Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately implement the Supreme Court ruling on local government autonomy.
Atiku, in a post on his social media platforms on Wednesday, accused Tinubu of playing politics with the judgment, saying his refusal to act is a calculated move “using obedience to the law as a bargaining chip to force opposition governors into the All Progressives Congress, (APC).”
Atiku stressed that the situation does not require threats of an Executive Order, adding that all the President needs is to instruct the Attorney-General of the Federation to enforce the judgment immediately.
“Anything short of this is a failure of leadership,” he said.
He further warned that by July next year, Tinubu’s administration would have spent two full years deliberately ignoring the binding Supreme Court judgment directing the Federal Government to implement direct FAAC allocation to local governments.
“This is not delay. It is defiance,” Atiku said, adding that the refusal to act reduces the Constitution “to a tool of convenience and governance to partisan bargaining.”
Atiku lamented that withholding financial autonomy from local governments is crippling communities, stalling development, and deepening poverty. “Roads remain broken, health centres abandoned, salaries unpaid not by accident, but by choice,” he said.
He concluded that the solution is simple: instruct the Attorney-General to enforce the judgment immediately. “Anything short of this is a failure of leadership.
Your continued inaction sends a clear message: that political control matters more than constitutional duty, that party dominance matters more than economic justice, and that regime survival outweighs the daily suffering of Nigerians already battered by harsh economic policies,” Atiku said.
“Nigeria deserves leadership that obeys the law it swore to protect, not one that bends it for political gain. History will not forget this moment. Nigerians will not either,” he added.
