Yoruba group Afenifere has frowned at the recent judgement of the Supreme Court that granted full autonomy to the 774 local councils in the country.

Afenifere, in a statement signed by its leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and National Publicity Secretary, the judgement was a judicial conspiracy with President Bola Tinubu against the country.

The seven-man panel of the Supreme Court, in the landmark judgement that outlawed the Joint Allocation Account Committee (JAAC), through which all funds to local governments are paid to state government accounts, declared that all council allocations should be paid directly into their accounts.

While stressing that the constitution was misinterpreted by the apex court in its judgement, the group maintained that the position of the court does not reflect the principles of federalism, adding that the local government system is an exclusive preserve of the states.

Afenifere said: “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 retrogessive 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.

“The 1999 constitution, which, in spite of its flaws, gives life and power to the Supreme Court, provides in Section 162 and particularly subsection (6) that “each state shall maintain a special account to be called the “State Joint Local Government Account,” into which shall be paid all allocations to the local government councils of the state from the Federation Account and from the Government of the state.”.

“Against this unambiguous provision, the Supreme Court held that “demands of justice require a progressive interpretation of the law. It is the position of this court that the federation can pay local government allocations to the local government directly or pay them through the states. In this case, since paying them through states has not worked, justice in this case demands that local government allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the local governments.

“Contrary to these invented alternative routes, Section 162 of the Constitution is not ambivalent about the process and route through which “all allocations to the local government councils of the state from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State” shall become payable to the Councils.

“In other words, the interpretation does not require a voyage into jurisprudential philosophy, leading to the absurdity of deliberate judicial amendment of the grundnorm.

“By wittingly or inadvertently equating the Nigerian Federation with the Federal Government in the erroneous belief that both expressions are used interchangeably, such that the President may withhold funds to the credit of the local governments from the Federation Account under the guise of having no democratically elected officials, which is obviously subject to the interpretation by the Federal Government.

“The apex court has not only done incalculable injury to the Nigerian state; it has lent itself to setting aside its precedent in the hallowed judgement against the President Obasanjo administration withholding funds to the credit of local governments in Lagos State even when the Supreme Court agreed that the Local Council Development Authorities (LCDA) created by then Governor Tinubu were inchoate and fell short of constitutional requirements.

“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 unite the Nigerian Federation.”

On the creation of the Ministry of Livestock, the group states that “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 that vest land in the state in the Governor in trust for the people.

“Afenifere insists that the way forward for Nigeria is not the confusing, rudderless tinkering but the holistic restructuring of the polity to re-enact the fundamental principles of true federalism as agreed by the founding fathers. This includes the fact that the local government system is an exclusive preserve of the states, either by direct constitutional provisions or residual powers in a federation.” (The Guardian)

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