‘Judicial conspiracy’ – Afenifere faults Supreme Court ruling on local councils’ autonomy

The pan-Yoruba socio-political association, Afenifere, on Saturday, faulted the Supreme Court judgement which granted financial autonomy to local councils in the country.
The apex court on Thursday granted total autonomy to the 774 local councils in Nigeria.
The Supreme Court in its ruling in the suit filed by the Federal Government declared that it is unconstitutional for state governors to withhold funds budgeted for local government administrations in the country.
The court held that the federal government should pay any money standing to the credit of the local councils in the Federation Account directly to the local councils managed by democratically elected officials.
However, in a statement signed by its leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and the National Public Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, the Afenifere described the judgement as a mere judicial conspiracy.
The group stressed that the Supreme Court had played to the gallery by delivering such a judgement which was against the principle of true federalism.
It alleged that President Bola Tinubu’s administration had been practising a unitary system in some of its policies since it assumed office in May last year.
The statement read: “Afenifere views the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case filed by the Federal Government on the so-called local government autonomy as a sheer judicial conspiracy in cahoots with the Tinubu administration against the Nigerian state and its foundational principles of federalism.
“Rather than interpret the constitution to uphold its elementary but overriding federal principle which recognises only a two-tier federal structure of the central government and federating states, the Supreme Court played to the gallery and wittingly allowed itself a most retrogressive declaration that the power of the government is portioned into three arms of government, the federal, the state and the local government.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, Afenifere makes bold to say that in line with its negotiated basis of existence, Nigeria is a ‘Federation consisting of States and a Federal Capital Territory’. as affirmed by Section 2 (2) of the 1999 constitution.
“While Afenifere frowns at corruption and misuse of public funds at levels of government, it condemns in most unmistaken terms the subjugation of the states and their constitutional roles including the local government system to the whims and caprices of the federal government by any means including obvious manipulation of the federation account as in the present case.
“It is becoming stridently eloquent that with just over a year of its inauguration, the Tinubu government, more than even the military administrations, is uncannily determined to unitarise the Nigerian Federation.
“Part of the unitary package is the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development which is the audacious euphemism for the re-introduction of cattle colony, RUGA, and those other policies by which the Buhari administration sought to appropriate lands in the states contrary to the provisions of the Land Use Act and the Constitution which vest land in the state in the governor in trust for the people.”
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