In a question of pressing national importance, Sen. Tony Nwoye today raised the critical need to end the execution of activities of state legislatures using their state Houses of Assembly, to sanction regulations that break sacred arrangements, and the Supreme Court judgment on granting financial autonomy to local governments in line with the provisions of the constitution.
The motion was co-supported by 12 other senators on a supposed move by some state governments to evade execution of judgment through counter regulations from their respective state House of Assembly.
The motion says, “Further concerned that the modus Operandi of subverting this financial autonomy of Local governments by state governments through their houses of assembly is to insert clauses in their laws requiring the Local Governments upon receipt of their allocation from Federation Account to remit all or majority or substantial portion of their allocation to a dedicated account which the State Governments will keep, control, manage or disburse for them using some nomenclatures like state/LGA joint account, state/LGA Consolidated revenue account, Local Government Joint Security Trust account etc.”
Sen. Nwoye asserted that some State Governors are already using their House of Assembly to order regulations that would command particular local government councils in their states, to remit monies into State / Local Government Joint Accounts disallowed by the Supreme Court.
In the following contentions and synchronous marks of requests, several senators approached the Senate President, Godswil Akpabio for further consultation, not long after which the Upper chamber dissolved into a closed-door session.
