LG autonomy: Supreme Court gives govs 7 days to file defence to Nigerian Govt’s suit

The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the 36 state governors to file their respective defense to a suit instituted against them by the Federal Government seeking for full autonomy for the 774 local government in the country.

The apex court also ordered the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice to, upon receipt of the governors defense, file his reply within two days.

Justice Garba Lawal issued the order on Thursday while ruling in an application for abridgement of time argued by the AGF, Prince Lateef Fagebemi, SAN.

The AGF had prayed the court to compel the governors to file their responses within five days in view of the urgency and importance of the suit to local government autonomy.

Although the governors did not object to time abridgement, they however requested for 15 days to file defense.

Justice Lawal who led a seven-man panel of justices of the apex court, said that the decision of the court to reduce time was predicated on the national importance and urgency of the suit and the non-objection from the states of the federation.

The Supreme Court held that filing of all processes and exchanging of same must be completed withing the time and subsequently fixed June 13 for hearing of the suit.

Justice Lawal ordered that the eight states that were not in attendance at Thursday’s proceedings must be served with fresh hearing notice.

The eight state are Borno, Kano, Kogi, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Sokoto, whose Attorneys General were absent in court despite being served with hearing notice.