Approach Supreme Court for further clarification, lawyer tells AGF

An Abuja-based human rights lawyer, Tolu Babaleye, has urged the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to approach the Supreme Court for further clarification on the court’s verdict on local government autonomy in Nigeria.

Babaleye, in a telephone interview with the newsmen on Friday, said that there was a need to get a clearer directive on what to do next on some sections of the constitution that were seemingly in collision with Thursday’s verdict of the apex court.

”The final court we have today in the land is the Supreme Court, and I know that the constitution is supreme too. As of today, the pronouncement of the Supreme Court is still the law.

”I know that both parties are still going back to the Supreme Court for further directive, maybe now through an originating summons; they will pray for the Supreme Court to give a directive that the affected sections of the constitution should be amended.

”I will advise the parties, either the judgement creditor or judgement debtor, to go back to the Supreme Court for further clarification.

”The Attorney General of the Federation can go back again through an originating summons. For me, I will ask the Attorney General of the Federation to go back to the Supreme Court again and ask it to give additional order to the National Assembly to do the needful and amend some sections of the constitution,” he said.

The legal practitioner said that no matter how faulty a court judgement seems to be, it must be obeyed.

”And this judgement is from the Supreme Court. It is a watershed in our jurisprudence as it stands today in Nigeria.

”Law grows. So, we will continue to grow; we will develop. America today does not attain the position they are in a day.

”I’m in total support of the Supreme Court judgement, and I’m not looking at the shortcomings, therefore, anyway.

”So, the state governors are bound to obey. Definitely, there will be some conflicts but it’s the Supreme Court that can do the readjustment,” he said.

Babaleye, who decried the joint account for states and local governments, also alleged that it was a way of siphoning and impoverishing the local governments.

He said that state governments had held local governments in the jugular, making the local governments not local but too far away from the people.

”It’s a good one that the state governments should obey. If they do anything else, they should be held in contempt.

”Any state government that is operating a caretaker committee or transition committee in any form is doing it at its own peril, acting contemptuous of the Supreme Court’s decision,” he said.

Also speaking to newsmen, a political scientist, Mr. Adesina Akinbobola, said that any judgement of the Supreme Court as an institution on its own had become a law, saying that the National Assembly would do the needful concerning the judgement.

Akinbobola said that the Supreme Court’s judgement was a serious matter that could not be joked with and that it had given a clear directive that local government funds should be paid directly to their bank accounts.

He said that the judgement also directed each local government to have elected and substantive chairmen with their councillors.

According to him, there is no way there can be development at the grassroots level without a functional local government being administered by elected officials.

He explained that local government chairmen and councillors could easily be checked and corrected because of their closeness to the people.

”It will go a long way in bringing development to the people of the grassroots because elected chairman and councillors will be accountable to the people,” he said.