Sixth Alteration bill to entrench financial and administrative autonomy for the 774 local governments — direct allocation from the Federation Account and protection for elected councils. Among the ~37 prioritised constitution-review proposals that passed second reading; awaiting harmonised passage and state-assembly ratification.
This is a bill, not a signed Act. It must clear every step below before becoming law.
This constitutional amendment seeks to make Nigeria's 774 local government areas a genuinely autonomous third tier - mandating direct disbursement of their Federation Account share (rather than through the state-controlled 'joint account'), and barring governors from dissolving elected councils or running them via unelected caretaker committees. It would constitutionalise the July 2024 Supreme Court judgment that recognised local-government financial autonomy. It is among the roughly 37 priority proposals selected from the 260 that passed second reading in the ongoing Sixth Alteration review of the 1999 Constitution. As a constitutional amendment it needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers and ratification by at least 24 State Houses of Assembly before presidential assent - the state-assembly stage being the historical stumbling block, since it asks governors' own assemblies to cede control of council funds.