The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a suit seeking to compel the Federal Government to release allocations to Local Government Councils in Osun State that had been withheld.
Naijaonpoint reports that a seven-member panel of the apex court ruled six to one that the legal action brought by the Attorney General of Osun State was incompetent.
Delivering the lead judgement, Justice Mohammed Idris held that the Osun State government lacked the necessary legal standing to invoke the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction on behalf of the 30 Local Government Areas in the state.
Justice Idris explained that the Supreme Court could only exercise original jurisdiction in disputes between a state and the Federal Government, adding that the Local Government Councils are legally recognised as autonomous entities capable of suing or being sued in their own right.
The panel therefore dismissed the arguments by the Attorney General of Osun State that the suit was a public interest litigation.
Though the Supreme Court upheld a preliminary objection the Attorney General of the Federation filed to challenge the competence of the suit, it, however, admonished the federal government to give full effect to its judgment that granted fiscal autonomy to all the 774 Local Government Areas in the country.
The Osun State government, had in a suit marked SC/CV/775/2025, sought 10 reliefs from the apex court, including “An order restraining the defendant from paying and/or causing to be paid the statutory allocations standing to the credit of the 30 local governments in the plaintiff state to the sacked All Progressive Congress (APC) local government chairmen and councillors pursuant to the nullified local government election of 15th October, 2022, whose election and subsistence in office had been annulled by valid, extant, unchallenged and subsisting decisions of the Federal High Court in Suit No. FHC/OS/CS/103/2022 and that of the Court of Appeal in Appeal No. CA/AK/15/2025, delivered on 30th November, 2022 and 13th June, 2025, respectively.”
“An order directing the defendant to forthwith release the monthly allocations and revenues due to and standing to the credit of the constituent Local Government Councils of Osun State for all the months they have been unlawfully and unjustifiably withheld by the defendant and pay same directly into the Local Government allocation accounts to be opened in favour of the validly elected Local Government Council officials elected pursuant to the election conducted in the plaintiff state on 22 February, 2025 and sworn in on 23 February, 2025.
“An order directing the defendant to forthwith pay the allocation, revenues and other funds accruing and due to the Local Government Councils of the plaintiff state to the validly elected Local Government Council officials elected pursuant to the election conducted in the plaintiff state on 22nd February, 2025 and sworn in on 23rd February, 2025.
“An order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant from further withholding, suspending and/or seizing the monthly allocations, revenues and/or funds standing to the credit of the constituent Local Government Councils of the plaintiff state for as long as the plaintiff state has in place democratically elected Local Government Councils in its state.”
The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) was cited as the sole defendant in the case.
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