The Supreme Court, on Monday, December 15, 2025, granted full authority to the President of Nigeria to declare Emergency Rule in any State of the federation to prevent a breakdown of law and order or degeneration into a state of chaos or anarchy and upheld also that the President, during a state of emergency, can suspend elected officials, but that such suspension of elected officials must be within a limited period.
The judgement is coming nearly 3 months after the proclamation of a 6-months Emergency Rule in Rivers State by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, from March 18 – September 18, had run it’s complete course and elapsed.
President Bola Tinubu himself announced in a statement he personally signed, the lifting of the six-month state of emergency imposed on Rivers State, declaring that democratic governance will fully resume from Thursday, September 18.
The President in that statement, also insisted that the emergency measure was necessary to halt what he describes as “total paralysis of governance” after an earlier Supreme Court, judgement on related matter, also observed that there was effectively “no government” in Rivers State.
In a suit filed by 11 states of the federation to challenge what they termed President Bola Tinubu’s unconstitutional actions in Rivers State, the Supreme Court in a split majority ruling of 6-1 justices, struck out the matter for want of competence, with a dissenting ruling in partial favour of the plaintiffs.
The states behind the suit namely; Delta, Adamawa, Enugu, Osun, Oyo, Bauchi, Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Taraba, Zamfara, and Bayelsa, which were then controlled by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had, through their respective attorneys-general, queried President Tinubu’s statutory powers to suspend a serving governor from office after the proclamation of emergency rule.
They prayed the apex court to declare that based on provisions of sections 1(2), 5(2), and 305 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the president “has no powers whatsoever or vires to suspend a democratically elected governor and deputy governor of a state in the federation of Nigeria under the guise of or pursuant to the proclamation of a state of emergency in the state of the federation by the president, including the states of the federation represented by the plaintiffs.”
The plaintiffs equally prayed the court to declare that President Tinubu had no power to suspend a democratically elected House of Assembly of a state pursuant to Sections 192 (4) (6) and 305 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
As well as to declare that the suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara, his deputy and members of the Rivers State Assembly was unconstitutional, unlawful, illegal and utterly in gross violation of provisions of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Cited as 1st and 2nd defendants in the suit marked SC/CV/329/2025 were the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and the National Assembly (NASS).
Arguing the case, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, who represented the plaintiffs, said his clients did not approach the Supreme Court to challenge the power of the president to proclaim a state of emergency, but “the extent to which the proclamation can be made to affect the offices of the governor, deputy governor, and the State House of Assembly.”
On his part, the AGF insisted that President Tinubu’s action was in the overall interest of Rivers State.
According to him, the state was engulfed in a political crisis that involved the governor, deputy governor and the lawmakers.
“No responsible government would sit back and allow the state to burn without taking any action,” Fagbemi, SAN, submitted, adding that Fubara’s suspension, along with his deputy and lawmakers, “was an extraordinary measure to check an extraordinary situation.”
The AGF said, “My lords, the president had to act and act fast to safeguard the state.
“The starting point is the judgement of the Supreme Court, wherein your lordships held that as things were at that time, there was no government and governance in Rivers State.
“Therefore, the president had no choice but to act in the best interest of the state.
“What he did was to suspend the protagonists, not remove them. Rivers was in an extraordinary situation, and that required taking extraordinary measures to restore peace and protect democracy,” the AGF contended.
His position was adopted by the NASS, which also urged the court to dismiss the suit.
The NASS contended that the plaintiffs failed to fulfil the condition precedent that would empower the Supreme Court to hear the suit it described as frivolous and speculative.
It was part of the contention of the 2nd defendant that the plaintiffs failed to issue the statutorily required three-month pre-action notice to its clerk, as mandated under Section 21 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, 2017.
While praying the apex court to dismiss the suit as “unfounded, frivolous and a vexatious waste of resources, time and energy of the 2nd defendant”, the NASS prayed for a cost of N1 billion to be awarded, jointly and severally, against the plaintiffs.
In the lead majority judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris held that Section 305 of the Constitution empowers the President to deploy extraordinary measures to restore normalcy where emergency rule is declared.
Justice Mohammed Idris noted Section 305 was not specific on the nature of the extraordinary measures, thereby granting the President the discretion on how to go about it.
In its judgement on Monday, December 15, the apex court panel, in its majority verdict, held that the plaintiffs failed to establish any cause of action that led to the activation of its original jurisdiction.
Justice Mohammed Idris, who delivered the lead judgement, added that the states were unable to show that there was any actionable dispute between them and the federation to require the apex court to exercise its original jurisdiction, especially since Rivers State, which was the subject of the litigation was not amongst those that filed the suit.
He stressed that the Supreme Court could only be called upon to adjudicate as a court of first instance where there is a dispute between the federation and any state of the federation.
According to the court, the subject matter of the litigation did not therefore qualify as a dispute between the federal government and any of the plaintiffs on record.
He struck out the suit for want of jurisdiction, proceeded to also determine the case on the merits, and dismissed it.
However, Justice Obande Ogbuinya dissented and held that the case succeeded in part.
Among others, Justice Ogbuinya held that although the President could declare a state of emergency, the President could not use such power as a tool to suspend elected state officials, including governors, deputy governors, and members of parliament.
Other members of the seven-man panel that heard the case, in addition to Mohammed Idris and Obande Ogbuinya, included Justices Chioma Nwosu-Iheme, Haruna Tsammani, Obarinde Ogbuinya, Stephen Adah, Habeeb Abiru.
Watchers and followers of this legal tussle would recall that an earlier panel of Supreme Court Justices led by Justice Inyang Okoro, had on October 21 reserved its judgement on the matter, after all the parties adopted their briefs of argument.
However, before the case was slated for judgement, Delta State, which was initially listed as the 5th plaintiff, formally withdrew from the matter, following the defection of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State from the PDP to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Other State Governors who have subsequently defected from the PDP before Today’s judgement are Peter Mbah (Enugu), Umo Eno (Akwa Ibom), Duoye Diri (Bayelsa), Ademola Adeleke (OSUN) and Agbu Kefas (Taraba).
It will be recalled that President Tinubu had, on March 18, declared a state of emergency in Rivers State after he slammed Governor Fubara, his deputy and lawmakers in the state with a six-month suspension.
President Tinubu appointed Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas to pilot affairs of the state within the period as a Sole Administrator.
The president’s decisions received legislative backing from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, in a manner which was deemed as a breach of procedural legislative process in declaring a State of Emergency, at that time, but which the Supreme Court has now upheld and endorsed.
PDP Governors at that time expressed their discontent with the way and manner the Emergency Rule on Rivers State had been conducted and subsequently lodged the case directly at the Supreme Court. It was this case that was struck out on Monday, December 15.