The supreme court has ordered governors of the 36 states of the federation to file their respective defences to a suit instituted against them by the federal government.
In the suit marked SC/CV/343/2024, the federal government is
seeking full autonomy for the country’s 774 local governments.
The federal government is also asking for an order
preventing the governors from arbitrarily dissolving democratically elected
councils.
At the court session on Thursday, a seven-member panel of
the apex court also ordered the governors, who were represented by the state
attorneys-general, to file their responses to the originating summons within
seven days.
The court also ordered Lateef Fagbemi, attorney-general of
the federation (AGF), to file his response within two days after receiving the
responses of the states.
Garba Lawal, who led the supreme court panel, agreed with
the AGF that abridgment of time was necessary in the case due to its national
imperative.
The supreme court held that filing of all processes and
exchanging of same must be completed before June 10.
The court then fixed June 13 for hearing of the suit.
Lawal ordered that the eight states that were not in
attendance during Thursday’s proceedings must be served with fresh hearing
notices.
The eight states are Borno, Kano, Kogi, Niger, Ogun, Osun,
Oyo and Sokoto, whose attorneys-general were absent in court despite being
served with hearing notices.
BACKGROUND
It is commonplace for governors to sack elected councils and
impose caretaker committees in their stead.
In the suit filed by Fagbemi, the federal government also
requested the supreme court to authorise the direct transfer of funds from the
federation account to local governments — in accordance with the constitution.
The suit is hinged on 27 grounds.
“That the constitution of Nigeria recognizes federal, states
and local governments as three tiers of government and that the three
recognized tiers of government draw funds for their operation and functioning
from the federation account created by the constitution,” the originating
summons reads.
“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.
“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, has not yielded any result and that to
continue to disburse funds from the federation account to governors for non
existing democratically elected local governments is to undermine the sanctity
of the 1999 constitution.”
The federal government asked the apex court to invoke
sections 1, 4, 5, 7 and 14 of the constitution to declare that the governors
and state houses of assembly are under obligation to ensure democratically
elected systems at the third tier.
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