Akpabio, Abbas, Fagbemi hail Supreme Court verdict

By Egena Sunday Ode

President of the Senate, Godswill Akabio, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas and the Artoney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, have commended the ruling of the Supreme Court on the autonomy of local governments.

The Supreme Court had Thursday affirmed the constitutional rights of the third tier of government as provided in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria.

The trio were at the State House to seen President Bola Tinubu after the Sipreme Court judgement on Thursday.

Speaking to newsmen after a closed-doors with the President Bola Tinubu, Akpabio noted that the legislature will all that is necessary to ensure effective enforcement of the judgment, describing the verdict of court as words that must be obeyed.

“Recall that the request was placed before the courts by the AGF because the FG through President Bola Tinubu feels strongly about separation of powers and the need for autonomy of all arms of governments. And so for us in the legislature, the Supreme Court has spoken and we have no option than to abide by the Supreme Court ruling.

“So, I will just call on all states of the federation to respect what the Supreme Court has done and then we will go back to the legislature and see where we can dot the i’s and cross the t’s to ensure the full implementation.

“Because you know the words of the Supreme Court are like the words of the king, they cannot go down to the grown without implementation.

So I think this is a great day for democracy, and I congratulate the president for this initiative,” Akpabio said.

Speaking in similar vein, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas said he was happy that an issue that has lying in the legislature for over 20 years has been finally resolved.

His words: “The members have been very happy because history has been made ,this is an issue that has been before the parliament for the past 20 years. All the constitutional amendments that were so far carried out by the national assembly, one aspect of it has always been local government autonomy ,how do we make the LGAs to work independently . Today that impossibility became a reality, everyone is happy and we are looking forward to LGAs that will work functionally and that will be able to work on their own and extend goodwill to their own people undisturbed by the excesses of the state Governors.”

On his part, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, who had instituted the litigation on behalf of the Federation Government, said the judgement has ancipated the local governments.

“Naturally, one will be happy, should be happy, Nigerians are happy about it. I call it local government emancipation judgement because it has really emancipated the local government from the shackles of the past and I hope that local government officials will look at it as an opportunity to develop their various local governments.

“Part of it requires that states government’s conduct elections for government areas. How are we going to ensure compliance?

“The ball is in the court of the governors, let us see what they will come out with, but the judgement is clear as to what they should do, the judgement os clear as to what consequences will attack to failure or refusal to follow the judgement of the Supreme Court, which takes immediate effect,” he stated.