Opinion
By Dr. Ikemefuna Taire Paul Okudolo
ON the one hand, Nigerians are bound to perceive the Supreme Court judgment upholding the prayers of the Federal Government regarding fiscal local autonomy as a much needed timely and radiant judicial intervention.
Whereas, on the other hand, that judgment of July 11, 2024, is much more a vindication of the prophetic powers of intellectualism and intellectuals.
I am particularly elated with the ruling for it ably validates the organic scholarship that Nigerian social science intellectuals produce for the betterment of the country.
No doubt, the judgment is a testament that our political leaders need to take the Nigerian intellectuals more seriously in their nation-building projects.
Why do I reason the judgment in this way? On the 21st of December 2017, the Senate of the University of Lagos approved my Ph.D. thesis entitled “Constitutional Contradictions and the Implications on State-Local Government Relations in Nigeria, 1999-2015”.
By implication, the principal variable my thesis measured was the local autonomy predicament in Nigeria during the understudied period.
Therefrom the dissertation, its first two stated recommendations perfectly resonates the provisos of this Supreme Court ruling authorizing payment of local government financial allocations directly to them.
My thesis’ first recommendation is that “allocations to local governments from the Federation Account should be remitted directly into individual local government account.
This implies providing for a Local Government Account in the 1999 Constitution. It therefore means that Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution require to have a clause in the section providing for a Local Government Account into which revenues of the local governments from the Federation Account shall be paid into.
It also means that the language and letter of Section 162(5)(6) will have to be revised.
The second recommendation reads thus: “Only revenues due to local governments from the states should pass through the SJLGA. This means that Section 162(6) will be amended to only accommodate allocations to local governments from the state’s internally generated revenues.
This implies that the SJLGA would not have to be expunged from the constitution but its role in the fiscal intergovernmental sharing process modified”.
This Supreme Court latest pronouncement that the Federal Government can bypass the State Joint Local Government Account (SJLGA) in the intergovernmental fiscal relations scheme is a validation of intellectualism.
The judgment will definitely bode well for grassroots development in the country. Henceforward, elected local government officials will be subjected to accountability measures of how local finances are expended by the local electorates and not the governor and other state-based elites.
With this ruling, local infrastructure will enjoy the necessary attention without dictate from the state tiers because it behoves on the local governments to provide them.
Above all, direct disbursement of federal allocations to local governments ultimately defeats their subordination by the state governors and this situation is what fiscal local autonomy ought to be in a federalism.
This ruling merely confirms the intricate importance of giving intellectualism its pride of place in nation-building process of Nigeria.
Its ulterior messaging too is like a word of caution to elected political leaders who ignore to listen to intellectuals and works of intellectualism in their governance dynamics.
Inadvertently by deductive reasoning, the judgment speaks to intellectuals whose calling demands for them to produce well-reasoned prognosis, theories and organic scholarships that advance the Nigerian society.
In celebrating this Supreme Court ruling, I thank my Ph.D. supervisors, Prof. Solomon Akinboye and Dr. Emma Onah for their tutelage, support, guidance and ensuring that my thesis met the standards of intellectual rigour.
Prof. Akinboye’s response goes thus: “That is the essence of a Ph.D. thesis.
“It is supposed to make impact on the society. Yours has achieved that. Congratulations to you and all of us. More grace”.
——-Dr. Ikemefuna Taire Paul Okudolo is an Extraordinary Researcher of the Afrocentric Governance of Public Affairs (AGoPA) Entity of the North-West University, South Africa.
He can be reached on +2348023686576 or ikemefunapaul@yahoo.com
F.A
July 14, 2024
Tags: LGA autonomy Victory for Intellectualism
