- By Halimah Olamide
Reprieve may have come the way of local government administration at last as the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that it is unconstitutional for the state governors to hold or tamper with funds allocated to the councils.
The ruling by the apex court puts a stop to governors’ administering funds belonging to local governments.
In a lead judgement read by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the court said the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.
The court stated that the law mandated that Local Government Areas must be governed by democratically elected officials.
It there ordered that funds meant for the LGAs must be directly paid to them from the federation account.
“Demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law. It is the position of this court that the federation can pay LGA allocations to the LGAs directly or pay them through the states.
“In this case, since paying them through states has not worked, justice of this case demands that LGA allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the LGAs,” the apex court held.
It further declared unconstitutional the appointment of caretaker committees by governors to run the affairs of the LGAs.
It held that the 36 states are under obligation to ensure democratic governance at the third tier of government.
Many state governors have appointed caretaker chairmen and members into the councils for years instead of holding local government elections.
Many of the council polls have also proved to be farce as ruling parties have been found to manipulate to favour them.
For instance, Rivers state under Governor Sim Fubara, just last week appointed and swore in new caretaker committee chairmen and member for the local government areas in the state.