El-Rufai Defends Supreme Court’s LG Autonomy Ruling-Against Ibori’s Criticism

Former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has reacted to former governor of Delta State, James Ibori’s condemnation of the local government autonomy ruling by the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, according to Ireporteronline, said the ruling of the Supreme Court was a severe setback to true federalism in Nigeria.

On his X handle on Thursday, James Ibori, said while he agreed that local governments should be headed by elected representatives and not sole administrators or caretaker chairmen, the ruling of the Supreme Court was against section 162(3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

“That Local Governments must be “democratically elected “ goes without saying. Yes, I agree, that’s the position of the constitution but withholding their allocation is not the way to go. It’s wrong.

“In the coming days, we will begin to fully understand the implications of the Supreme Court decision. An assault on the constitution is not the answer to fiddling with the Joint Local Government Account.

“If the ruling is saying Governors cannot temper, touch, fiddle with the Joint Accounts, that’s fine because they shouldn’t be doing that in the first place. But asking the Federal Government to pay Local Governments allocations to the account of the Local Government directly will lead to utter chaos and avoidable friction in governance,” Ibori argued.

He added that he hoped the Supreme Court would reverse the ruling. Ibori said the ruling on Thursday stood on the head of the concept of federalism.

“It is my sincere hope that the judgement delivered today will be reviewed at the earliest time possible because it clearly stands the concept of federalism on its head,” he added.”

In his reaction, Nasir El-Rufai, on his X handle, on Thursday said, “From God we came and to Him we shall all return.“