President Muhammadu Buhari, on May 22, 2020, signed Executive Order No 10 into law. The Order was meant to give effect to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution as altered by the 4th Alteration Act, No.4 of 2017, which guarantees financial autonomy for the Judiciary and the Legislature at the state level.
The Order simply sought to ensure that the monies voted for by the Judiciary and Legislature in the annual budget were directly sent to their leadership, as against the prevailing practice where the state governors manage the funds for the two critical institutions with the attendant implications on their independence and optimum performance.
In other words, the Order was to grant financial autonomy to the Legislature and the Judiciary in the 36 states of the federation. It also sought to empower the Accountant-General of the Federation to deduct funds for the state legislature and the judiciary from the Federation Allocations to the states.
However, the Attorney-General of Abia State, on behalf of 35 others, dragged the Attorney-General of the Federation before the Supreme Court, praying for an order to compel the Federal Government to take up funding of capital projects for the three courts on the ground that they are the courts of the federation and as such, the funding of their capital project should flow from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
Their lead counsel, Augustine Alegeh, had argued that the salaries and emoluments of the judges of the three courts were being paid by the Federal Government in line with Section 81 of the 1999 constitution, and as such, the section should be invoked to place the responsibility of funding their capital projects at the doorsteps of the Federal Government.
The 36 state governments had in their joint suit also applied for an order of the apex court to compel the Federal Government to pay them N66 billion being an amount they had so far spent on capital projects for the three courts in their respective states.
However, in a split decision of six to one, the Supreme Court, on Friday in Abuja, nullified Executive Order 10.
The apex court held that Executive Order 10 was inconsistent with the 1999 Constitution and therefore unconstitutional, illegal, null and void and of no effect whatsoever.
