Supreme Court: Governors can’t sack elected local governments
May 8, 2021

Says Makinde, Masari acted illegally in sacking Oyo, Katsina LGs

Orders payment of salaries, allowances to affected chairmen, councillors

SANs, minister, others: Verdict will check impunity

Local government administration got a landmark victory on Friday after the Supreme Court, in two separate judgments, declared that state governors have no power whatsoever to sack democratically elected local government chairmen and councillors.

The apex court said the 2015 dissolution of the 34 LGs in Katsina State by Governor Aminu Masari and the 2019 sack of the chairmen and councillors of the 33 LGs and 35 Local Council Development Areas in Oyo State by Governor Seyi Makinde were in breach of Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution.
The five-man panel was unanimous in the judgments.

Youth and Sports Development Minister, Sunday Dare, and the Chairman Senate Committee on Local Content, Chief Teslim Folarin, hailed the court for the verdicts.

The Supreme Court held that Masari and Makinde acted illegally and unconstitutionally by removing democratically elected Local Government Councils.

The two judgments were on the appeals filed by sacked LG chairmen and councillors from both states.

The LG chairmen and councillors from the 34 LGs in Katsina, led by Abubakar Ibrahim Yantaba, were elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but were sacked in 2015 by Masari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Those from the 33 local government areas (LGAs) and 35 local council development areas (LCDAs) in Oyo State, led by Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye, were elected under the banner of the APC but were sacked in 2019 by Makinde of the PDP.