thebenuechroniclenews

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 governme...

..... As uncertainty looms over the conduct of council elections in Benue State.  The National Assembly on Tuesday, granted full financial and administrative autonomy to all the 774 local council authorities across Nigeria by amending section 124 of the nation’s constitution. The section provides a consequential provision for the making of the local councils, a full third tier government without undue interference from the state governments. The ammendment was one of the 22 others approved by the House of Representatives last week and ratified by the Senate on Tuesday. Both chambers had through a conference committee harmonised versions of the ammendments into the constitution carried out by each of them last month. By the development, the National Assembly had ratified all the 23 clauses and sections that had been ammended by both chambers. The newly ammended document which would be sent to States Houses of Assembly, for approval, also approved the creation of the Office of Audito...