A seven-member panel of the Supreme Court, on Tuesday, reserved judgment in the suit filed by the Osun State government against the Attorney General of the Federation over the seizure of the state’s local government allocations.
The panel, which was presided over by Justice Uwani Aba’aji, reserved judgment after hearing arguments from Osun State’s Attorney General, represented by Musbau Adetumbi (SAN), and the AGF’s counsel, Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN).
In the suit marked SC/CV/773/2025, Osun State is urging the apex court to declare that the AGF is constitutionally obligated to enforce and abide by the decisions of the courts that recognised the local government chairmen elected in Osun State on February 22, 2025.
The state wants the court to declare that the AGF cannot act arbitrary and against the courts’ judgments to disburse the state’s LG allocations to another set of LG chairmen elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
It wants the apex court to declare that the AGF “has no right to withhold, suspend and/or seize the monthly allocations, revenues and/or other funds standing to the credit of the constituent local government councils of the plaintiff state without any lawful justification, particularly having regard to the fact that the plaintiff state already had in place democratically elected local government councils at all material times to this suit.”
It insists that the alleged decision of the AGF to withhold the state’s LG allocations is “unconstitutional, unlawful, wrongful and ultra vires the powers of the defendant.”
The state is praying the court to order the AGF to “forthwith, release the monthly allocations and revenues due to and standing to the credit of the constituent local government councils of Osun State for all the months they have been unlawfully and unjustifiably withheld by the defendant, and pay same directly into the local government allocation accounts to be opened in favour of the validly elected local government council officials elected pursuant to the election conducted in the Plaintiff State on 22nd February, 2025 and sworn in on 23rd February, 2025.”
During Tuesday’s proceedings, Osun’s counsel, Adetumbi, told the panel that the AGF had, in a letter dated March 26, directed that the withheld allocations be released to APC chairmen and councillors who had already been sacked from office by a court judgment.
He said, “My Lords, even while this matter was pending before this court, the defendant attempted to destroy the res (subject matter) by attempting to pay the money to one of the contending parties.
“They actually paid through the Central Bank of Nigeria, but we were lucky to get an order that stopped the release of the money.”
He prayed the court to grant all of their prayers and dismiss the defendant’s objections.
But in opposition, the AGF’s counsel, Olujimi, urged the court to dismiss the suit, describing it as an abuse of court process and a contempt.
Informing the court of his preliminary objection opposing the plaintiff’s suit, Olujimi argued that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was not properly invoked.
He also said the suit originated from a political matter that is before no fewer than seven lower courts in the country, stressing that the dispute arose from a contention between the APC and the PDP over who should occupy local government positions in Osun State.
He said, “My Lord, the objections stand on six grounds. In the first grounds, we urge Your Lordships not to accord the plaintiff a hearing because he has committed contempt of this court. “We also took a point, sir, that the dispute brought before Your Lordships is, in fact, pending before several high courts. The dispute over elected local government officials is before the Federal High Courts and State High Courts. Seven of them. We are saying this is a dispute between the APC and PDP over who should be in office. The APC elected council chairmen for a three-year term; their tenure is still running and will come to an end on October 22nd, but from the very beginning, they have made it difficult to make these men run their administration, saying, ‘Don’t pay money to the council’ .”
He added, “The suit has not disclosed any cause of action. Grounds four, no locus and the suit is an abuse of court process.”
“I humbly adopt the arguments in support of the preliminary objections and also the reply on points of law in support, and urge Your Lordships to uphold the preliminary objections and dismiss this suit. If Your Lordships agree with me that the suit is an abuse of process, the remedy is dismissal. We have a written address in support of the counter-affidavit. I humbly adopt these processes and urge My Lords to dismiss this suit. I urge Your Lordships to dismiss this suit for lack of merit,” he said.
Earlier, the court struck out another suit marked SC/379/2025, which Osun State said it filed before the AGF gave the directive for the withheld funds to be released to the APC local government chairmen and councillors.