The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) has confirmed that Rivers State will resume receiving financial allocations after the state government successfully appealed a prior court order halting such payments.
Bawa Mokwa, Director of Press and Public Relations at the OAGF, clarified on Friday that the office would comply with the appeal court’s decision, which effectively overrides the earlier federal high court ruling. “We are going to obey court orders. Yesterday, after a report that the state would not be paid, the Rivers State government sent a notification of appeal to that effect,” Mokwa explained. “The notification depicts a stay of execution, which means we will maintain the status quo. It means the state will be given allocation.”
The legal conflict dates back to July when a faction of the Rivers State House of Assembly, led by Martins Amaewhule, filed a lawsuit against the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Accountant-General of the Federation, and other financial institutions. The faction sought an injunction to prevent these bodies from honoring financial instructions issued by Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
On October 30, the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled to stop the CBN from disbursing funds to Rivers State, citing that the state needed a lawful appropriation act through a properly constituted house of assembly. Judge Joyce Abdulmalik found Fubara’s presentation of the 2024 budget to a five-member assembly “improper.”
In response, Governor Fubara appealed the decision at the Court of Appeal, requesting the reversal of the high court’s ruling. Following a November 22 hearing, the appellate panel reserved its judgment, but in the meantime, Rivers State filed a notification of appeal, prompting the OAGF to reinstate the state’s financial allocations.
This legal battle also stems from a power struggle within the state assembly, where Governor Fubara presented an N800 billion budget estimate to the Edison Ehie faction of the assembly in December 2023.
With the stay of execution now in place, Rivers State is set to resume receiving its financial entitlements from the Federation Account, pending further court developments.
