Nigeria’s 36 governors drag Buhari to court

Governors of the 36 states in Nigeria are heading for a legal battle with Resident Muhammadu Buhari. The 36 state governments in the country are protesting the presidential executive order President Buhari signed in May, thus, dragging the Federal Government to the Supreme Court.

It was gathered that suit was filed in the Supreme Court by 36 Attorneys General of the various states, demanding the apex court to nullify executive order of President Buhari on the funding of courts, declaring it unconstitutional.

It was disclosed that in the suit filed on their behalf by nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) led by Augustine Alegeh, former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), including six other senior lawyers, the 36 state governments argue that President  Buhari, by virtue of the executive order he signed on May 20, 2020, had pushed the Federal Government’s responsibility of funding both the capital and recurrent expenditures of the state High Courts, Sharia Courts of Appeal and the Customary Courts of Appeal, to the state governments.

They further argued that the President’s executive order no. 00-10 of 2020 is a clear violation of sections 6 and 8(3) of the 1999 constitution, which makes it the responsibility of the federal government to fund the listed courts.

The state governments further protested that they have been funding capital projects in the listed courts since 2009; they, therefore, demanded the Supreme Court to direct the Federal Government to refund what the states have spent on the projects.