The governor stated this while addressing correspondents at the State House on Friday, July 12.

He noted that the ruling had relieved the governors of a burden and they were happy with the devolution of powers to the third tier of government.

“We welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court. Compliance is a given, and our attorney generals have applied for the enrollment order which we’ll study carefully. But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power with respect to local government autonomy.

“It relieves the burden on governors. Our people really don’t know how much states expend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there,” the chairman said.

He said that as governor of Kwara State, his government had never tampered with local government funds.

“It’s not going to affect the state. We’ve never tampered with local government funds. So, it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the incoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their five per cent and those are the main issues,” he added.

The ICIR reported in May that the Nigeria government filed a suit at the Supreme Court against the 36 state governors over the nation’s local governments’ autonomy, urging the apex court to issue an order, prohibiting state governors from arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders.

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.

On Thursday, July 11, the Supreme Court granted the 774 Local Governments Areas (LGAs) financial autonomy ruling that it was unconstitutional for the state government to hold on to or manage such allocations and directed the LGAs to commence managing their funds

Besides, the court ruled barred the governors from sacking constitutionally-elected local government chairmen.

The ICIR reports that governors have been blamed for the underdevelopment of local governments in Nigeria.

They have been accused of squirrelling the funds meant for that tier of government and appoint their loyalists to manage them and help them to loot the local government finances.