By Straightnews
The Federal Government said it will examine state laws on the conduct of local government polls, as well as scrutinise why some state governments have delayed the conduct of their local government elections.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Lateef Fagbemi, who stated this in Ekiti on Tuesday, said there was no going back on the Federal Government’s plan to implement the Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy.
Currently, no fewer than 164 local government councils in eight states are yet to conduct the elections.
There have been reports President Bola Tinubu may implement the Supreme Court ruling by the end of October. This means the affected LGs may have their federal allocations seized by the Federal Government, in line with the court ruling.
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The local government areas that have yet to hold their polls are in Ondo, Osun, Katsina, Cross Rivers, Nasarawa, Abia, Ogun and Zamfara states.
The Supreme Court ruling indicates that it is illegal and unconstitutional for governors to continue to receive or retain funds allocated to the local councils under the State and Local Government Joint Account.
It was reported that state governors were opposing the enforcement of the verdict, even as the report from the 10-member inter-ministerial committee on implementing the Supreme Court ruling regarding Local Government Area autonomy was set for submission this week.
Last week, Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, after signing the Anambra State Local Government Administration Law, warned that granting full autonomy to the country’s 774 LGs could lead to “humongous chaos,” arguing that such a move would not result in sustainable development.
“The absolute autonomy to the 774 Local Government Areas in the country is impossibility. In fact, it is a recipe for humongous chaos. The attendant challenges before the issue of local government autonomy are such that would certainly deepen the fate of the system and spell doom for the expected beneficiaries of the process if not well planned,” Soludo stated.
But Attorney General of the Federation, Fagbemi, while speaking in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital on Tuesday, said implementation of the apex court verdict was sacrosanct.
Fagbemi, who said he would not comment until he saw the law, stated, “Are they going to re-write the judgment of the Supreme Court? When we get the full tenure of their law, we will take appropriate action.”
He dismissed insinuations that a three-month moratorium was given to state governments before the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment, which granted autonomy to the local governments.
The AGF said, “Unfortunately I know it has been in the media, that they were given three months, which is not the position. The position is that, yes, the judgment was delivered, but 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.
“The question is, are there 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?”
He added, “There is no moratorium, moratorium for what? You know that before now, some states have slated their elections for beyond October.
“What we want to look at is, were they genuine when they said they were fixing the election beyond October? When did they first moot the idea? What is the law of their state, 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 hog, then there will be a problem.
“We don’t want to go back to square one, that is why we are treading cautiously, otherwise I am saying categorically that there is no moratorium for anybody. I know that one or two states that are trying to commit contempt of court.”
Under former President Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit issued a regulation, effective June 1, 2019 banning transactions on State and Local Governments Joint Accounts. Funds were sent directly to the accounts of the local governments. It also limited cash withdrawals from local government accounts to a maximum amount of N500,000 per day with penalties for banks that failed to comply.
However, state governors, under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, kicked against this regulation and the NFIU eventually capitulated.
The suit sought to prevent state governors from unilaterally dissolving democratically elected local government councils and establishing caretaker committees. The AGF argued that the constitution mandated a democratically elected local government system and did not allow alternative governance structures.
The Supreme Court, on July 11, 2024, gave a landmark judgment affirming the financial autonomy of the 774 LGs in the country and ruled that governors could no longer control funds meant for the councils.
The seven-member Supreme Court panel, led by Justice Garba Lawal, ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional for governors to manage and withhold LG funds.
The apex court also directed the Accountant-General of the Federation to pay LG allocations directly to their accounts, as it declared the non-remittance of funds by the 36 states unconstitutional.
Also, on August 20, the Federal Government instituted a 10-member inter-ministerial committee to implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on local government autonomy.
The committee members include the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun; AGF Fagbemi; Minister of Budget & Economic Planning, Abubakar Bagudu; Accountant-General of the Federation; Oluwatoyin Madein and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso.
Others are the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs Lydia Jafiya, the Chairman, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation & Fiscal Commission, Mohammed Shehu, and representatives of state governors and the local governments.
Revenue allocations to the 774 LGAs surged by 46.91 per cent to N2.35tn in August 2024 from N1.599tn recorded in August 2023.
FG fails to pay allocations directly to LG accounts three months
Meanwhile, the Local government councils’ allocations for September 2024 were paid into the states/LGs Joint accounts by the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) contrary to what Nigerians were made to believe that the funds would go directly into the LGs’ individual accounts as ordered more than three months ago by the Supreme Court.
The FAAC met on Thursday in Abuja and shared a total sum of N1.298 trillion generated in September 2024 to the federal, states, and local governments.
Reports from FAAC and several state governments revealed that the monies were paid as usual into the joint accounts of the local governments as was the case before the Supreme Court judgment.
However, shortly after the judgment was delivered, the Federal Government said it had identified operational issues that needed to be sorted out before the direct payment could be done.
It thus created a three-month window for all the issues to be resolved. The three-month moratorium lapsed last week.
The Director of Press and Public Relations at the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF), Bawa Mokwa, who disclosed the September payments in a statement on Thursday said the amount shared showed a 7.9 percent increase from the N1.203 trillion shared for the previous month.
He pointed out that a total of N1.298 trillion September 2024 Federation Accounts revenue was shared to the federal, states and local governments, stressing that the revenue distribution was announced at the October 2024 meeting of FAAC in Abuja.
According to him, the N1.298 trillion total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N124.716 billion, distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue of N543.518 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) revenue of N18.445 billion, Exchange Difference revenue of N462.191 billion and Augmentation of N150.000 billion.
He added that a communiqué issued by the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) indicated that total revenue of N2.258 trillion was available in the month of September 2024.
Total deduction for cost of collection was N80.993 billion while total transfers, interventions and refunds were N878.946 billion.
According to the communiqué, gross statutory revenue of N1.043 trillion was received for the month of September 2024.
This was lower than the sum of N1.221 trillion received in the month of August 2024 by N177.426 billion.
He said the gross revenue of N583.675 billion was available from the Value Added Tax (VAT) in September 2024.
This was higher than the N573.341 billion available in the month of August 2024 by N10.334 billion.
He said the communiqué stated that from the N1.298 trillion total distributable revenue, the Federal Government received total sum of N424.867 billion and the State Governments received total sum of N453.724 billion.
The Local Government Councils received total sum of N329.864 billion and a total sum of N90.415 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.
On the N124.716 billion distributable statutory revenue, the communiqué stated that the Federal Government received N43.037 billion and the State Governments received N21.829 billion.
The Local Government Councils received N16.829 billion and the sum of N43.021 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.
From the N543.518 billion distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) revenue, the Federal Government received N81.528 billion, the State Governments received N271.759 billion and the Local Government Councils received N190.231 billion.
A total sum of N2.767 billion was received by the Federal Government from the N18.445 billion Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL).
The State Governments received N9.222 billion and the Local Government Councils received N6.456 billion.
From the N462.191 billion Exchange Difference revenue, the communiqué stated that the Federal Government received N218.515 billion and the State Governments received N110.834 billion.
The Local Government Councils received N85.448 billion, while the sum of N47.394 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.
The Federal Government received N79.020 billion, the State Governments received N40.080 billion and the Local Government Council received N30.900 billion from the N150.000 billion Augmentation.
In September 2024, Oil and Gas Royalty, Excise Duty, Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) and CET Levies increased considerably while Value Added Tax(VAT) and Import Duty increased marginally. Petroleum Profit Tax(PPT), Companies Income Tax(CIT) and others recorded significant decreases.
