Governors from the 36 states of the Federation, under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), have scheduled a crucial meeting next week to review the Supreme Court's judgement granting autonomy to local government councils in the country.

The chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), and Governor of Kwara, AbdulRazaq AbdulRahman, said governor who have been using their resources to bail out local governments have been relieve of a burden.

He disclosed this to the State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

AbdulRazaq, who was flanked by the governors of Imo, Hope Uzodimma, and Bauchi, Bala Mohammed, stated that the ruling is a devolution of power that relieves governors of the significant financial burden of bailing out local governments, an expense that he noted many Nigerians are unaware of, The Nation reported.

“We welcome the ruling of the Supreme and our Attorney Generals have applied for the enrollment order, which we’ll study carefully.”

“But by and large, governors are happy with the devolution of power in respect to local government autonomy. It relieves the burden on governors. Our people really don’t know how much states spend in bailing out local governments, and that’s the issue there.”

The Kwara governor affirmed that the NGF had requested for the enrollment of the judgment and would be reviewing it to decide the way forward. “The forum will meet next Wednesday, to look at the issue wholly and then come up with a resolution on that.”

“Like I said, we haven’t seen the enrollment of the court order and so we really don’t know what is in there,” he stated.

Speaking further, Governor AbdulRahman said the judgement would not negatively affect Kwara state as the state has not been tampering with council funds.

“It’s not going to affect the state we’ve never tampered with local government funds. So it’s going to continue. What the local governments have to do is to manage themselves, especially with the oncoming minimum wage, to manage their affairs and make sure salaries are paid, traditional rulers get their 5% and those are the main issues,” he said.