FG Wins Case Against State Governors Over Financial Autonomy From Local Government Joint Account

Date:

Share post:

- Advertisement -

The Federal Government and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has defeated state governors on the financial autonomy from the Local Government joint account.

This comes after FG, NFIU won the case against the state governors on Monday May 23.

Ahmed Dikko, NFIU’s chief media analyst said in a statement that Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court delivered the judgement.

The NFIU had in June 2019 issued guidelines aimed at curbing crime vulnerabilities created by cash withdrawals from local government accounts by various state governments.

The guideline, which was on money laundering risk and vulnerabilities, advised all banks not to honour transactions from joint accounts.

It also reduced cash withdrawal from local government accounts to N500,000 daily. The guideline further directed that the states/local governments’ joint accounts should be used only for receiving funds and subsequently transferring them to local government accounts only.

However the Nigerian Governors Forum sued the FG and NFIU for interfering with state government powers to initiate transactions on Local Government Joint accounts citing provisions of the 1999 constitution.

In 2019, NGF approached a federal high court presided over by Chief Judge of the federal high court to stop the NFIU’s guidelines from being implemented, but he declined the request.

Another federal judge in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, reportedly refused to restrain NFIU from pushing through with the guidelines.

The judgement given by Justice Ekwo is also coming months after the national assembly passed a bill seeking to grant financial autonomy to local governments across the country.

See also  SOfE is designed to help develop verbal and visual communication in explaining technical related subjects
- Advertisement -

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related articles

Ghana’s decades-old ambition to build an integrated aluminium industry faces a new hurdle: the clean energy transition

By Theophilus Acheampong, University of Aberdeen, Matthew Tyce, King's College London It has been more than 60 years...

CBN’s 293rd MPC meeting holds with new faces Monday, Tuesday

By Nduka Chiejina, The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced the highly anticipated 293rd meeting of the Monetary...

Rumpus over relocation of federal agencies to Lagos

By Henry Umoru, Peter Duru, Chioma Onuegbu & Dickson Omobola Outrage yesterday trailed Northern senators’ position on the relocation...

President Bola Tinubu Presents N27.5 Trn 2024 Budget To National Assembly

By Ismail Abdulaziz President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday presented a budget of N27.5 trillion for 2024 to the National...