Nigeria: Osun State Drags Tinubu Regime To Supreme Court Over Withheld LG Allocations

The Osun State has dragged the Bola Tinubu regime to the Supreme Court, filing a fresh suit against the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), over the state’s local government “frozen funds”.

The suit, filed on Monday by Osun’s Attorney-General and a legal team led by Mike Ozekhome (SAN) and Musibau Adetunbi (SAN), seeks to compel the Federal Government to release statutory funds seized since March 2025.

The state is also asking the apex court to bar the AGF from further withholding local government revenues, describing the action as “unconstitutional and arbitrary.”

The Osun government argued that the AGF acted in defiance of subsisting judgments of both the Federal High Court, Osogbo (November 30, 2022), and the Court of Appeal (June 13, 2025), which upheld the legitimacy of council chairmen and councillors elected on February 22, 2025.

Despite these rulings, the AGF had, in a letter dated March 26, 2025, advised that allocations be frozen pending resolution of what he described as a “local government crisis.”

The seizure, suspension, withholding and/or refusal to pay the allocations and revenues due to the constituent local government councils of the plaintiff state is unconstitutional, unlawful, wrongful and ultra vires the powers of the defendant,” the originating summons partly reads.

 Osun State is also seeking a perpetual injunction restraining the AGF from interfering with its councils’ allocations and a declaration that only duly elected local governments are entitled to direct receipt of federal funds.

This action comes months after the state withdrew an earlier suit on the same matter. Simultaneously, Osun has also approached the Federal High Court in Osogbo to challenge the Chief Judge’s transfer of a related case to Abuja for hearing by a vacation judge, warning that proceeding with parallel cases could lead to conflicting judgments.

In an affidavit filed in support of the new suit, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Olufemi Ogundun, condemned the Federal Government’s posture as “an affront to the rule of law,” stressing that only the Supreme Court can conclusively resolve the constitutional questions.

It will be recalled that Governor Ademola Adeleke had earlier requested President Tinubu to intervene and order the release of the funds, insisting that there is “no legal justification” for their continued seizure.

Since March, Osun’s 30 local governments have been denied federal funding, raising concerns over service delivery and local governance. The controversy stems from the February 2025 council elections conducted under Adeleke’s PDP-led government, which the opposition APC rejected.

The Federal Government subsequently halted disbursements through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, leaving the councils starved of resources for five consecutive months.

The move has drawn parallels with a famous confrontation between President Tinubu and former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the early 2000s, when Obasanjo’s administration withheld Lagos State’s local council funds after Tinubu created additional local council development areas.

The Supreme Court eventually ruled in Tinubu’s favour, affirming that the Federal Government had no constitutional authority to withhold local government allocations.

The date of the hearing of the new suits has not been announced.

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