Local government administration got a landmark victory on Friday after the Supreme Court, in two separate judgments, declared that state governors have no power whatsoever to sack democratically elected local government chairmen and councillors.
The apex court said the 2015 dissolution of the 34 LGs in Katsina State by Governor Aminu Masari and the 2019 sack of the chairmen and councillors of the 33 LGs and 35 Local Council Development Areas in Oyo State by Governor Seyi Makinde were in breach of Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution.
The five-man panel was unanimous in the judgments.
Youth and Sports Development Minister, Sunday Dare, and the Chairman Senate Committee on Local Content, Chief Teslim Folarin, hailed the court for the verdicts.
The Supreme Court held that Masari and Makinde acted illegally and unconstitutionally by removing democratically elected Local Government Councils.
The two judgments were on the appeals filed by sacked LG chairmen and councillors from both states.
The LG chairmen and councillors from the 34 LGs in Katsina, led by Abubakar Ibrahim Yantaba, were elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but were sacked in 2015 by Masari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Those from the 33 local government areas (LGAs) and 35 local council development areas (LCDAs) in Oyo State, led by Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye, were elected under the banner of the APC but were sacked in 2019 by Makinde of the PDP.
Justice Adamu Jauro, who read the lead judgment in the appeal on Katsina, ruled that Masari acted ultra vires by sacking the appellants on allegation of financial misappropriation of councils’ funds.
Justice Jauro ordered the Katsina State Government to pay the appellants all their entitlements from the date of their illegal dissolution to the date they were supposed to lawfully vacate office.
In the case of Oyo State, Justice Ejembi Eko, in the lead judgment, said Makinde acted “invidiously and in contemptuous disregard of a High Court judgment” when he dissolved the democratically elected chairmen and councilors and appointed caretaker committees to replace them.
Justice Eko set aside the judgment by the Court of Appeal in Ibadan, which validated Makinde’s action, noting that the lower court was wrong when it held that there was no reasonable cause of action in the suit the appellants filed to prevent their sack.
He noted that the three-year tenure of the sacked chairmen and councillors has since expired, but he proceeded to hold that they deserved to be compensated for their tenure that was “illegally truncated” on May 29, 2019.
Justice Eko ordered the Oyo State Government to pay the sacked chairmen and councillors their accrued salaries and allowances.
He ordered the Attorney-General of Oyo State to file an affidavit before August 7 this year confirming the payment of the salaries and allowances to the appellants.
He equally awarded a cost of N20 million in favour of the appellants.
Other members of the panel, Justices Kekere Ekun, Inyang Okoro, Ibrahim Saulawa and Adamu Jauro, agreed with the lead judgment.
The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, had faulted Makinde’s decision in a January 14, 2020 letter.
In the letter marked HAGF/OYO/2020/Vol.1/1, which was addressed to the Oyo State Attorney General, Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo, Malami drew Makinde’s attention to past decisions of the Supreme Court on the issue and advised him to reverse the dissolution.
But rather than heed the AGF’s advice, Makinde queried Malami’s jurisdictional competence, claiming, among others, that the issue was internal to Oyo State.
He said: “Going on with the local government election as earlier scheduled will throw the state into another round of legal gymnastics.
“My advice to him is to sit down with the OYSIEC officials, look into the new development and do the needful, which is to shift the election date.
Fortunately, the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission chairman is a learned fellow. He knows what the law calls disenfranchisement, he knows what the constitution says about holding elections and he knows the consequences of holding a one-sided election.
“Apart from that, the governor and the OYSIEC chairman have their names to protect.
“This is an opportunity for Engr. Seyi Makinde to correct his past mistakes.
“He should not commit another blunder by going on with that election which hundred per cent certain will be faulted again by the judiciary.”
While commending the Supreme Court judgment for guarding against the unguarded disregard for the sanctity of the constitution, Alao-Akala urged the judicial arm of government to find possible means of fast-tracking time bound litigations that can disenfranchise litigants of their legal rights as is the case of Oyo State ALGON where the final judgment is delivered few days to the official end of the tenure of office of the litigants. The Nation.