Menu

Of Supreme Court and supreme error 02 Sep 2025

On the 30th of August 2025, local government elections held in Rivers State under the auspices of a sole administrator who was appointed by President Bola Tinubu about six months ago. For those who do not know the facts, six months ago, Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State and suspended the elected governor and all the members of the state house of assembly for six months. The President gave as reason the escalation of the political crisis in the state that has dragged on for months and seems to have defied easy political and legal solutions. The crisis is the political disagreement between Governor Siminalayi Fubara, the current governor, and his predecessor and godfather who is the Minister of the Federal Capital (FCT) Territory, Nyesom Wike. 

Wike groomed and made Fubara governor under some conditions that would have given the former political and financial control of the state. The report is that Governor Fubara reneged on the agreement, setting off a chain of political events that threatened the continuation of his governorship. A majority of the assembly members who are aligned to Wike decided to impeach Fubara. In an effort to prevent impeachment, the governor’s supporters allegedly burnt the assembly building, setting off other consequential events.

The great French political philosopher, Alexis Tocqueville, once argued, in respect of democracy in the United States, that no sooner a political crisis begins than it ends up as a legal crisis. As soon as the fight broke out between Fubara and Wike, the court became the battleground. The Supreme Court intervened to give victory to the FCT minister. The court in an overreaching decision pronounced the legislators who had decamped to the ruling party at the federal level, APC, as still members of Fubara’s party, PDP, and therefore retain their seats, nullified the appropriate law passed by the remainder of the assembly without Wike’s supporters, and ordered the governor to re-present the appropriation bill for passage by the full complement of the assembly chaired by the Speaker who is an ally of the FCT minister. 

Many thought that the Supreme Court’s authoritative declarations have brought finality to the crisis. Then President Tinubu struck. He suspended all democratic institutions in the state under a power he claimed he got from the constitution. To be clear, the constitution grants the President the power to declare a state of emergency. The constitutional language suggests that this power is only exercisable when the country or a part of it is at war or taken over by real violence such that democratic institutions cannot function. Nothing of sort happened in Rivers State. Again, the declaration would be limited to limitations on some civil rights, not suspension of democratic institutions. The declaration elicited strong public disapproval. But the National Assembly approved the declaration with an improper procedure. 

Some Governors of the opposition PDP challenged the declaration at the Supreme Court. The news is that for the past 5 months the court has refused to hear the case. The very actions that the plaintiffs seek to prevent are happening and the court does not care about taking up the case. The Supreme Court is usually fast on such highly important constitutional cases. It took the Supreme Court just days to resolve the case on the constitutionality of the unelected administrator for local government councils, a suit brought by the APC government. Similarly, in 2023, the Supreme Court quickly resolved the case about the constitutionality of the change of currency denomination. Time is running out. In the next two weeks, the six months suspension of Governor Fubara will expire. Besides, political actions which the other camp want to prevent are almost completed by the disputed Sole Administrator. Why did the court refuse to hear such an important case and allow the time to run out? Why?

This is clearly an unfair situation. The administrative decision to slate a case for hearing at the Supreme Court is important because unless the case is heard we do not know what the true state of the law is. Many legal scholars believe that the President has no powers to suspend an elected governor and state legislators. Many believe that it was a political overreach designed to change the configuration of power in the state to the benefit of Wike who is critical to President Tinubu’s electoral fortunes. 

On August 30, the balance of power was changed to benefit Wike. In the LG election organised by the ‘illegal’ Sole Administrator, Fubara people boycotted and Wike swept the polls. The Sole Administrator makes the case of the illegality of the declaration of a state of emergency because since taking over office there has not been a security issue he resolved. No single person died before the declaration of emergency. None has died since. So, there was no state of emergency to warrant the declaration. Furthermore, the Sole Administrator has gone ahead to undertake actions that have no bearing to maintaining peace but are acts of political brinkmanship like appointing political advisers, setting up boards, and now conducting local government elections.

We know politicians are inclined to breach the law in their quest for political power. This is what President Tinubu deliberately did to guarantee his electoral victory in Rivers State by empowering his aide, Wike, against Fubara who is suspected of contrary political tendency. But what is heartrending is the Supreme Court being so political in the sense of aiding and abetting this political outcome by delaying hearing and determining the constitutionality of the suspension of the elected governor and legislators in Rivers State until the six months run out and Tinubu achieves a rebalancing of political power in the state. 

It is true that a notable political scientist, Robert Dahl, noted that the Supreme Court is a political institution. But he did not mean that the Court should openly aid political actors in a political fight by refusing to perform a judicial function. To do so is to commit a supreme error.

Sam Amadi, PhD, a former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, is the Director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts.