A Nigerian legal practitioner, Ekemini Udim says that the judgement by Supreme Court precludes Accountant-General of the Federation from releasing monthly allocations to Caretaker or Transitions or any other contraption in the country.
The Apex Court’s judgement led by Justice Emmanuel Agim on Thursday ruled that it is unconstitutional for state governors to tamper with the funds of the local government councils.
Already, about 17 states in the country including Akwa Ibom State have reconstituted and inaugurated Caretaker, Transition Committees or Major.
Reacting to the Supreme Court’s judgement of Thursday in a telephone interview with Straightnews publisher, Mr. Udim who is also a radio public affairs analyst said ‘‘You will remember that what we saw was what was filed by the Attorney-General of the Federation.
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The legal practitioner said, ‘‘The AGF had urged the Supreme Court to declare any contraption in the name of Caretaker, Transition Committee, illegal. By this judgement, it is likely that the Supreme Court has upheld that the Caretaker Committees are illegal.
‘‘If that is the case, it means that the Accountant-General of the Federation is, by this judgement, precluded from releasing funds of any local government council that the Chairman was not democratically elected by the people; for example, Transition, Caretaker or Major as it is called in Abia State or by whatever contraption to the people manning that tier government as of today.
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‘‘It means that they are illegal and it means that the Accountant-General of the Federation cannot disobey the Supreme Court by paying money to people who are occupying offices illegally. The Accountant-General will only pay money to those who were duly elected to man local government councils in the country. Anything outside that will means that someone is trying to sit on the head of Supreme Court and this could be catastrophic.’’
On the conduct of local government elections, he said he does not know what Supreme Court had ruled on the election.
‘‘Whether elections are conducted by INEC or by AKISIEC, the fact remains that what Nigerians want is free and fair election. If we can have it with AKISIEC, fine, or we have it with INEC, beautiful. Moving forward, the populace should be concerned about and be involved on who emerges as their local government chairman because local government chairmen will be exposed to so much funds.
‘‘I understand that there are local governments receiving N400 million or N350 million monthly. This is a whole lot and if this is going to be paid to the local government Chairman and his council directly, it means we have to elect those who are trustworthy, those who with credibility and those we can count on so that the judgment of today will not end up to be a fruitless exercise.
‘‘It should rather be a judgment that will engender development through the entrustment of the rein of power in the local government area to competent hands.
‘‘Let me say that this is an opportunity for EFCC to also begin to beam their searchlight to all the local government councils now that much funds will be given to them directly. Every local government chairman should be profiled to know where he is siphoning the money to and anybody who does that, the law should take its course. Let the judgment of Supreme Court be something that will add to, rather than substract our democracy,’’ he asserted.
Reacting to the Supreme Court judgement, Udim noted ‘‘It is the best thing that is happening to this tier of government. We have been hearing of complaints by local governments that overtime the state has been capturing the funds of the local government.
With this decision by the Supreme Court, being final court in the land, holding clearly that funds in the local governments should be paid to the local councils, I think this will allow local government councils to develop their areas and domicile the funds in the local government areas.
‘‘And moving forward, every local government council will be accountable to the people to ensuring that what is given is used for the development of the area.’’
