A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Jabi has held that Local Government Areas/Area Councils can perform functions conferred on them by the Constitution where the National Assembly has not made an enactment.
The court presided by Hon. Justice Charles Agbaza also declared that only Local Government Areas/Area Councils have powers to name roads and streets in addition to numbering of houses in the Area Council.
The pronouncement was made following an action filed by Chief Ogwu James Onoja, SAN, an Abuja legal practitioner, challenging the renaming of a street already bearing his name by the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC).
One of the questions Onoja through his counsel M.A Ebute and Ademola Olagoke asked the court to determine was: “Whether having regard to the provisions of Section 7, 303, 318, First Schedule, Part II and Paragraph (g) of the Fourth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Ammended), the Abuja Municipal Area Council is not conferred with powers of naming roads and streets, numbering of houses under the Area Council as done by every Local Government in Nigeria.”
Justice O. C. Agbaza in his judgment held: “The fact that the National Assembly is yet to enact a law to spell out the functions of the Area Council in line with the provisions of Section 7(5) of the Constitution does not divest the Area Councils the power to exercise those main functions accorded them under the Forth Schedule to the Constitution.”
Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and AMMC had replaced the street named after Onoja by the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) with Amma Pepple Crescent.
Consequently, the court stressed: “The law to be enacted by the various States Houses of Assembly in the case of the State and the National Assembly in the case of the FCT as regards the functions of a Local Government Council or Area Council shall, in addition to other functions as may accorded it by the law, include those functions spelt out by the Constitution under the Forth Schedule. Under Section 1(g) of the Fourth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution, the naming of streets, which is subject of this suit, is one of the main functions of the Local Government Council or Area Council ascribed to it by the Constitution.”
The court also awarded the sum of N2, 000,000.00 (Two Million naira) as costs for general damages against AMMC.
Sometime in July 27 AMAC sent Chief Onoja a nomination letter requesting him to subscribe for street naming. The senior advocate via an acceptance letter replied and picked up a subscription form for the sum of N25,000 as requested by AMAC.
Afterwards, AMAC wrote informing him of the approval of Ogwu James Onoja Crescent and further asked him to pay N7,000 per metre length, another N3,106 per metre as social service contribution to the Area Council. That he did.
Furthermore, on March 6, 2018 he paid the sum N1, 000,000 and additional N1, 000,000 the next day, March 7, 2018 to AMAC. The street was then named after him. To his dismay, while coming to work on July, 16 2018, a parallel sign post with the inscription “Amma Pepple” Crescent mounted alongside his own.
However, counsel to FCDA and AMMC (2nd and 3rd defendants), Idris Yakubu and Gbenga Ajibade amongst other arguments contended that the National Assembly in line with Section 4, Federal Capital Territory Act empowered the 2nd defendant to provide Municipal Services within the FCT and that it is for the provisions of such Municipal Services that 2nd and 3rd defendants have been naming streets, roads and numbering houses within the FCT.
He also insisted that since there was presently no Act of the National Assembly as regards functions to be performed by the Area Council in the FCT in consonance with the provisions of Section 7 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, AMAC and by extension all other Area Councils in the FCT cannot validly exercise the functions listed in the Forth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution.
The court in all concluded thus: “…the Constitution had already recognised and indeed accorded those functions as functions of the Local Government Council or Area Council. The law to be enacted is mainly to comply with the provisions of the Constitution as the Constitution had already, under the Forth Schedule assigned or accorded the Local Government Councils or Area Councils the functions which include the naming of Roads and Streets…”