SINCE the Supreme Court judgment granting autonomy to local governments and ordering states to organise elections, there has been confusion in states. The confusion arose out of either the misreading of the judgment or the misapplication of it.
The Supreme Court on July 11, 2024 delivered a landmark judgment affirming the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local government councils.
The seven-member panel, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, unanimously upheld a suit brought by the federal government aimed at reinforcing the independence of local governments across the country.
The court also rejected the stance of state governments that sought to dissolve democratically elected local government councils.
Following the judgment, the federal government through the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, inaugurated an inter-ministerial committee to enforce the Supreme Court judgment granting financial autonomy to local governments in Nigeria.
According to the SGF, the committee’s primary goal is to ensure that local governments are granted full autonomy, allowing them to function effectively without interference from state governments.
It also indicated that the move is in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s efforts to give appropriate implementation to the provisions of the Constitution, which recognises local governments as the third tier of government.
However, eight months after the Supreme Court judgment on local government financial autonomy, implementation remains a challenge on the back of political intrigues and bureaucratic bottlenecks, which some analysts have linked to the situation in Lagos where the Constitution still recognises 20 local governments, since 2003 when an additional 37 local government council development areas (LCDAs) were created by the President when he was the state governor.
“The Position of the Apex Court of the land is very clear. You, a governor, an elective executive cannot sack another duly elected executive head of another tier of government,” Badru Saleh, a public commentator and political analyst, this newspaper.
According to him, the rancour across the states happened because of the disregard for the judiciary and rule of law.
Many Nigerians rejoiced on the Supreme Court judgment; however, state governors were not happy with the ruling largely because they never wanted local government autonomy.
Similarly, some Nigerians were pessimistic about the practicability of the judgment on the back of the country’s dynamic democratic practice, where it is assumed that both the rich and the government choose which court order to obey.
“Nigeria has turned into a banana republic and it is a major clog in the wheel of our progress as a country. Separation of powers was taught in secondary school and the function of each government was clear and that is what the Supreme Court has done with the judgment favouring local government autonomy,” Chukwudinma Okoji, a communication expert, told BusinessDay.
According to him, Nigeria is not yet ready to practise true federalism going by the growing opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling on local government autonomy.
“If this trend continues, governance and separation of power in Nigeria is dead and without the entrenchment of separation of power as pronounced by the Supreme Court on local government autonomy, Nigeria will continue to be in a pariah state.”
Okoji is also of the view that if the government does not obey court ruling, Nigeria might be headed for anarchy and the country might have witnessed it in what happens with the local government elections in Edo and Osun states. “Going by what we have seen in Edo State and now in Osun, it is crystal clear we are not ready for development.”
The political atmosphere in Osun currently could be said to be tense following recent local government election, with the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) winning all 30 local government chairmanship and 332 councillorship seats in the state.
The political crisis in Osun State took a turn for the worse with the conduct of local government elections and the subsequent swearing in of the newly elected chairmen and their councilors, despite the Court of Appeal ruling, which reinstated the elected local government chairmen and councillors sacked by Governor Ademola Adeleke.
On assumption of office in November 2022, Governor Adeleke sacked the local government officials after a state high court had overturned their election. However, the sacked officials decided to seek legal interpretation on the matter by going to court.
Subsequently, the Appeal Court reinstated the sacked chairmen elected on the platform of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC). Thereafter, the reinstated local council officials forcefully took over the rein of leadership of the third tier of government.
The Appeal Court ruling and the elections conducted by the state government resulted to an altercation between members of both the PDP and APC, who lay claim to local government on the back of the ruling and election victories and in the process, Aderemi Abbas, former chairman of the Irewole Local Government Area, and six other people were shot dead.
In Rivers State, the local government election took a dramatic turn following the Supreme Court ruling of Friday, February 28, 2025, which voided the October 5, 2024, local government election conducted by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC).
The Apex court annulled the LG election in a lead judgment read by Justice Jamilu Tukur, following an appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC). The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision quashed the Appeal Court’s judgment, which stated that “there was no evidence to establish that the conditions precedent stipulated by Section 150(3) of the Electoral Act, 2010, was met before the election was conducted by RSIEC.”
Recall that RSIEC had declared the chairmanship candidates of the Action Peoples Party (APP) as winners in 22 of the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.
This was despite a Federal High Court (FHC) judgment in Abuja by Justice Peter Lifu, which had barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from releasing the voter register to RSIEC for the conduct of the LG polls.
Justice Tukur, agreeing with the Federal High Court, ruled that the clear violation of electoral laws rendered the election invalid. Subsequently, the apex court upheld the FHC’s judgment and nullified the elections.
The court also concurred with Justice Lifu of the FHC that the voter register must be updated and revised before an election can be conducted legally and validly.
The implication of this is that Rivers State will have to conduct a fresh election not minding the cost of the nullified local government election in the state. Similarly, the electorate remain the victim of the infighting of the political gladiators.