LG autonomy: No Going Back On implementation Of Supreme Court Verdict, Says Federal Gov’t

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) has declared that there is no going back in the implementation of the judgment which granted full financial autonomy for all the 774 local government areas in the country.

He also stated that the federal government did not give state governments the moratorium in the implementation of the apex court’s judgement.

Fagbemi clarified that the delay in the implementation of the verdict was as a result of measures being put in place by the federal government to ensure effective and efficient implementation of the court ruling.

The AGF stated these on Tuesday in Ado Ekiti while addressing journalists after he was conferred with a honorary degree (Doctor of Law) at the 12th convocation ceremony of the Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD).

Cautioning against committing contempt of court by disobeying the Supreme Court judgment, Fagbemi said the President Bola Tinubu-led government was determined to ensure all duly constituted and elected local governments administrators received their allocations directly from the federation account.

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Fagbemi who maintained that the move was to ensure development at the grassroots said, “Unfortunately, I know it has been in the media that they gave them (governors) three months moratorium, which is not the position. The position is that, yes, the judgment was delivered, but we felt that there is a need to put some things in place before the full implementation. That it is going to be implemented is sacrosanct, nobody can run away from it.

“The question is, there are some things we need to put in place such that we will not run into problems when we start the full implementation of the judgment of the Supreme Court. There is no moratorium; moratorium for what? You know that before now some states have slated their local government elections for beyond October.

“What we want to look at is; are they genuine when they said they are fixing the election beyond October? When did they first moot the idea? What is the law of their state, however imperfect it may be?

“What does the law of the state say? For instance, in the conduct of elections in some states, they will give 6 months’ notice. If they don’t do that, we know that no matter the kind of election you conduct, the court will nullify it. If we now say we just want to go the whole way out, then there will be a problem.

“We don’t want to go back to square one, that is why we are treading cautiously otherwise I am saying categorically that there is no moratorium for anybody. I know that one or two states that are trying to commit contempt of court.

“I don’t comment until they actually do the enactment to see where it takes us and where we are going. Are they going to re-write the judgment of the Supreme Court? When we get the full tenure of their law, we will take appropriate action,” Fagbemi said.