THE Supreme Court has reserved judgment in the case instituted by the Osun State government challenging the Attorney General of the Federation for withholding local government funds due to it.
News Point Nigeria reports that Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, who led a seven- man panel of Justices, reserved judgement, to a date that will be communicated to the parties, after taking arguments from parties in the suit.
In the suit, the Attorney General of Osun State, is seeking an order of the apex court directing the AGF to immediately release the statutory allocations to chairmen and councillors of the 30 LGA of the state.
Counsel for the the plaintiff, Musibau Adetunbi, who invoked Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, based on a letter according recognition to the disputed APC chairmen, also sought an order stopping the AGF from further withholding, seizing monthly allocations and revenues, to the credit of the constituents local governments, having democratically elected chairmen in place.
The grouse of the Osun Attorney General was that the AGF was wrong in his letter recognizing APC LGA chairmen when the matter was pending before the court.
He also predicated his case on the ground that the election that brought in the APC officials as local government chairmen, had been nullified by a Federal High Court and upheld by the court of appeal In Abuja.
While presenting the case of the plaintiff, Adetunbi asked the Justices of the apex court to uphold his argument and grant all the reliefs sought by his client.
Opposing the Suit, counsel for the AGF, Akin Olujimi, urged the apex court to dismiss the case on various grounds.
Among others, Olujimi argued that the plaintiff lacked the legal authority to bring the case before the Supreme Court to invoke the original jurisdiction.
He also contended that the apex court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit because it was not competent to be presented directly to it, as done by the plaintiff.
He further argued that the suit did not disclose any cause of action, adding that the tenure of the disputed council chairmen will run till October 22nd this year and the proper thing was for the funds to be released to them to run their councils.
He argued that the Osun AG had engaged in abuse of court processes by filing cases in different courts on the same subject with the same parties.
He therefore urged the court to refuse the reliefs sought by the plaintiff and dismiss the suit.
