Local govt. funds
•Federal Government should put its foot down against governors’ intransigence The report that Governor Babagana Umara Zulum has approved the immediate commencement of direct payment of monthly statutory allocations to
•Federal Government should put its foot down against governors’ intransigence
The report that Governor Babagana Umara Zulum has approved the immediate commencement of direct payment of monthly statutory allocations to accounts of Borno State’s 27 local councils at once reminds that the issue of compliance, by the governors, with the July 2024 judgment of the Supreme Court, is far from settled.
The state acting governor, Umar Usman Kadafur, was said to have conveyed the approval at the swearing-in of 27 newly-elected local government chairpersons. Referencing the Supreme Court’s judgment and President Bola Tinubu’s December 2025 call on the governors to obey the judgment, he reportedly charged the newly-sworn in chairmen to be accessible to their people, saying: “We are looking up to you at the grassroots to make sure whatever goes to the chairman of a local government, it should be transparent and accountable for every naira and kobo you receive. Borno State, I dare you: Borno is the only state where local governments receive their allocations directly”, he was quoted to have said.
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He added that “We will continue to publish whatever is given to local government areas as part of our transparency in the state, so that you should be held accountable for every resource you have collected on behalf of the people.”
While the state government might be commended for finally giving effect to the pronouncement of the apex court, we are certainly not aware of the state being the first.
The Director-General of the Delta State Bureau for Orientation and Communications, Latimore Oghenesivbe, had last December, made the similar claim of the state being the first to comply with the Supreme Court judgment granting financial autonomy to local government councils.
For us, however, the issue has since gone past the quest to cart a trophy. This is after all, a judgment delivered some 19 months ago by the apex court in the land. As far as we can see, the states have no options left; what is left is the simple duty of giving effect to the judgment as passed by the court.
Nigerians will recall that the Supreme Court had, only last December, expressed displeasure at the Federal Government’s failure to put into effect its July 2024 judgment.
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While tasking the relevant authorities to commence the implementation of that decision forthwith, the apex court would observe that there was no credible evidence before it that the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) had initiated or completed the needed modalities to give effect to its judgment in the case.
Now, it has been two months since. It is time, in our view, for the Federal Government to issue necessary directives to give effect to the judgment. That will be keeping within the tenets of the law and constitutionalism.
In any case, the hard part, which most Nigerians continue to find extremely difficult to understand, is why the governors, with their own duly passed budgets, would insist on what amounts to effectively hijacking the funds that do not belong to them. Harder to imagine is that the governors also freely exercise the liberty to spend the same funds that could not, conceivably, be appropriated by their legislatures lawfully.
This is what makes the act not just a travesty but a direct affront to the constitution that they are sworn to uphold. If we had thought that the intransigence of the governors would have stopped with last December’s chiding of the AGF by the apex court; that Governor Zulum is making a boast of being the first last week actually reveals that the situation has remained largely unchanged.
As it is, the time for forbearance for the intransigent governors would appear long gone. Henceforth, the Federal Government must ensure that every kobo due to the local governments, gets to them.
