LG autonomy: Councilors forum hails supreme Court judgment

The National Councilors Forum of Nigeria has commended the Federal Government and the Supreme Court for the judgement affirming the financial autonomy of Local Governments.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the apex court had on Thursday held that the 20.6 per cent of the federation account allocation must be directly paid to local government accounts henceforth, bypassing state control.The National President of the forum, Yusuf Baba, while briefing newsmen in Abuja, said the failure of some state governments to put democratically elected local government system in place was a deliberate subversion of the 1999 Constitution.Baba said that some state governors have refused to put in place a democratically elected local government system even where no state of emergency had been declared to warrant the suspension of democratic institutions in the state.According to him, to continue to disburse funds from the federation account to such state for non-existing democratically elected local govern ment system is to undermine the sanctity of the 1999 constitution.'Consequently, we, the leadership of the National Councilors Forum of Nigeria hereby present ourselves today, to rejoice with the Federal Government, the entire local governments of the federation and ultimately the Supreme Court, for this success of granting the local governments their constitutional rights and autonomy to that effect,' he said.The forum's president added that there would no longer be excuses on the part of the local councils chairmen and Councilors not to perform and deliver good governance at the grassroots.According to him, if the local government councils are getting their funds directly, people at the grassroots should expect good governance and dividends of democracy especially through projects and infrastructure.On the conduct of local council elections, Baba said that state electoral bodies should further be strengthened to deliver credible elections and faulted the call for INEC to conduct local government ele ctions.NAN reports that the Apex Court declared that it is unconstitutional for state governors to hold funds allocated for local government administrations.The seven-member panel, in the judgment delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, declared that the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.The apex court held that the power of the government is portioned into three arms of government; the federal, the state and the local government.The court further declared that a state government has no power to appoint a caretaker committee and a local government council is only recognisable with a democratically elected government.The court also held that the use of a caretaker committee amounts to the state government taking control of the local government and is in violation of the 1999 Constitution.(NAN) (www.nannews.ng)Source: News Agency of Nigeria