What’s required is more than a Supreme Court judgement – Ogho Okiti

Given the unprecedented fiscal changes and proposals since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu became Nigeria’s 16^th President on May 29^th, 2023, it appears he is poised to be the most consequential “fiscal” president since independence. However, our generation’s worst cost of living crisis is preventing Nigerians from paying the required attention. 

In the last three weeks, three elements have come to light. First was the announcement of a new Federal Ministry of Livestock Development. The second is the bill seeking to create an additional 74 seats for women in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, a near 20% expansion of both houses. The third is the Supreme Court Judgment of July 11^th that directed that the local government’s share of federal allocations be paid directly into their accounts. 

The third is my focus, and there are many dimensions to this judgment. First, since the return to democratic rule in 1999, Nigeria’s supreme court has delivered three important judgements on local governments. In 2004, in a judgement between the federal government and Lagos State, then led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the court ruled in favour of the State that the federal government had no right to withhold the State’s allocation. The federal government had withheld the State’s local government allocation because it created additional local government development councils. 

In 2022, under President Muhammadu Buhari, the court ruled against his executive order that empowered the accountant general of the Federation to bypass the State government and disburse federal allocations directly to local governments. The third was the ruling of July 2024. This time the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the federal government and ruled that federal allocation can be directly paid into local government coffers. 

I am not a lawyer, but the Supreme Court is contradicting itself, especially given that the Constitution has not changed. Nonetheless, it arrived at two important judgements. The first, and I quote …. “It is the position of this court that the federation can pay local government allocation directly to the local government or through the States. In this case, since paying them through the States has not worked, justice demands that federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the local government.” The second ruling of the Supreme Court outlaws the existence of caretaker committees and prevents State governors from removing local government chairpersons. In response, about 13 States have announced local government elections since the ruling.

At this point, it is important to ask, what are the problems the President is trying to solve? 

• First, governors treat local government resources like their personal piggy banks. As a result, the local communities are starved of already inadequate funds. Primary education, health care centres and trunk c roads, which are supposed to be serviced and maintained by local governments are abandoned. 

• Second, State-independent electoral commissions are anything but independent. As it stands, they do not have both administrative and financial independence or autonomy. According to the Guardian of Monday 15^th July 2024, 21 States have caretaker committees running the affairs of their local governments. 

So, there is no doubt that the president is attempting to solve genuine local government problems, but these problems are best resolved through legislation and political negotiations, and not the Supreme Court.  Since the ruling, there is now an ongoing legislation for an independent local government electoral commission. The bill has now passed a second reading. It sounds good, except that it gives the president a role in this. 

Who is going to tell our legislators that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is already too powerful? Why not allow representations of political parties on the electoral body based on some predetermined criteria? Why not constitute the body based on some residency? Why should the body have another parallel electoral database? What is independence when the chairperson and six commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, especially given that Presidents have removed agency heads that have fixed terms even before their terms are over? And what is independent about its own budget that is approved by the Senate? 

In conclusion, the Supreme Court judgement exposes the most fundamental of Nigeria’s political elite problems since 1999 – the power grab. The tendency to continue to aggregate further and further / more and more powers, depending on which side we are on, is responsible for where we are today. The governors, since 1999 have learnt and graduated on how to aggregate local government powers to themselves. Now, the federal government, through the Supreme Court, has aggregated more powers to the President, rather than provide holistic and practical solutions to the inadequate representation of the people. 

If the president is genuinely seeking to make the local government independent, or even the States independent for that matter, he should facilitate the legislation that allows it to generate its resources, and not wait for monthly federal allocations. That is the way to ensure true fiscal federalism.