JULY FEDERAL ALLOCATION: Federal Government To Withhold July Allocations to Benue, Enugu, Rivers, Kano and 16 Other States

The Federal Government will from July withhold local government allocations to Benue, Enugu, Kano, Rivers, and 16 other states in compliance with the Supreme Court judgement.

The apex court on Thursday delivered a judgment in the local government autonomy suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, on behalf of the Nigerian Government, barring the Federal Government from releasing allocations to local governments governed by unelected officials appointed by the state governors.

In the judgment, Justice Emmanuel Agim barred the Federal Government from further paying LG allocations through the state governments, noting that the practice had been abused by the governors.

Justice Agim accused the state governors of retaining allocations and utilising them as they please, to the detriment of the local government councils.

Following the judgment, 20 states that have no elected local government chairmen stand barred from receiving local government allocations from July until they conduct elections.

The states are Jigawa, Rivers, Anambra, Imo, Kwara, Zamfara, Bauchi, Plateau, Abia, Enugu, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Yobe, Ondo, Osun, Delta, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Benue.

This means that newly inaugurated caretaker chairmen in Benue State will not have access to FAAC as result, putting payment of local government staff salaries on hold until the emergence of a duely elected council in the State. 

The Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia inaugurated Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC) has sets November 16th, 2024 as the date for the LG polls in the state.