…Lawyers Fault FG’s Role, Say It’s Now Constitutional, Moral Crises
…CSOs, Labour, Youth Activists To Storm State Over Illegal Occupation
As the standoff over seized allocations due to local government areas in Osun State deepens, leading lawyers and human rights advocates have decried what appears to be abuse of power by the Federal Government in this case.
The legal pundits are united on one core point: the crisis is no longer about legal ambiguity but the deliberate disregard for the authority of the Supreme Court and the suffering of ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire.
At the heart of the dispute is the refusal to release statutory allocations due to the 30 local government councils in Osun State despite pronouncements by the Supreme Court affirming the autonomy of local governments and faulting the Federal Government’s role in withholding council funds.
What began as a legal contest has now assumed the character of a constitutional and moral crisis, with governance at the grassroots grinding to a halt.
DRAGGING JUSTICE THROUGH THE MUD
For Kabir Akingbolu, lawyer and human rights crusader, claims of conflicting court decisions are misleading and legally untenable.
“We have one Supreme Court in Nigeria, and the Supreme Court has spoken,” Akingbolu insists. “Any judgment that contradicts the Supreme Court cannot be obeyed. Once the apex court has decided, every other authority must fall in line.”
He describes the ongoing crisis as avoidable, warning that disobedience to the Supreme Court amounts to dragging the administration of justice through the mud. According to him, the refusal to comply with the apex court’s pronouncements undermines the rule of law and emboldens political actors to treat court decisions as optional.
Akingbolu also questions why local government funds remain a target of political control despite a Supreme Court judgment affirming local government financial autonomy. “Why would any governor want to take the money meant for local governments? This is not peculiar to Osun; it is a systemic problem across the country,” he said.
He further accuses the Federal Government of politicising the issue. “Once there is a judgment, politics should not come into it. Playing politics with local government autonomy is unacceptable,” he warned.
DANGEROUS DEVELOPMENT
From a procedural standpoint, Mr Olajide Abiodun, Notary Public and Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikorodu Branch, raises a critical legal issue: contempt of court.
“Where a party gives an undertaking in open court and the court relies on it, that undertaking becomes binding,” Abiodun explains. “Any action taken in contradiction of it may amount to contempt, with consequences ranging from fines to committal proceedings.”
He argues that enforcing policies or actions that are already under judicial consideration sends a dangerous signal. “It undermines public confidence in the justice system and erodes the foundational principle that all persons and institutions are subject to the authority of the courts,” he said.
On the substance of the Osun dispute, Abiodun is unequivocal: statutory allocations belong to constitutionally recognised local government councils. “Once a council is validly constituted, it is entitled to access and manage those funds. Where there are conflicting decisions, the position that ultimately matters is that of the Supreme Court,” he stated.
He warns that withholding allocations without a clear and subsisting court order creates a grave constitutional anomaly. “It weakens local government autonomy, disrupts the federal structure, and punishes grassroots governance in a manner not contemplated by the Constitution,” he said.
Beyond legal doctrine, all three lawyers emphasise the human consequences of the crisis.
Akingbolu points out that while socio-economic rights such as health and education are contained in Chapter Two of the Constitution and generally regarded as non-justiciable, their neglect has real-world implications. “As the law stands, citizens cannot easily enforce these rights in court. It may be immoral, but that is the current legal reality,” he noted.
Abiodun, however, argues that citizens are not entirely powerless. He observes that courts are increasingly willing to interrogate arbitrary government actions that cause widespread hardship. “When basic services collapse due to withheld funds, residents can argue that their right to good governance has been breached,” he said.
AUDACIOUS IMPUNITY
Also, Barrister Femi Aborisade, a human rights lawyer, describes the continued withholding of Osun’s local government funds as “impunity and lawlessness.”
“The Supreme Court has clearly resolved this issue,” Aborisade said. “Both the majority and minority decisions held that the Federal Government was wrong to withhold the funds and that the Attorney-General of the Federation was guilty of contempt.”
He notes that the apex court explicitly warned that withholding local government funds is capable of crippling council activities. “This means councils cannot deliver healthcare, education, sanitation, or even pay workers’ salaries,” he said.
According to Aborisade, the consequences are severe. “The Federal Government is indirectly denying the people of Osun State their basic survival needs and starving workers and their children of the means to live. This is the most heinous and wicked deprivation being imposed on ordinary people,” he declared.
While Aborisade acknowledges that the Supreme Court struck out the suit instituted by the Osun State Government on technical grounds, he insists the court nonetheless charted a clear policy direction. “As a policy court, the Supreme Court stated unambiguously that the Federal Government was wrong to withhold local government funds,” he said.
He also describes the situation as deeply ironic, recalling that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as Governor of Lagos State, once challenged the Federal Government under President Olusegun Obasanjo over the same issue of withheld local government funds.
