SIX months after the July 11, 2024 Supreme Court verdict on Local Government Autonomy, the ruling is yet to be implemented. The LGAs are yet to start receiving direct allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC.

Contrary to Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution which stipulates that local governments be run by democratically elected officials, some states are still running local governments with caretaker committees.

The Federal Government recently raised a committee to work on the modalities. October 2024 was fixed for commencement and later moved to January 2025, after an agreement with governors, leading affected governors to hurriedly fix council polls. The elections are expected to be concluded next month.

Again, the January commencement date appears uncertain. The Accountant-General of the Federation is yet to issue authorisation for direct remission of allocation to councils.

Worried by the development, the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, has urged President Tinubu to ensure state governors follow the Supreme Court’s decision.

Some governors have succeeded in obstructing the process because of the complexity of the issue and constitutional hurdles yet to be cleared.

 Between 1999 and 2002, local councils got their allocations directly from FAAC, straight from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

Later, the states introduced the Joint Allocation Account Committee, JAAC, initially to discuss issues that state and local governments could finance jointly.

Mid-way, direct allocation to LGAs was aborted; governors started having access to the JAAC, taking advantage of the transit route to tamper with local council funds.

On July 11, 2024, the Supreme Court ended those practices. Answering the prayers of the Federal Government, it granted financial autonomy to the local governments and made it illegal for state governors to sack elected local government councils.

However, the Supreme Court did not adjudicate on council elections, where governors still wield enormous powers.

Section 197 of the 1999 Constitution empowers the states, through the State Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECs, to organise local government elections.

Like the JAAC, the operations of the SIECs have also been hijacked by the governors. The outcome is that ruling parties in states have always won council polls, with loyalists of governors emerging winners.

Thus, without constitutional amendment removing Section 197, subsection 1(b) of the constitution, and dissolution of JAAC, attainment of full council autonomy may be a pipe dream.

There is a need to resolve the issue of who conducts LG polls. Will the State Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECS, be abolished via Constitution amendment? Will the mandate to conduct LG elections be returned to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, or another national body created? Can LG chairmen, who are predominantly political acolytes of governors, assert their fiscal independence in managing council funds? Will the anti-graft agencies be on their toes to keep erring council and state government officials in check? These are questions whose answers will determine how far LG autonomy will go.