The Executive Committee is put in place by the 36 States Attorneys General to take positions on legal issues, advise the Attorney General of the Federation and take legal action or review legal actions taken on behalf of States.
The Committee is also to pursue true Federalism, and adherence to the Constitution, Rule of Law, independence of the judiciary, liaison with AGF on behalf of States on legal issues
It is also put in place to lead the body, arrange meetings, issue statements on behalf of all 36 AGs.
Speaking at the event The Attorneys General of the States in a very first, met in Abuja on Monday 14th March 2022. The agenda for the meeting was an update by the legal department of the Governor’s Forum on all the ongoing cases for and against the States at the instance of the Governor’s Forum. The Governor of Plateau State delivered the welcome. Address whilst a former Attorney General of the Federation MR Kanu Agabi SAN delivered the keynote address. The highlight of the meeting was the election of an Executive committee made up of one member each from the six geo-political zones of the country. The following Attorneys General were thus elected to represent their zones.
The Executive Committee of the Attorneys General appointed the Attorney General of Lagos State Mr Moyosore Onigbanjo SAN as its interim Chairman whilst the Attorney General of Nassarawa State Dr ……. Was appointed as the Interim Secretary. The next meeting of the Attorneys General of the States of the Federation will hold in the Q2 of 2022.
Speaking earlier, Ekiti State Attorney General, Mr Olawale Fapounda disclosed that the South West Attorneys General Forum had four Ordinary Meetings and 3 Extraordinary meetings and jointly prosecuted Court cases.
He added that all the 6 States unanimously contributed towards the development of a regional security policy document called Amotekun as well as the South West Development Commission bill in the National Assembly, as well as ongoing efforts toward addressing gender-based violence across the geopolitical zone.
He, however, noted that subnational governments do not seem to be making progress about judicial financial autonomy or legislative autonomy.
“But for me, there are still core issues that need to be addressed as a country the tragic salaries and allowances of judicial officers, no matter how we visually guess your apartment, you have fancy cars, you have fancy courts if they still struggle with what they take home how can we possibly begin to talk about our judicial independence?
“So for me and a number of us you know yes judicial financial future is good, it’s good that we have very good courts but ultimately and we also need to have a standard of living that is commensurate to the position of a judicial officer, so these are issues.”
