Supreme Court Strikes Out Osun Suit on Withheld LG Funds on Technical Grounds, Faults Federal Govt

ByEditor

Dec 5, 2025 #Attorney General of Osun, #Attorney General of the Federation, #Justice Mohammed Idris, #Local Government Autonomy, #Nigerian Constitution, #Osun local government funds, #Supreme Court Nigeria, #Supreme Court ruling on LG funds, #withheld allocations

Pat Stevens/

The Supreme Court has struck out a suit filed by the Attorney General of Osun State, Oluwole Jimi-Bada, against the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, over the withholding of statutory allocations due to the state’s 30 local government councils.

In a split decision of six justices to one, the apex court ruled that the Osun State Attorney General lacked the legal authority to institute the action on behalf of the local governments.

The court held that only the duly elected and inaugurated local government chairmen are the proper parties with the right to sue and be sued in matters concerning their councils.

Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris faulted the Federal Government for withholding the funds, describing the action as a violation of the 1999 Constitution.

He ruled that the Federal Government had wrongly seized the local government allocations and directed that such funds should be paid directly into the councils’ accounts in line with constitutional provisions.

The court also dismissed allegations of contempt made by the Attorney General of the Federation against the Osun State Government.

Justice Idris stated that the Federal Government was in greater contempt for failing to release the funds as required by law.

However, the court struck out the suit on procedural grounds, with Justice Idris noting that there was no evidence that the Osun State Attorney General was formally instructed by the local governments to file the case on their behalf.

In a dissenting judgment, Justice Emmanuel Agim disagreed with the majority, holding that the Osun State Attorney General was competent to institute the action.

He described the Federal Government’s decision to withhold the funds as improper and warned that such action was capable of crippling the operations of the local councils.