In a very decisive intervention, the High Court of the FCT, Maitama presided over by Hon Justice Muhammed Adamu Mustapha, on September 4, 2024, granted an injunction in favour of the Registered Trustees of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in which it restrained one Maifata Aminu Muazu from continuing to parade himself as the President of ALGON’S Executive Council.
This was sequel to an application filed to that effect on behalf of ALGON by Mike Ozekhome’s Chambers, in which it successfully argued that the said Maifata Muazu was but an impostor who was neither elected nor otherwise recognized by ALGON’s Constitution, or any of ALGON’S members or structures as its legitimate President.
The Applicant in an affidavit avered that Muazu was a pretender to the office of ALGON ‘s President who had been imposed on ALGON by the erstwhile President of its Council, Mr. Alabi Kolade David, at the expiration of his tenure in March, 2024. Alabi had himself faced legal challenges to his office having emerged from one of the Lagos State Local Government Development Centres that are not recognised under the 1999 Constitution.
In that capacity, the said affidavit in support of the application and deposed to by Mohammed Abubakar, ALGON’s Secretary, stated that Mr Maifata Muazu had misled and deceived unsuspecting members of the public (including relevant Government agencies) into believing that he was the bona fide President of Algon.
Abubakar avered that in course of such nefarious activities, Muazu managed to smuggle himself into a 10-man inter-ministerial committee recently constituted by the Federal Government to set out modalities for the enforcement of the judgment delivered by the Supreme Court on July 11, 2024, which granted financial autonomy to local governments in Nigeria.
The court order has thus stopped the activities of Muazu and his cohorts whom the affidavit avered are playing the role of moles within the said Committee and are bent on executing an unholy agenda of scuttling the immediate implementation of the said judgement of the Supreme Court in the light of the express provisions of Section 287 of the 1999 Constitution regarding the bindingness and immediate enforceability of the judgements of all the courts of the land, particularly those of the Supreme Court.
Contrary to this mandatory provision, the affidavit avered that Muazu has since struck an unholy agreement with certain unnamed agents of the Federal Government to defer the implementation of the said apex court judgement to the October 1, 2024.
Accordingly, the order just made by Hon. Justice Mohammed Mustapha is being applauded by all lovers of constitutional democracy, particularly advocates of the strengthening of local governments as an effective third tier of government.
