Supreme Court Orders Ignored as Tinubu Accused of Weaponising LG Funds for Political Control
By Passman Akpos
Atiku Accuses Tinubu of Defying Supreme Court Judgment on Local Government AutonomyFormer Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of deliberately refusing to enforce a binding judgment of the Supreme Court ordering direct allocation of funds to local government councils from the Federation Account.
In a strongly worded open letter addressed to the president, Atiku said that by July next year, the Tinubu administration would have spent two full years ignoring the apex court’s ruling, describing the continued non-implementation as “defiance” rather than administrative delay.
“This is not delay. It is defiance,” Atiku said. “Your refusal to act is a calculated political move—using obedience to the law as a bargaining chip to force opposition governors into the APC and to keep governors within your party firmly under your control.”
The former vice-president warned that the president’s inaction had reduced the Constitution to a “tool of convenience” and governance to partisan bargaining, stressing that Supreme Court judgments are final and not optional.
He argued that the continued withholding of financial autonomy from local governments was crippling grassroots development, noting that local councils remain the closest tier of government to the people.
“By withholding their financial autonomy—which ironically you have been trumpeting as a core cardinal policy—you are not weakening governors, you are crippling communities, stalling development, and deepening poverty at the grassroots,” Atiku said. “Roads remain broken, health centres abandoned, salaries unpaid—not by accident, but by choice.”
Atiku urged President Tinubu to immediately instruct the Attorney-General of the Federation to enforce the judgment, insisting that the matter did not require executive threats or political grandstanding.
“Anything short of this is a failure of leadership,” he added, warning that history and Nigerians would not forget what he described as a prioritisation of political control over constitutional duty and economic justice.
The comments come against the backdrop of a landmark Supreme Court judgment which ruled that the Federal Government must henceforth pay allocations directly to democratically elected local government councils from the Federation Account.
Delivering the judgment, a seven-member panel of justices held that state governments had persistently abused their powers by retaining and utilising funds meant for local governments. Justice Emmanuel Agim, who read the lead judgment, declared that governors had no constitutional authority to dissolve democratically elected local councils or to collect their funds.
“The amount standing to the credit of local government councils must be paid by the federation to the local government councils and not by any other person or body,” the court ruled.The apex court further ordered that only democratically elected local government councils are entitled to receive allocations, directing the Federal Government to withhold funds from councils run by unelected caretaker committees appointed by state governors.
It also granted an injunction restraining state governments from collecting funds meant for local governments where no democratically elected councils are in place and ordered immediate enforcement and compliance by all levels of government.
The judgment followed a suit filed in May by the Federal Government against the governors of the 36 states, marked SC/CV/343/2024. The suit, instituted by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, sought full autonomy for Nigeria’s 774 local governments and the direct transfer of their allocations from the Federation Account, in line with the 1999 Constitution
The Federal Government argued that persistent failure by governors and state houses of assembly to conduct local government elections undermined constitutional democracy and that continued disbursement of funds to states for unelected councils violated the sanctity of the Constitution.
Despite the clear orders of the Supreme Court, implementation of direct FAAC allocation to local governments has remained a contentious and politically charged issue, fueling growing debate over constitutional compliance, federalism, and grassroots governance in Nigeria.
