LG autonomy: AGF warns governors against tampering with Supreme Court’s  judgment

the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, has warned state governors not toy with have the idea of overturning the Supreme Court’s judgment, which granted financial autonomy to local governments.

Fagbemi, who spoke in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, insisted the governors  must respect the judgment. .

He added that though the Federal Government did not grant the three-month moratorium requested by the governors for the implementation of the judgment, its implementation is being delayed by the need to establish certain frameworks.

He said: “Unfortunately, I know it has been in the media that they gave them (the governors) a three-month moratorium, which is not the position. The position is that, yes, the judgment was delivered, but we felt that there is a need to put some things in place before the full implementation. That it is going to be implemented is sacrosanct; nobody can run away from it.

“Are they going to rewrite the judgment of the Supreme Court? Once we have the full details of their law, we will act accordingly.

“There is no such moratorium. The judgment was passed, but we acknowledged the need to establish certain frameworks before full implementation. Nonetheless, implementation is compulsory, and no one can avoid it.”

Some governors are suspected to be piling  pressure on the local government chairmen in their states to ignore the judgement.

 For instance, Anambra State Government, under Governor Chukwuma Soludo,  recently enacted the Local Government Administration Law 2024.

The controversial legislation was interpreted as Soludo’s plot to evade the Supreme Court judgment in the state.