By Adedapo Adesanya
A Federal High Court has ruled in favour of the federal government and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) against the state governors over the financial autonomy for the 774 Local Government Areas of the federation.
Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja delivered the ruling on Monday, May 23 in favour of the central government and the NFIU.
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.
It directed that the states/local government joint accounts should use 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 the payment of staff salaries.
However, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) sued the FG and the NFIU for interfering with state government powers to initiate transactions on Local Government Joint accounts citing provisions of the 1999 constitution.
While reacting to the judgement the Director/CEO of NFIU, Mr Modibbo Tukur, said the judgement is good because the federal government is always ready to protect both states and local governments by making funds available for their governance responsibility.
He stressed that funds can now be decided on by local councils which can be channelled to improve local security.
Mr Tukur stated that the ruling would help ensure transparency and accountability since anti-corruption agencies like the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are involved.
“From this judgement and from today all transactions on Local Government funds will be disclosed to ICPC and EFCC 100 per cent and will be reported continuously,” he said.
Modupe Gbadeyanka