Lawyers to governors: Judiciary best for fiscal federalism, devolution of power
Two senior lawyers in the country have asked governors to pursue their suits against the federal government if they are desirous of true federalism.
They said issues causing conflict and agitations in the country could best be resolved by the judiciary without any bloodshed.
At least four suits on revenue have been filed in various courts. The latest was filed by the attorneys-general of the 36 states against the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, over an alleged non-remittance of N176 billion stamp duties.
In separate chats with Daily Trust Saturday, they said the suits, if determined in their favour, would put the states in control of more revenues; hence fiscal federalism would be achieved.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Adegboyega Awomolo, said the judiciary was the best place to solve the issue of fiscal federalism, which is at the heart of the quest for devolution of power, resource control and restructuring.
He said the country’s founding fathers in the First Republic opted for the principles of federalism because the country consisted of many nations and diverse faith, but muddled by the military mentality of one command structure.
He said the 1979 Constitution, which also recognises federalism, put so much powers and control in the federal government.
“This, in other words, made states dependent upon the monthly allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) for survival. Most states were made lazy, lacking in ability to bring dividends of democracy to the people unless the federal government issued a bailout.
“The current spate of actions demonstrates evidence of creativeness on behalf of the states to make the federalism embedded in the constitution a reality. It is the same way the Lagos State Government under former Governor Tinubu won almost all the cases when various powers, actions and decisions of the federal government were challenged in the Supreme Court. Professor
Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) was the leader of the formidable legal team that made the provisions of the constitution meaningful,” he said.
In a separate chat, Prof Paul Ananaba (SAN) said the suits showed that the legal solution to the country’s federalism had come, adding that governors who did not realise this in the past were now realising that they could achieve devolution of power constitutionally by going to court.
He urged states and local governments to continue to seek judicial interpretations because there was so much cloudiness in Nigeria’s federalism.
“We will continue to have interpretations into this legislative exclusive list, concurrent list and residual list because there has been no clear interpretation,” he said.
But responding, the AGF, Abubakar Malami (SAN), through his media aide, Dr Umar Gwandu, said he would make public its stand on the suits by the governors.
“We are studying the issues, you will see our response,” he said.
In the suit filed before the Supreme Court and marked SC/ CV/690/2021, the 36 states are seeking an order to compel the federal government to account for the funds generated from stamp duties between 2015 and 2020.
The states contend that section 4(2) of the Stamp Duties Act makes the states the sole authorities empowered to administer and collect stamp duties on all transactions involving individuals/ persons within their respective states.
Rivers State and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) are also in court in an appeal against the judgement of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, which upheld the powers of the state to collect VAT and PIT.
In July, the 36 governors had also filed a suit before the Supreme Court, challenging the Federal Government of Nigeria’s management of N2.28 trillion recovered loot.
In the suit filed by their counsel, Femi Falana (SAN), the governors claimed that between 2015 and 2021, the federal government had recovered about N1.8trillion in cash and about N450billion worth of non-cash assets, which were paid into the CRA, which is not recognised under the Nigerian constitution.