Enthroning Autonomous Local Government System in Nigeria Interrogating the Salience of the Supreme Court Verdict of July 11 2024

This paper critically assessed the obstacles and prospects of local government autonomy in Nigeria. Emphasis is on the 2024 Supreme Court judgement under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. To evaluate the constitutional and legal frameworks impacting local governments in Nigeria, the study used secondary sources, which include judicial judgements, legal documents, and scholarly publications, guided by the governance theory. The paper examined important constitutional clauses such as the State and Local Government Joint Account (Section 162(6)), the State Assembly’s legislative authority over local councils (Section 7(1)), and the lack of express acknowledgement of local governments as a third level of government. Findings of this study revealed that these provisions erode the fiscal and operational revenue self-sufficiency of local governments to a very large extent, thus re-echoing their subordination to the state governments. While the Supreme Court’s judgement did clear certain misinterpretation on the status of local governments, it failed to address the root cause of the restrictions that continue to place a cap on their decision-making authority. The paper recommended areas of constitutional changes needed, including amendment to the restrictive provisions of the constitution, and capacity building of local governments as prerequisites to actual decentralization and effective functionality of local councils in Nigeria, particularly as it relates to enthroning autonomous system of the local councils.