President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is currently meeting behind closed-doors with Vice President Kashim Shettima and some governors in his office at the State House, Abuja.
The ongoing meeting kicked off almost immediately after the President concluded discussions with the leaders of the organised Labour, who met with him to discuss issues around the expected new minimum wage.
The governors in the meeting include the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara); Charles Soludo of Anambra; and Usman Ododo of Kogi.
Although the agenda of the ongoing meeting was not made public as at the time of sending this report, it was coming few hours after the Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgement on the financial independence of the third tier of the federation, the local government.
The Supreme Court has held that henceforth, the Federal Government should pay any money standing to the credit of the Local Governments in the Federation directly to the Local Government Areas managed by democratically elected officials.
It also held that it is illegal for governors to dissolve democratically elected local governments and orders the federal government to henceforth withhold allocations to local governments governed by unelected officials appointed by the governor.
The Supreme Court made these pronouncements in its judgment in the suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) seeking full autonomy for the local government administrations.
Supreme Court’s pronouncements have been deemed as victory for local government administrations as well as the federal government that filed the matter.
Vanguard
