THE Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has warned local government chairmen and councillors against tampering with the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations.
Fagbemi, a senior advocate, issued the warning on Thursday, July 25, at the 17th-anniversary annual lecture event of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) in Abuja.
He told the gathering that for more than 20 years, the majority of the 774 local governments had nearly crippling governance and attempts by previous administrations to address the issue had failed.
He claimed that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu filed a case before the Nigerian Supreme Court regarding the LGs’ autonomy because it understood the importance of good governance to security and human rights.
He stated that the apex court’s ruling guaranteeing autonomy for the LGAs would greatly increase security and access to human rights in addition to enhancing local government governance.
He clarified that before the Supreme Court ruling, it was anticipated that state authorities would permit local governments to operate in accordance with the 1999 Constitution, but that never happened.
“We now thought, this money is still coming from the federation, and in a way, the money is meant for the local governments; the federation now says, states be our agents, hold this money for onward transmission to the local government.
“There are two issues: the states were the agents of the federation; when the money got to the states, they became trustees of the local government. So either way, they are to do their utmost to ensure that the funds were not tampered with,” Fagbemi stated.
The ICIR reported that the Supreme Court granted the nation’s 774 Local Governments Areas (LGAs) financial autonomy in a judgment passed on Thursday, July 11.
The judgment was passed in a suit filed by the Federal Government through Fagbemi against the 36 state governors in the country, seeking full autonomy for local governments.
The Federal Government sought the court to authorise the direct transfer of funds from the federation account to local governments in line with the provisions of the Constitution against the alleged unlawful joint accounts created by governors.
Calls for local government autonomy in Nigeria have increased in recent years, as interference by the state has been identified as a reason for its underperformance.
Former president Muhammadu Buhari had signed an Executive Order in May 2020, to grant financial autonomy to the judiciary, legislature, and local government councils.
Although the governors were opposed to Fagbemi’s institution of the case, the Supreme Court held that the federal government was right in filing the suit to protect the Constitution.
A reporter with the ICIR
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