Senior Advocate of Nigeria and human rights lawyer, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, has filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Lagos against the Minister of Finance, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, in order to stop the allocation of public funds running into trillions of naira to unelected local government council officials.
According to Agbakoba, the basis of the case is that Section 7(1) of the 1999 constitution guarantees a system of democratically elected government councils.
He argued that many local government council officials in Nigeria are never elected and act unconstitutionally.
Therefore, Agbakoba said allocation of public funds to them is a violation of the constitution, as there is collusion with state governments in the use of trillions of naira of public funds.
The case raises concern that unelected persons have unimpeded access to huge monthly allocations that are actually funds intended for democratically elected local government councils as guaranteed by Section 7 of the constitution.
Agbakoba noted that Nigeria operates democratically elected governments at all levels.
“The current situation where most of the 774 local governments are unelected is not only unconstitutional but meant no development at the local government level,” he said.
Agbakoba also noted that corruption is widespread in Nigeria because unelected persons that are not accountable to the electorate have received trillions of naira of public funds.
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