Justice A. O. Ebong issued an order attaching funds to the credit of the state government account in First Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Wema Bank, and Zenith Bank while ruling on a motion ex-parte for a garnishee order in Abuja's High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The debt amounts to 3,374,889,425.60.

The banks were required to provide justification for why the order should not be made final by Justice Ebong. The judge delivered the ruling on the motion, which was marked FCT/HC/BW/M/238/2023, on March 2, and a certified true copy (CTC) was observed in Abuja on Sunday.

According to court documents, the funds will be used to pay off the judgment debt of N3,374,889,425.60 owed to some former local government chairpersons and councillors who were fired on May 29, 2019, before Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State ended their terms of office.

“A garnishee order nisi is hereby granted to attach the judgement debtors’ accounts with garnishees Nos. 1 to 4 in the motion ex-parte, for the purpose of settling the judgement debt outstanding in the sum of N3,374,889,425.60, as awarded by the Supreme Court and conceded by the judgement debtors in Exhibit 11 attached to the applicant’s motion,” the ruling reads.

It was accumulated that the judgment loan bosses have since affected help of duplicates of the request on the judgment account holders, as requested by the court.

The state's attorney general, the commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, the accountant general, the house of assembly, its speaker, and the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC) are all listed as judgment debtors with the Oyo State Governor.

On March 12, 2018, OYSIEC held an election in which the ex-chairpersons and councillors were selected for a three-year term.

After discovering that Makinde, who got to work on May 29, 2019, had wanted to sack them, they sued under the watchful eye of the Great Court of Oyo State to challenge the legality of Segments 11 and 12 of the Oyo State Neighborhood Government Regulation 2001, which engaged the lead representative and the Place of Gathering to break up LG chiefs in the state.

On the grounds that they were in violation of Section 7(1) of the Constitution, the Oyo State High Court ruled on May 6, 2019, that Sections 11 and 12 of the state's Local Government Law 2001 were unconstitutional.

In spite of the means of the judgment, Makinde fired the executives and councilors on May 29, 2019, and in this manner pursued the judgment.

A five-member Supreme Court panel headed by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun granted the appeal marked SC/CV/556/2020 and overturned the Court of Appeal's decision on May 7, 2021.

The court, which granted an expense of N20 million against Mr Makinde, requested that the ex-directors and councilors, who were unlawfully sacked by the lead representative, be paid their pay rates and remittances from May 29, 2019, to May 11, 2021, when their residency should have lapsed.

Ahead of the pack judgment by Equity Ejembi Eko, the High Court cracked down on Makinde, whom it found to have acted randomly and undemocratic.

On July 15, 2020, the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court's decision, which the impacted officials appealed to the Supreme Court.

"I will not conclude this appeal without commenting on the troubling, ugly face of impunity displayed by the Governor of Oyo State (1st respondent herein) on May 29, 2019, tantamounting to executive lawlessness, outrightly and vehemently condemned by this court in the case of the Military Governor of Lagos State v. Ojukwu," according to the appellant. Justice Eko stated that Justice Eko pointed out that Makinde "issued imperial directives dissolving all democratically elected local government councils in Oyo State in spite of the subsisting judgment of the Oyo State High Court in the suit No. 29 on May 29, 2019 before appealing the High Court judgment." 1/347/2017.

“Series of applications were filed by the judgment creditors, the present appellants, to restrain, particularly the 1st respondent (the Governor), from embarking on the self-help designed to contemptuously frustrate the judgment of the High Court.

“He was not dissuaded. He proceeded in his imperial omnipotency to continue in his untrammelled, albeit invidious contemptuous, disregard of subsisting judgment of the High Court.

“It is unthinkable that a democratically elected governor would embark on these unwholesome undemocratic tendencies. These tendencies no doubt endanger democracy and the rule of law.

“It is almost becoming universal phenomena that the democratically elected Governors have constituted themselves into a specie most dangerous to democracy in this country.

“They disdainfully disregard and disrupt democratically elected Local Government Councils and appoint their lackeys as caretaker committees to run affairs of Local Governments.”