Governors Meet Today on Court Ruling against their Objection to LGs’ Financial Autonomy

Chuks Okocha

The 36 governors in the country would meet today to deliberate on a Federal High Court ruling that dismissed a suit they had filed to challenge the constitutionality of regulations the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) had issued to guarantee financial autonomy for local governments.

In a statement by the Head of Information, NGF, Abdulraque Bello Barkindo, he was quoted to have said: “The lingering issue of the local governments’ financial autonomy which became topical nationwide from yesterday (Monday) may form part of the Chairman’s brief which is regularly given at the beginning of each meeting to open the matter for discussion among governors.”

The meeting, which he said was expected to be a hybrid would commence from 2pm, but governors were expected to log in from 1 pm.

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja presided over by Hon. Justice Inyang Ekwo had Monday delivered a judgement in favour of the Federal government and NFIU, on local government joint accounts nationwide.

The NFIU had in June 2019 issued guidelines aimed at curbing crime vulnerabilities created by cash withdrawals from local government accounts by various state governments.

The Nigerian Governors Forum had sued the federal government and the NFIU for interfering with state government powers to initiate transactions on local governments’ joint accounts citing provisions of the 1999 constitution.

According to the Chief Media Adviser to the NFIU, Ahmed Dikko, the NFIU had issued a guideline on money laundering risk and vulnerabilities advising all banks not to honour transactions from joint accounts.

He had said the NFIU directed the States/Local Governments Joint Accounts should be used only for receiving funds and subsequently transferring them to local government accounts only.

The guidelines also reduced cash withdrawal from local government accounts to N500,000 daily.

Immediately after the guidelines came into place, most local governments across the country stopped facing challenges in payment of staff salaries.

While reacting to the judgement the Director/CEO of NFIU, Mr. Modibbo Tukur said it was good because the federal government was always ready to protect both states and local governments by making funds available for their governance responsibility.

He stressed further that funds could be decided on by local councils which could be channeled to improving local security.

The CEO NFIU stressed that, “from this judgement and from today all transactions on Local Government funds will be disclosed to ICPC and EFCC 100% and will be reported continuously.”