Photo credit: LEADERSHIP Newspapers — Bola Tinubu portrait
2025-12-20 12:00:00
Reporting by Punch indicates President Bola Tinubu is escalating pressure on state governors to stop controlling local government allocations and to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling on local government financial autonomy.
The Presidency’s line is that councils cannot be held accountable for service delivery when states effectively sit on their cash through joint account arrangements and other controls.
The push follows the Supreme Court judgment directing that funds from the Federation Account be paid directly to local governments, bypassing state-level bottlenecks.
The dispute has reopened a long-running fiscal federalism fight: governors cite oversight concerns, while reform advocates insist autonomy is impossible without guaranteed access to funds.
BusinessDay also reported the same thrust and quoted Tinubu warning, “If you wait for my Executive Order… I will cut it.”
Vanguard similarly carried the development and quoted him urging states to “give them their money directly.”
Echotitbits take: The next battleground is implementation: FAAC payment routing, audit rules for councils, and whether states respond with legal or political counter-moves. Watch for timelines and any executive directive language that could trigger litigation.
Source: LEADERSHIP Newspapers — December 20, 2025 https://leadership.ng/free-council-funds-embrace-state-police-tinubu-tells-governors/
