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By Kayode Matthew
Posted to the Web: Friday, June 24, 2005
What does a beneficiary of a judgment delivered by the apex court in the land do when the executive arm of government refuses to abide by the judgment and carry out the orders given by the court in the judgment? Does he resign himself to fate and leave everything to God the ultimate Judge? Or will he be justified to take laws into his hands since the other party has chosen to snub the judgment of the highest court in the country?
Elected Local Government Council Chairmen in Lagos State are lamenting that the Federal Government is inflicting an unbearable pain on their people for refusing to release the allocation due to them from the Federation Account for about 15 months now as ordered by the Supreme Court. They are not amused about the battle line that has been drawn between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led Federal Government and the Alliance for Democracy controlled Lagos State Government over the creation of additional local government councils in the state. Their only cry to the world is that they are suffering because President Olusegun Obasanjo is adamant on disobeying the order of the apex court and this is nothing else but executive lawlessness.
The genesis of the crisis over the seizure of Lagos Sate Local Government Council allocation from the Federation Account by the Federal Government was the letter addressed to the Minister of Finance by the President on April 8, 2004 titled: Local Government Elections and Allocation of Funds From the Federation Account to LGAs. The President’s letter reads in part: “Available information indicates that some states namely Ebonyi, Katsina, Lagos, Nasarawa and Niger conducted the last Local Government Election in the new Local Government Areas created by their respective state Assemblies. As the National Assembly is yet to make the necessary consequential provisions in respect of any of the newly created Local Government Areas in the country, conducting election into or funding any of them from the Federation Account would clearly be a violation of the constitution. Consequently, no allocation from the Federation Account should henceforth be released to the Local Government Councils of the above-mentioned states and any other state that may fall into that category, until they revert to their constituent Local Government Areas specified in part 1 of the First Schedule to the constitution.”
The Minister of Finance promptly acted on the President’s directive by withholding the Local Government allocation in the five states which were later released to the four states that chickened out and reverted to their old local government councils except Lagos State which refused to do so but dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court.
In the lead judgment delivered by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammed Lawal Uwais on December 10 2004, the Supreme Court declared among others that it is unlawful and contrary to the provisions of the constitution for the Federal Government to suspend or withhold for any period whatsoever the statutory allocation in respect of the old 20 Local Government Councils as he has no power to do so under the constitution.
The court then went ahead to make a consequential order compelling the Federal Government to pay immediately all outstanding statutory allocation due to these 20 Local Government Councils as well as an order of perpetual injunction restraining the President or any functionaries or agencies of the executive from withholding the monies. The court summed up the judgment saying, “the plaintiff’s (Lagos State Government) action succeeds, all the reliefs sought are granted but applicable only to the 20 Local Government Areas specified in part 1 of the First Schedule to the constitution. The counter claim by the defendant succeeds in part.”
President Obasanjo has however refused to give effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court arguing that the names of the old 20 Local Government Councils in Lagos State who are entitled to allocation from the Federation Account have been altered and as such they no longer exist. He insists that unless and until the state reverts to the old 20 Local Government Councils there will be no allocation to any Local Government Areas in Lagos State. Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State on his own part is contending that reverting to the old councils amounts to going contrary to the Supreme Court judgment which affirmed the power of the state government to create the additional 37 Local Government Councils and as such it is beyond him to do.
Every commentator on the crisis has been giving the Supreme Court judgment different interpretations depending on which side they owe allegiance or their limited understanding of English Language in which the judgment was written. This prompted the Federal Government to approach the apex court for the correct interpretation of the judgment but they were sent back as the court told them that the judgment was written in simple English Language.
Courtroom magazine saw this crisis as a worrisome development in our polity that is capable of derailing our democratic march and was inspired to hold its Rule of Law Summit on the theme: Executive Lawlessness as a catalyst for Political Instability. The summit which was held weekend at Airport Hotel Ikeja, Lagos drew participants from all walks of life. The Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of the Courtroom, an activist and minister of God, Mr Richard Akinnola, speaking on the rationale for the summit said “there is no doubt that the Federal Government’s grand standing on this issue of Lagos State Local Government allocation is sheer politics and not law and this is dangerous for this democracy.”
According to him, “flagrant disobedience to court order by the Executive arm of government was more entrenched under a military dictatorship. But in a democratic dispensation, it is an aberration, except for the likes of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. However, in view of latest developments in Nigeria, particularly with the utter disobedience to various court orders from Awka to Enugu to Abuja, it is obvious that we have a variant of Mugabe on our hands particularly the flagrant disobedience to the order of the Supreme Court that the seized local government allocation of Lagos State be released immediately.”
