The supreme court will deliver judgment on the suit seeking full autonomy for the 774 local governments in the country on July 11.
Notices on the development have been dispatched to lawyers.
The federal government instituted the suit marked
SC/CV/343/2024 against all the 36 states of the federation.
In the suit filed by Lateef Fagbemi, attorney-general of the
federation, the federal government is also asking for an order preventing the
governors from arbitrarily dissolving democratically elected councils.
The federal government also requested the apex 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.
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“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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