- The implementation of the judgement for the 774 local government areas to be given financial autonomy
Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, has stated that the federal government did not grant state governments a moratorium on implementing the Supreme Court’s decision on full financial autonomy for local governments.
The AGF explained that there is a delay in the full implementation of the Supreme Court ruling due to safeguards put in place by the federal government to ensure successful execution.
Fagbemi talked to journalists on Monday after receiving an honorary degree from Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) during its 12th convocation ceremony and 15th Founder’s Day Event.
According to him, there is no going back in the implementation of the judgement for the 774 local government areas to be given financial autonomy in order to ensure development at the grassroots level.
He warned states not to commit contempt of court by disobeying the verdict of the Supreme Court, adding that the administration of President Bola Tinubu was determined to ensure all duly constituted and elected local government administrators received their allocations directly from the federation account.
Fagbemi said, “Unfortunately, I know it has been in the media that they gave them (the governors) a three-month moratorium, which is not the position. The position is that yes, the judgement 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, 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 judgement 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.
“What we want to look at is: are they genuine when they said they are 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 6 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; otherwise, 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 actually do the enactment to see where it takes us and where we are going. Are they going to rewrite the judgement of the Supreme Court? When we get the full tenure of their law, we will take appropriate action.”