By Cosmas Omegoh
Concerns are currently echoing following the controversial bill signed last Tuesday by Anambra State governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo to counter the ruling of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The said law “Anambra Local Government Administration Law 2024,” was hurriedly passed by the state House of Assembly a week before.
The law mandates councils in the state to remit a certain amount of money accruing to them from the federal allocation into a consolidated account to be controlled by the state government.
The Soludo example is believed to parallel the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s recent verdict granting autonomy to the 774 local government areas in the country.
In May this year, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, filed a suit at the Supreme Court of Nigeria, seeking to free the local governments from the hold of the state governments.
Two months later, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Federal Government, and granted full financial autonomy to the councils.
In his ruling on behalf of the panel of judges, Justice Emmanuel Agim declared: “It is the position of this court that the federation can pay local government allocations directly to the local governments or through the states.
“In this case, since paying them through the states has not worked, justice demands that local government allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the local governments.”
Finally bringing down his gavel, he added: “I hold that the states’ retention of local government funds is unconstitutional.”
There was a wave of excitement that greeted the Supreme Court ruling as many believed it was legally germane in allowing the councils to breathe.
For many, the truth out there at the public square is that the state governors have over the years maintained a choking hold on the councils – especially their finances.
It is public knowledge that state governors unilaterally emplace their cronies as council heads whom they give pittance as their council’s share of their federal allocation. What they give them at month end is merely running cost, and they dare not let out a whimper let alone protest. Where the aggregate of the rest of the funds is deployed is Nigeria’s hard science.
But Nigerians sorely worried by this practice often insisted it is a part of the web of sleaze around the state-council relationship.
When, therefore, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling, many hailed it as revolutionary, coming to consign that age-long corrupt practice that allowed the state governments to receive council allocations on their behalf and spend them at will to the trash can.
But a little later, it emerged that state governments were not happy with the Supreme Court ruling. They must come out with their sleight of hand.
Indication that the states government had something up their sleeves emerged when the Chairman of the Body of States Attorneys General and Attorney General of Ebonyi State, Odoh Uruchi, reportedly said his members would review the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment before taking a position.
Some Nigerians who got the drift of his mind knew where that was coming from. They knew where the almighty governors were headed next. They knew from that hour that before the cock will crew thrice, the state government would be out with something sinister. And that was a matter of time.
It did not, therefore, surprise many when Soludo sprang up with his law, which is now being interpreted as his own way of extending his palm to the councils’ pie.
He doesn’t want the free flow of money from the councils funnel to cease. And he is not alone in his scheme; he merely shut ahead; others like him are waiting in the wings to come up with their own tactics.
At the signing ceremony of the law, Soludo laboured to put down the Supreme Court ruling, describing it as an “impossibility,” and a “recipe for humongous chaos.”
Listen to him: “The absolute autonomy to the 774 local government areas in the country is an impossibility. In fact, it is a recipe for humongous chaos.
“The attendant challenges before the issue of local government autonomy are such that would certainly deepen the fate of the system and spell doom for the expected beneficiaries of the process if not well planned.”
Then advancing his Soludo Solution he said: “The new laws by Anambra House of Assembly are therefore consequential to give operational life to the Supreme Court judgment and not to undermine it.
“If the state House of Assembly abdicates this constitutional duty, the Local Government will then have no law on the use and management of its finance.
“The Federal Government has exclusive rights over resources, but the state has exclusive rights over the land. At the state level, each state is spending a fortune on its revenue.
“No tier of government can function without the collaboration of others. The three tiers have the objective of the people. The FG is not completely autonomous of the state. It’s a collaborative arrangement to achieve the same objective.”
While trying to free himself from the suspicion that many Nigerians have about the governors, he said: “Governors are often accused of seeking to ‘control’ LG funds with insinuations that LG funds are mismanaged. Of course, in a society where public office is seen as ‘dining table’ and public trust is low, people judge others by their own standards.”
So far, the Soludo novelty leaves a train of controversy in its wake. The learned professor leaves Nigerians with a lot to chew and ponder about. And expectedly, the people are doing so.
Largely, various individuals and groups have been flaying the former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor for his singular deft move on the chess board. Whose best interest is the Soludo law going to serve, many ask: self, democratic institutions or the people?
For every lover of democracy, the Soludo entry has in the meantime, thrown up so much that excite and perhaps agitate the mind at the same time.
First, it brought to the fore, the fact that every governor can seek and get legislation that will help them run the state in the best interest of their people.
But it also revealled how malleable, how pliable Nigeria’s legislators have suddenly become. From the federal to the state levels, they pass bills from the Executive arm of the government with the speed of light, without doing due diligence to them – all because the man at the helms has hot interest in them. It is happening.
Indeed, many Nigerians are wondering how – particularly the success of the Soludo game will shape or reshape other declarations of the Supreme Court henceforward.
With other governors waiting to see how far Soludo will fare, who knows whether the Supreme Court ruling on autonomy of the local governments will not become mere academic exercise after all.
Indeed, Soludo has handed all and sundry something hefty to ponder about. He is forcing the law and democracy to take a corner.
