Supreme Court and Local Government Autonomy Ruling: A Mere Judicial Flame
Many may have disagreed with me when I posited in my previous article that what we practice in Nigeria in place of ” Constitutional Democracy ” is nothing other than ” Defensive Democracy ” meaning that our democracy limits some of our rights and freedoms in order to protect its existence; the existence of government and those in power.
Nigerians, in the past few days, has been in a celebratory mood, jubilating, singing and dancing to all kinds of victory songs while giving credit to the Supreme Court for what they consider the rightness of ruling on the local council financial Autonomy suit filed on behalf of President Bola Tinubu and the federal government by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi SAN.
While singing and dancing, they forgot that the Supreme Court in recent times has never done anything or given a straight forward ruling on any matter,especially political matters brought before them. They often,in a most disgusting way prefer to nibble around the edges of very serious matters thereby making the Judicial arm a laughing stock before the international community. They act like the devil that gives you something with the right hand and collects it with the left hand.
In solidarity with President Tinubu, Nasarawa Assembly throw weights behind LG Autonomy.
Why ruling on the matter when the ethical and constitutional provisions that created it lay beneath; provisions that kept alive the state and local government Joint Account ( Section 162(6) tagged: Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) which by virtue of Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution( as amended) was framed to facilitate rural development of the local communities through effective management of revenues accruing to the local government. This still remains the aim of the drafters of the constitution before our governors decided to covet and misappropriate the funds; even to the extent of denying the local councils the agreed 10% of state Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) that was supposed to be paid into the Joint Account.
Those celebrating and jubilating did not remember that in accordance with the constitution, the federating units, in this case the states still decides through their state electoral commission who becomes chairman and counsellor.
They also forget to remember that in a true federal state, the central government have nothing to do with the local councils, their finances and funding; they have nothing to do with the number of local councils they have as it is the right of the states to create local councils.
See Lagos state v Federal government 2004. President Bola Tinubu was then the governor of Lagos state, and they won the federal government under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo then President who seized lagos state local council Allocation for creating additional 37 local councils in the state.
The question is what has changed?
Has the constitution been amended since then? This is why the governors are laughing at us, because they will still approach the same supreme Court for interpretation of that section.
They believe that the federal government will be contravening the constitution if they go ahead to transfer local government Allocation straight to the local councils without first amending the relevant sections that set up the joint account. The only saving grace will be an amendment to the relevant sections of the constitution.
Why I consider the ruling as a mere judicial flame is because, if you amend the constitution to reflect what a true federal state should be, then local councils will be under the governors.
In the words of “Niccolo Machiavelli,” Nothing is more difficult to bring about than a new order of things; because, those who profit from the old order will do everything to prevent the new order from coming on board and those who could profit from the new order do not do enough to make it happen, because man does not want to try new things.
Let the President do what is right by convocating a body that will give us a PEOPLES CONSTITUTION that will be acceptable to all. This patch today and patch tomorrow constitution is unacceptable.
Written by Chief Dan Lawrence Oyiriaru (Ohamadike)
