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Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has said Thursday’s Supreme Court judgment on Local Government Council Autonomy means that the Federation Account Allocation Committee will not release funds to Rivers, Abia, Anambra, Katsina, Zamfara, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers and other states with Caretaker Committee LGA chairmen will be withheld.
Ozekhome disclosed this on Friday in an interview with Channels Television.
“The judgement of the government is clear. If you want to receive funds from the federation account, then conduct an election. If what you have in place is a caretaker committee as local government chairman, be sure that it will not have money from the federation account. If you want money from the federation account, such councils must be democratically elected,” he stated.
This comes following the recent Supreme Court verdict endorsing full local government autonomy and ordering that funds from the Federation Account should be paid directly to LG accounts.
The country’s highest court, with Thursday’s verdict, stopped governors from receiving and tampering with local government allocations.
Also, the Supreme Court barred governors from henceforth dissolving democratically elected officials for local governments and that doing so would amount to a breach of the 1999 Constitution.
DAILY POST reports that over 18 states in Nigeria currently have CTCs including Rivers, Benue, Anambra, Imo, Kwara, Abia, Enugu, Plateau, Zamfara, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Yobe, Ondo, Osun, Akwa-Ibom and Cross River.
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