agents and privies from receiving, spending or tampering with funds released from the federation account for the benefits of local governments when no democratically elected local government system is put in place
Fagbemi also asked the apex court to invoke sections 1, 4, 5, 7 and 14 of the constitution to declare that the state governors and State Houses of Assembly are under obligation to ensure democratic system at the third tier of government.
In a 13-paragraph affidavit in support of the originating summons deposed to by Kelechi Ohaeri from the AGF’s office, Fagbemi averred that filed the suit under the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government.
The deponent asserted that local government system recognised by the constitution is a democratically elected local government council and that the amount due to local government councils from the federation account is to be paid to local government system recognised by the constitution.
That the governors represent the component states of the Federation with Executive Governors who have also sworn to uphold the Constitution and to, at all times, give effect to the Constitution and that the Constitution, being the supreme law, has binding force all over the Federation of Nigeria.
Other prayers of the suit include: That the constitution of Nigeria recognises federal, states and local governments as three tiers of government and that the three recognised tiers of government draw funds for their operation and functioning from the Federation Account created by the Constitution
That by the provisions of the Constitution, there must be a democratically elected local government system and that the Constitution has not made provisions for any other systems of governance at the local government level other than democratically elected local government system.
That in the face of the clear provisions of the Constitution, the governors have failed and refused to put in place a democratically elected local government system even where no state of emergency has been declared to warrant the suspension of democratic institutions in the state.
That the failure of the governors to put democratically elected local government system in place is a deliberate subversion of the 1999 Constitution which they, and the President, have sworn to uphold.
Mr Fagbemi also said that all efforts to make the governors comply with the dictates of the 1999 Constitution, in terms of putting in place, a democratically elected local government system, have not yielded any result.
The AGF said that the federal government continued to disburse funds from the Federation Account to the governors for non-existing democratically elected local government is to undermine the sanctity of the 1999 Constitution.
He averred that in the face of the violations of the 1999 Constitution, the federal government is not obligated, under section 162 of the Constitution, to pay any State, funds standing to the credit of local governments where no democratically elected local government is in place.