Going down memory lane, Mr Akinnola cited instances under the military regimes where the authorities disobeyed the orders of court and the attitude of some judges to such denigration of the judiciary. He also gave a diary of government disobedience to court orders under the present political dispensation. These include: refusal of government to re-instate the security details of Governor Chris Ngige of Anambra State despite Appeal Court order; refusal of the Nigerian Army to re-instate dismissed ECOMOG soldiers despite Court of Appeal order; refusal of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to obey the decision of an Awka High Court, nullifying the purported expulsion of Governor Chris Ngige of Anambra State from PDP and the refusal of the Federal Government to give effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of AG Lagos State V AG of the Federation and 35 others in respect of environmental and urban planning in the state. Mr Akinnola submitted that the refusal of the Obasanjo-led Federal Government to release Lagos State local government councils allocation in obedience to the order of the Supreme Court is “a collective assault on the psyche of Nigerians and this has to be resisted.”
Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo in his contribution at the summit said the argument of President Obasanjo that he doesn’t know which local government council should receive allocation does not hold water because the Supreme Court specifically held that the President has no reason whatsoever to withhold the allocation. According to Osinbajo, “anybody who has executive power is tempted to disobey the orders of the court saying after all I have immunity. It is in his (Obasanjo) own interest not to disobey the court because he will soon be out of power. It is a very sad development indeed and everyone should prevail on him to obey the judgment of the Supreme Court in the interest of our democracy.”
The guest lecturer, Professor Akin Oyebode, Head of Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, University of Lagos and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ado-Ekiti, in his paper, pointed out that the life and times of democracy in Nigeria are such as to pose the question as to whether it was indeed possible to envision democracy without genuine democrats. He was of the opinion that the “the palpable infelicities of the political system, most notably, executive lawlessness would need to be addressed if Nigeria is to be rescued from the abyss to which it is currently heading.”
Emphasizing the need for the rule of law to reign supreme in the society, Professor Oyebode contended that “it is irrefutable that law is indeed the glue that binds society together and, as such, society would be better served by fidelity to due process of law rather than the whims and caprices of a tin-pot dictator,” and that “a situation where the judges are rendered redundant and their pronouncements treated with askance is a veritable recipe for chaos and anomie.” Presenting a tentative score card of executive lawlessness in Nigeria today, the university don argued that “the euphoria that heralded the return to civil rule on May 29, 1999 has today given way to despondency, disillusionment and anxiety concerning the vitality and future of the Nigeria project. The generality of Nigerians actually yearned for a qualitative improvement in governance and also their lives. The expectation was that with the hated and discredited soldiers herded back to their barracks, the in-coming civilian government was going to provide ‘democracy dividends’ and the general situation in the country would show a marked improvement. Regrettably, if anything, the situation would seem to have worsened. Most Nigerians have now come to the painful realisation that civil rule and democracy are two different things.”
Professor Oyebode did not end his lecture without drawing attention to the effect of non release of Local Government Councils allocation by the Federal Government and the reverberations of the President’s disobedience of court order on the polity. Said he: “Aside from the colossal suffering endured by the inhabitants of Lagos State, the presidency cannot feign ignorance of the bad lessons being passed on to the nation regarding the position of the courts in the scheme of things. Perhaps this can also explain the bravado exhibited by some state governments in disparaging the rule of law, the swearing-in of the Chairman of the Ibarapa East Local Government Council being a notorious case.
Thus it is obvious that like the Bourbons of old, the current operators of the political system would seem to have learnt and forgotten nothing. However, if they do not wish to suffer the same fate as that of the ancien regime, they are better advised to retrace their steps from utter contempt and disregard for the rule of law and the tenets of liberal democracy. Executive lawlessness has no place under elected, constitutional government and the earlier this is grasped by all concerned, the better for the health of the republic.”
Summarising his lecture, Professor Oyebode submitted that “the happenings on the political front since the country’s return to civil rule have not provided cause for cheer regarding the future democracy in Nigeria. It seems the various factions and fractions of the ruling class are yet to imbibe the democratic ethos. Thus far the country seems to have been attempting to run a democratic set-up without fully committed democrats.
There are increasing signs of a reverse to the irreverent and unacceptable habits of unelected, praetorian rule characterised by executive lawlessness.”
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