Governors Have No Power To SACK LG Chairmen, Councillors - SUPREME Court Rules

The Supreme Court yesterday voided laws enacted by the states’ Houses of Assembly which allow governors to sack elected Chairmen of Local Governments and Councillors and replace them with appointed administrators.

It has of recent become a tradition among governors to dissolve the Executive Councils of the states’ LGs and replace them with their appointees, who they call caretaker committees. 

In a unanimous judgement of five Justices of the Supreme Court described the practice as “executive recklessness”, which must not be allowed to persist.

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The judgment by the five-man panel, led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour was on the appeal in relation to the dissolution of the 16 Local Government Executives in Ekiti State, during Kayode Fayemi’s tenure.

The appeal marked:SC/120/2013 was filed by the Ekiti State Government. It had Prince Sanmi Olubunmo (Chairman of Ido Osi LG and Chairman of Association of Local Government’s of Nigeria – ALGON, Ekiti Chapter and 13 others as respondents. Fayemi, now Minister of Mineral Resources reportedly announced the dissolution of the councils in a radio announcement on October 29, 2010, when the elected council officials still had up till December 19, 2011 to end their three-year tenure.

The Supreme Court, in faulting the law purportedly relied on by Fayemi, held that Section 23(b) of the Ekiti State Local Government Administration (Amendment) Law, 2001, which empowered the governor to dissolve local government councils, whose tenure was yet to expire, violated section 7(1) of the Constitution from which the state House of Assembly derived the power to enact the local government law. 

Justice Centus Nweze, in the lead judgment, said: “There can be no doubt, as argued by the appellants’ counsel, that the Ekiti State House of Assembly is empowered to make laws of Ekiti State.

“However, the snag here is that, in enacting section 23(b) of the Ekiti State Local Government Administration (Amendment) Law, 2001, which empowered the first appellant to bridge the tenure of office of the respondents, it overreached itself. “In other words, section 23(b) (supra) is violative of, and in conflict with section 7(1) of the Constitution (supra). “Hence, it is bound to suffer the fate of ll laws which are in conflict with the Constitution, section 1(3) thereof.”

The judge Said Section 7(1) of the Constitution seeks to guarantee “the system of local government by democratically-elected local government councils and conferred “sacrosanctity on the elections of such officials whose electoral mandates derived from the will of the people freely exercised through the democratic process”.

“The implication, therefore, is that section 23(b) of thethe Ekiti State Local Government Administration (Amendment) Law, 2001, which was not intended to ‘ensure the existence of’ such democratically-elected councils, but to snap their continued existence by their substitution with caretaker councils, was enacted in clear breach of the supreme provisions of section 7(1) of the Constitution.

“To that extent, it (section 23(b) supra) cannot co-habit with section 7(1) of the Constitution (supra) and must, in consequence, be invalidated. “The reason is simple. By his oath of office, the governor swore to protect and not to supplant the Constitution.

“Hence, any action of his which has the capacity of undermining the same Constitution (as in the instant case where the first appellant, ‘Governor of Ekiti State and others’ dissolved the tenure of the respondents and replaced them with caretaker committees) is tantamount to executive recklessness which would not be condoned,” the judge said. Justice Nweze said the the tenure of the local government councils could not be abridged without violating the supreme constitutional provisions.

“Simply put, therefore, the election of such officials into their offices and their tenure are clothed with constitutional force. They cannot, therefore, be abridged without breaching the Constitution from which they derive their force. “The only permissible exception, where a state governor could truncate the lifespan of a local government council which evolved through the democratic process of elections, is ‘for overriding public interest’ in a period of emergency.”

He upheld the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal on the issue and adopted the orders made by the Court of Appeal on the case in its judgment delivered on January 23, 2013. The Appeal Court had among others, ordered the Ekiti State Government to compute and pay all the allowances and salaries accruable to members of the dissolved councils between October 29, 2010 and December 19, 2011, both dates inclusive. Justice Nweze directed the Attorney- General of Ekiti State to ensure that the orders of the lower court (Appeal Court) affirmed in his judgment, are complied with.

The Nation

SHOCKER: Supreme Court's Secret Account Where Bribe Proceeds Likely Kept UNCOVERED, Official On The Run Arrested

The Nation - A Supreme Court’s bank account said to  contain billions of naira has attracted  the  attention  of  the Department of State Security Services ( DSS).

The organization is currently probing seven judges,two of them justices of the apex court,for alleged corruption.

The account, The Nation gathered authoritatively yesterday ,is  being operated outside the civil service procedures.

Money from it was also said to have been withdrawn regularly to fund foreign travels of some judges.

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The agency is now investigating how and for what reason (s)  the account was opened.

Supreme Court justices and even staff of the apex court are believed to draw from it.

Investigators suspect that the dollars seized from the homes of some of the judges under probe may have come from the account.

The  DSS has already restricted the movement of the Registrar of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Saleh and some top officials to the country on account of its investigation of the suspicious account.

Also restricted  are the Director of Finance, Muhammed Abdulrahman Sharif and Rilwanu Lawal.

Only last Thursday,the Federal Government filed a nine-count charge of diversion of N2.2billion against the three top officials.

A highly-placed source said: “In line with the current investigation of some judges, the DSS has discovered a suspicious account in the Supreme Court. The modalities for the operation of the account allegedly against the extant financial regulations were being probed by the security agency.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspicious account was used to cater for foreign trips of some judges, including a few ones who were arrested by the DSS.

“The remittances into the account were in billions of Naira. There is a strong suspicion by the DSS that the dollars seized from the residences of some of these judges were drawn from the suspicious account.

“Some principal officers have been interrogated by the secret service. The manner in which the account was operated was suspected to be outside the extant laws in the civil service.

“It is left to the civil servants to prove that the processes of opening the account and managing it were legal and transparent. Otherwise, they have a case to answer.”

Another source  said  one of the officials was intercepted at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport , Abuja while trying  to travel  out of the country for a conference.

“None of the officials can travel out until the ongoing investigation is completed,” the source said.

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