Buhari Suspends Implementation Of Financial Autonomy For State Legislators, Judiciary

President Muhammadu Buhari has halt the gazetting of Executive Order 10 (EO10) which granted financial autonomy to state assemblies and judiciary.

Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Kayode Fayemi made the disclosure on Monday, shortly after a meeting with representatives of the president at the State House in Abuja.

Fayemi told newsmen the president suspended the implementation over concerns of constitutionality of the new order raised by the governors.

“We have a delegation of the governors’ forum here to discuss some matters of fundamental importance to the nation and the president has asked that we meet with the attorney general, the chief of staff, and the minister of finance planning and budget on the issue,” he said.

“It is an issue that has seized the interest of many of you in the media and a lot of people in the federation, it is about the autonomy of the state legislature and the judiciary and we’ve met with the president before now on it and the president was very pleased that for us as governors, we are all united in support of the autonomy of state judiciary and the legislature; that’s the position of the 36 Governors of the federation.

“What is at issue is on the constitutionality of the modalities of what had been put in the executive order and the president was gracious enough to say ‘okay, given your concerns about that, we will delay the gazetting of the order and allow you meet with the attorney general and the minister of finance to work out the modalities.”

Explaining further, the NGF chairman said the governors have also been consulting with the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures, in order to work out an amicable resolution of the matter.

“In any case, we have been meeting at our level with the Conference of Speakers. The Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Governor Tambuwal of Sokoto State, was delegated to lead a number of governors who have gained legislative experience either because they were in the House of Representatives or they were Speakers of State Assemblies, or they were senators and that committee has been meeting with a delegation of the Conference of Speakers, working out the modalities and we believe that all of that would be settled amicably without any resort to court,” he added.

It should be recalled that President Buhari had recently signed the Executive Order No. 10 which sought to grant financial autonomy to state assemblies and judiciary, much to the displeasure of the state governors.

The order mandates the accountant-general of the federation to deduct from source amount due to state legislatures and judiciary from the monthly allocation to each state for states that refuse to grant such autonomy.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), said in May, that the Executive Order No. 10 of 2020, made it mandatory that all states of the federation should include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets.

“A Presidential Implementation Committee was constituted to fashion out strategies and modalities for the implementation of financial autonomy for the State Legislature and State Judiciary in compliance with section 121(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended),” said Malami.