LG Autonomy: FG Warns Against Disobeying S’Court Judgement

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has warned state governments not to commit contempt of court by disobeying the verdict of the Supreme Court on local government autonomy.

Fagbemi said the administration of President Bola Tinubu was determined to ensure all duly constituted and elected local governments received their allocations directly from the federation account.

The AGF spoke on Tuesday while addressing journalists after he was honoured with an honorary degree during the 12th convocation ceremony of the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD).

He said the federal government did not give state governments specific time to implement the Supreme Court judgement on the financial autonomy of local governments.

Fagbemi noted that the delay in the full implementation of the verdict of the apex court was a result of the measures being put in place to achieve success.

He declared that the federal government was committed to implementing the judgement for the 774 local governments to be given financial autonomy to ensure development at the grassroots level.

“I know it has been in the media that they gave the governors three three-month moratorium which is not the position. The position is that yes, the judgment was delivered. However, we felt that there is a need to put some things in place before the full implementation. That it is going to be implemented is sacrosanct. Nobody can run away from it.

“There are some things we need to put in place such that we will not run into problems when we start the full implementation of the judgment of the Supreme Court. There is no moratorium. Moratorium for what?

“You know that before now, some states have slated their local government elections for beyond October. Are they genuine when they said they are fixing the elections beyond October? When did they first moot the idea? What is the law of their states, however imperfect it may be?

“What does the law of the state say? For instance, in the conduct of elections in some states, they will give six months notice. If they don’t do that, we know that no matter the kind of election you conduct, the court will nullify it. If we now say we just want to go the whole way out, then there will be a problem.

“We don’t want to go back to square one. That is why we are treading cautiously. I am saying categorically that there is no moratorium for anybody.

“I know that one or two states are trying to commit contempt of court. I won’t comment until they do the enactment to see where it takes us and where we are going. Are they going to rewrite the judgment of the Supreme Court? When we get the full tenure of their law, we will take appropriate action,” Fagbemi said.