The Supreme Court has on Thursday, ordered the Federal Government to withhold the allocations to local governments run by unelected officials.
The apex court gave this order in an ongoing judgement in a suit filed by Minister of Justice and Attorney- General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, against the states over financial autonomy for the local governments.
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 governors.
Justice Agim accused state governors of retaining allocations and utilising them as they please, to the detriment of the local government councils.
The Supreme Court also ordered that the 774 local government councils in the country should manage their funds themselves.
