The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), has warned governors who fail to grant autonomy to the local governments in their states risk treason charges and unpleasant consequences.
Fagbemi stated this during the opening ceremony of a state of the nation discourse with the theme: “Strengthening Local Government Autonomy in Nigeria: A Dialogue on the Impact and Implementation of the Supreme Court Judgement” organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) on Wednesday in Abuja.
Fagbemi, who was represented by the Director of Civil Appeals in the Federal Ministry of Justice, Tijani Gazali (SAN), insisted that the actions of the 36 state governors necessitated the President Bola Tinubu administration’s filing of the action at the Supreme Court seeking constitutional interpretation, adding that all the reliefs of the federal government were granted.
“It is, however, imperative to state that despite the Supreme Court judgement outlawing the illegal removal of democratically elected local government chairmen by state governors, it is quite unfortunate that few states have continued to flagrantly carry on with this illegality.
“Let me state in unequivocally terms that this act is tantamount to treason and must be treated as such,” he said.
He noted that although Section 308 grants immunity to state governors, their actions would attract “unpleasant consequences.”
Fagbemi maintained that the verdict of the apex court had re-inforced the role of local government in a democracy as spelt out in Section 1(2) of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999, adding that the federal government had set up a 10-member committee comprising the Association of Local Gocernment of Nigeria (ALGON) to come up with an implementation guideline.
In his opening remarks, the President of NBA, Mazi Afam Osigwe (SAN), who cited the ongoing violence in Osun State over local government autonomy, wondered why the struggle for the control of local government by the state governments.
“I hold a position that there must be democracy at the local government. If we fail to get it right at the local governmet level, we may be setting a stage for calamity,” he added.