“That the same Presidency is now presiding over similar unconstitutionality is troubling,” Aborisade noted.
LET THE LAW LEAD
On solutions, Abiodun calls for cooperation rather than confrontation. He suggests that allocations be released to councils backed by valid court orders or placed under a neutral arrangement pending final judicial resolution. “Governance disputes should never be resolved at the expense of ordinary citizens,” he said.
Akingbolu insists that strict obedience to the Supreme Court remains the only lawful path. “Let the law lead, and let everyone follow. We are running a democracy, not a military dictatorship,” he warned.
Aborisade, on his part, advocates sustained but peaceful civic pressure. He believes mass mobilisation by workers, students, and residents across political lines could compel a reversal. “When the Federal Government realises that ordinary people are opposed to this illegality, it may return to the path of constitutionality,” he said.
The views of the three lawyers shows that the Osun local government funds crisis as more than a state-level dispute. It is a test of Nigeria’s commitment to the rule of law, judicial authority, and the principle that governance exists to serve the people, not punish them.
As the impasse continues, the question remains whether legal reason, constitutional fidelity, or political calculation will ultimately prevail and how much more grassroots governance must suffer before the law is allowed to take its course.
STORM AHEAD
Meanwhile, the Movement for Credible Elections (MCE) has condemned the alleged complicity of the Federal Government and the Police authorities in allowing local government councils in Osun State to be subjected to illegal occupation by those it identified as impostors, despite the express ruling of courts of competent jurisdiction.
This is as the groups disclosed that they would soon be storming the Osun State to physically intervene over the ongoing illegal occupation of councils.
The National Secretariat of the newly launched Movement, rising from an emergency meeting on Friday, recalled that the Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo had already nullified the tenure of the erstwhile chairmen and councillors sponsored by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in November 2022, a decision that was subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal on February 10, 2025 and reaffirmed on June 13, 2025 on the grounds that their elections were conducted in clear violation of the requirements of the law.
MCE, in a statement signed by James Ezema, its Media Coordinator, unequivocally condemned the continued diversion and withholding of statutory allocations due to the Osun local governments of Osun State.
It described such actions as unlawful, immoral, and a dangerous abuse of the Nigerian Constitution aimed at frustrating and coercing the Osun State government duly elected on a party platform different from the party ruling at the federal level.
MCE also queried the mandate under which the APC chairmen and councillors had been running Osun local government since they had already admitted that their so-called tenure had expired and approached the court for tenure elongation, a case yet to be heard by the court.
“So, under what authority are they holding unto the local governments and administering local government funds, if by the state law it’s only career civil servants that can be signatories to the Local Governments accounts?” MCE asked.
The movement further queried the role of a commercial bank in the whole saga, asking why the bank had been taking subversive directives from Abuja and leaders of Osun APC, paying out councils’ funds to politicians without lawful mandates, wondering why the bank had been violating Osun LG laws.
Speaking on behalf of the Movement, the Head of Secretariat, Chief Olawale Okunniyi, described the unlawful occupation of council secretariats by APC chairmen and councillors as a brazen subversion of the rule of law and democratic order of the country condemning the Federal Government and the Police for emboldening the illegal occupants to continue to hold the state to ransom; boasting that they won’t leave the council secretariats inspite of subsisting court orders.
CONCERN FOR THE PEOPLE
MCE, however, noted: “In this imposed impunity, those suffering the most are primarily retirees, health care workers and the masses in general, etc.
“So, why would the Federal Government and her agents in Abuja take joy in the sufferings and hardship of the Osun people?
The MCE noted that the local government system is a constitutionally recognised autonomous tier of government and that statutory allocations to councils do not belong to the Federal Government or the ruling party, but to the people at the grassroots.
According to the Movement, withholding these funds had translated directly into unpaid salaries, crippled primary healthcare services, abandoned basic education responsibilities, and untold suffering of the ordinary citizens in Osun State.
The MCE warned that history was repeating itself in a most unfortunate way, stressing that the act of playing politics with local government allocations had long been denounced by democrats, the civil society, the courts and President Bola Tinubu himself during his tenure as governor, as violation of democratic federalism, which Nigeria practices.
The Movement further cautioned that continuing on this path would pose grave dangers to Nigeria’s democracy, the rule of law, and national cohesion. It warned that “normalising financial strangulation of states and local governments based on partisan schemes sets a precedent that could destabilize Nigeria’s democratic order.”
The Movement reaffirmed its commitment to defending democracy and constitutionalism through popular advocacy for credible elections and called on the civil society, labour, youths, professional bodies, and all lovers of democracy to be on the alert to storm Osun State in February to intervene in what is perceived as grave injustice against the suffering masses of Osun State.
Source: Independent
