Section 162: Governor Fintiri right to approach the Supreme Court -Falana
Lagos Lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), claimed that Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, the governor of Adamawa State, was correct in approaching the Supreme Court to seek interpretation of Section 162 of the 1999 as amended.
Claiming that it was illegal for the federal government not to distribute all the money accrued to the federation account in contravention of the constitution, the Finder writes on Friday that the Adamawa state government has petitioned the Supreme Court seeking interpretation of Section 162.
Falana added, “Governor Fintiri is right, but I have challenged state governors in Nigeria to adjuduate their responsibilities to the Federal Government.
For example, state governors of Nigeria have let the Federal Government run federation businesses including LNG and NPA.
“In December 2018, the then Director-General of Budget, Ben Akabueze revealed that CEOs of Federal Government parastatals withheld N10 trillion; today, that amount would have exceeded N20 trillion.”
“There was a time when I visited courts, but I was unable to persuade state governments to insist that the money collected from expatriate fees was $2000 per expatriate in Nigeria, total about N40 billion.”
The Federal Government takes 30 percent, the Ministry of Interior 7 percent, and Immigration 5 percent; that is 42 percent, and the remaining 58 percent goes to a contractor who is a foreigner.
“What does he do? He only tells me to move the money to a federal government account. 2019 saw me court and win the lawsuit. The Federal Government appealed while I had been persuading state governments.
“The other one occurred in 2018 when the Supreme Court directed the Federal Government to recoupment of royalties not paid by IOCs over 18 years.
Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Bayelsa’s state governments sued each other, and in October 2018 a court decided. The Buhari government then established a committee; the funds came to roughly $62 billion.
When the Federal Government refused to pay the money, governors Wike and Emmanuel Udom visited courts; the court decided that the Federal Government ought to reimburse the two state governments $3.1 billion without interfering with the other state governments.
State governments so must start a battle for financial autonomy. If we could have our own refineries in Port Harcourt, which we were to have commissioned in December according to the President, and Warri and Kaduna commissioned this year, then the money being spent on importation of fuel would be banked and the Federation Account would have more money in interest for all of us in the continuous conflict between Dangote refinery owners and IOCs.
This is why the state government would have to be more proactive with regard to the Nigerian economic management. he said