By David Adenekan
The Judicial Constitutional Interpretation of Local Government Financial Autonomy in Nigeria Is Sacrosanct: A Rejoinder to “Local Government Autonomy, Supreme Court’s Perverse Ruling Won’t Work”, By Olu Fasan.
FIRSTLY, THE process of attaining a goal will be irrelevant if it is counter-productive.
Suffice it to say, that the goal to allocate money to the local government authorities has been defeated by the deficiencies in the process.
This is what the Supreme Court has fixed.
The essence of a constitution is for justice to prevail and, there can never be justice if the letters or conscience of the constitution is violating the fundamental human rights (rule of law) of the citizenry.
The issue of governors who will go ahead to organize “Kangaroo Election” to hand-pick their stooges and puppets as Chairmen of local government authorities, will eventually fizzle out.
This is so because, the issue of financial autonomy would turn the minds of the people at the grassroots against their leaders if they do not see the dividends of democracy; and the Chairmen of local government authorities will have to choose between the governors or, the people.
The people now know the leaders that live amongst them are in charge of their money and they are expected to be accountable for it; only time will tell.
