State governors removing democratically elected local government chairmen before the end of their tenure are committing treason.
The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), stated this in Abuja on Wednesday at the opening ceremony of a state of the nation discourse with the theme ‘Strengthening Local Government Autonomy in Nigeria: A Dialogue on the Impact and Implementation of the Supreme Court Judgement organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA).
Fagbemi, who was represented by the Director of Civil Appeals in the Ministry of Justice, Tijani Gazali (SAN), warned against such practice, just as he lamented that despite the judgment of the Supreme Court outlawing illegal removal of democratically elected local government councils by state governors, a few states had continued to “flagrantly carry on with this illegality.
“Let me state in unequivocal terms that this act is tantamount to treason and must be treated as such.
“Now, while it is true that Section 308 of the constitution grants the governor immunity from prosecution, I wish to be clear that this flagrant disobedience to the Supreme Court judgment will have unpleasant consequences for the state as a whole, should it persist,” he said
He said Section 1(2) of the 1999 Constitution stops person or group of persons from taking control of the government of any part of Nigeria contrary to the provisions of the constitution.
“By virtue of sections 1(2) and 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution, local government must be by democratically elected local government councils and no other body, and the government or administration of a local government area by a state government, governor of a state, local government caretaker committee, interim local government council, administrator, head of local government or by whatever name called or by any other state agency or other body is not in accordance with the 1999 constitution, is therefore unconstitutional, illegal and of no effect,” he said.
Fagbemi also said Section 162(5) and of the 1999 Constitution merely provides for a method or procedure of getting the amount distributed to the local government councils under section 162(3).
“Subsection provides that it should be given to the states to take to them and subsection provides that for this purpose the states shall maintain a special account called state joint local government account into which the State shall pay the allocation to local government councils from the federation accounts and revenue from the government of the state.
“Thus, Section 162(5) merely appointed the states agents of the federation to collect local government allocations from the federation account and pay to them, but does not give the states any right or interest in the said allocations to the local government councils from the federation account.
“The duty of the state is to simply convey to the local government councils their allocations from the federation account. The constitution does not give the states any right or interest in the allocations to a local government council from the federation account,” the AGF said.
The President of the NBA, Mazi Afam Osigwe (SAN), drew attention to the crisis over the control of local governments between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Congress (PDP) in Osun State.
“I hold a position that there must be democracy at the local government. If we fail to get it right at the local government level, we may be setting a stage for calamity,” he said.
A representative of the Central Bank of Nigeria said efforts were being concluded to register account numbers from all the local governments in Nigeria.
