Former Delta State Governor, Chief James Ibori, has described the Supreme Court ruling, which gave financial autonomy to the 774 local government councils in Nigeria, as defective.
Ibori, who made the declaration in a post on his X handle, said the decision could be seen as a ban on state autonomy.
The ruling, according to him, could be seen as an erosion of state autonomy. As he said, states are meant to have significant control over their internal affairs, including the administration of local governments, in a federal system.
He stressed that federal government has no right to interfere with the administration of local governments under any guise whatsoever.
To him, there are only two tiers of government in a federal system of government.
He further expressed hope that the judgement delivered will be reviewed at the earliest possible time. As he said, it stands the concept of federalism on its head.
In his words: “If the ruling is saying governors cannot tamper, touch, or fiddle with the joint accounts, that’s fine because they shouldn’t be doing that in the first place, but asking the federal government to pay local governments allocations to the accounts of the local government directly is utter madness.
Source: James Ibori @X
