The Senate has given its full backing for the Supreme Court’s judgment of July 11, 2024, which granted financial autonomy to the 774 Local Government Councils across Nigeria.
The session, which was presided over by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, also said the National Assembly would amend relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution, especially 162, to provide full autonomy for local government administration in Nigeria.
The resolutions were a sequel to a motion sponsored by Tony Nwoye (LP, Anambra North) during the plenary.
Mr Nwoye, while presenting his motion, said that despite the Supreme Court judgment on 11 July, affirming the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local governments, some state governors are using state houses of assembly to undermine and manipulate the local government’s autonomy, saying he was worried about the development.
He said, “Senate is aware and concerned that despite these constitutional prohibitions and the binding decision of the Supreme Court, few state governments through their respective state houses of assembly, through their different states of survival, have been seeking to enact laws, while some have already enacted laws and continue to take action that undermine the financial autonomy of local governments, thereby breaching the Constitutional Prohibition 1999 Constitution as well as the judgment of the Supreme Court.
“The Senate further concerns 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 state laws that require local governments upon receipt of this allocation from financial accounts to remit all or majority or a substantial part of the allocation to a dedicated account which the state government will keep on controlling, managing and disbursing as they like, using nomenclature like state through local government joint account system, state through local government consolidated revenue, as well as state joint security trust accounts.”
Mr Nwoye said if the actions of the governors and the state lawmakers go unchecked, they will lead to the extinction of local governments in Nigeria.
After the debate, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, put the motion to voice vote, and the majority of the senators supported it.
Mr Akpabio, in his comment, urged the state governors to comply with the Supreme Court’s judgement.
He also assured that the National Assembly would go through the procedures of altering any section of the Constitution or any law to give birth to the complete autonomy of the local governments.
