A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the freezing of the Katsina State Local Governments Joint Account following the inability of the state government to pay the entitlements of the dissolved local government chairmen and councillors.
The court, presided over by Justice Emeka Nwite, in a suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/122/2022, ordered that the state’s local government joint account should remain frozen till March 21, 2022.
The state Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Salisu Yusuf Majigiri, disclosed this Friday while addressing the dissolved chairmen and their councillors at the party’s secretariat in Katsina.
Barely a month after he was first sworn in six years ago, Governor Aminu Bello Masari sacked the 34 local government chairmen and their 361 councillors over what he termed financial misappropriation by the dissolved officials.
The sacked council officials, all from the former ruling PDP, went to court to challenge what they described as illegal removal from office by Masari where they got a judgment in their favour by the Supreme Court.
The apex court, in a unanimous judgment in May last year, declared the sack of the council officials as “illegal, unconstitutional, null and void” and ordered the state government to pay the sacked officials their entitlements for the remainder of their tenure.
Majigiri explained that the Federal High Court, in a garnishing order issued on 16th February, has frozen the joint account of the state local governments till March 21, 2022.
He said: “When Aminu Masari refused to comply with the judgment of the Supreme Court, we decided to go and seek a garnishing order from the Federal High Court and the garnishing order has been granted by the court.
“The state government, House of Assembly and the Attorney-General of the state have been served accordingly. We are waiting to see what will happen.”
But the state Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammed Sani, said all the entitlements of the dissolved local government chairmen and their councillors have been paid in accordance with the directive of the apex court.
He added that the state government would present all evidence of payment before the Federal High Court on the next adjournment date of March 21, 2022.
