From Victor Osula, Abuja
Governor Soludo
A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja has restrained the Accountant General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance from remitting funds to the 21 LGAs of Anambra State from the consolidated revenue fund, pending the determination of a suit brought before it.
Justice Bello Kawo, who delivered the ruling, also ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe how funds that accrued to the LGAs from March 2022 to April 2024 were deployed and used by the Anambra State Government.
The orders followed an ex parte application filed by a legal practitioner, Chukwuebuka Mmeni Esq.
Defendants in the suit are the Accountant General of the Federation, Minister of Finance, Attorney General of the Federation, Anambra State Government and the EFCC.
Justice Kawo granted all the prayers sought by the Applicant upon reading through the ex parte motion, a nine-paragraph affidavit/annexures, as well as the oral submissions of his counsel, N. O. Okpe, who held the brief of Chimezie Enuka.
Recall that Anambra State governor had on May 19, 2024 dissolved the transition committees in the 21 LGAs and ordered his party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, to send nominations to fill the vacancies
Special Adviser to the governor on political matters Dr. Alex Obiogbolu had conveyed the message to all the transition committee chairmen.
The directive said: “The party stakeholders in each Local Government are expected to meet on May 18th or 19th 2024, to consider and recommend for his consideration, three persons for the position of TC Chairman and three persons for Local Government Education Secretaries.
“The three recommendations for Transition Committee Chairmen shall include at least one woman; while the three recommendations for Education Secretary shall be two women and one man.” The directive attracted criticism from opposition political parties and the general public who felt the Soludo led -administration was poised to conduct elections into the LGAs. Anambra has not conducted polls into LGAs since 2014, during the second tenure of Peter Obi as governor.
There are however 16 other states like Anambra which are still running LGAs through transition committees despite two ruling-in 2015 and 2019- by the Supreme Court that, first, governors have no power to sack LGA chairman and second, should not run them through committees as that would be contrary to Section 7 (1) of the Constitution, which states that.
“The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the Government of every State shall, subject to section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a Law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition…”
