Dogara lauds Supreme Court verdict on sack of council heads

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has applauded the judgment of the Supreme Court which faulted the sack of elected local council chairmen and councillors and their replacement with caretaker administrators.

The Supreme Court delivered judgment on December 9, 2016 in the case of the appeal against the dissolution of executives of 16 local councils in Ekiti State during Kayode Fayemi’s tenure.

The panel led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour described the action as “executive recklessness” which must not be allowed to persist.

Dogara in a statement maintained that the judgment confirmed that state governors do not have the constitutional right to sack duly elected council officials.

He said the verdict reinforces the need for local council autonomy to ensure their development.The speaker added that state governors have a responsibility to act according to the dictates of the judgement, “as Nigeria is a nation of laws and not of men.”

He urged state legislators to move against governors who did not conduct council polls and hijack funds allocated to them. He asked the National Assembly to grant autonomy to councils in the ongoing constitutional amendment.

Dogara said: “The National Assembly will intervene to resolve this problem. Already, clauses granting financial autonomy to both councils and state Houses of Assembly are being considered in the constitutional amendment exercise.

“The proposal includes denying federal allocation to local councils that do not have democratically-elected officials. In the interim, the Federal Ministry of Finance should be guided by the Supreme Court decision which makes it illegal to release funds to unelected council heads.”