Supreme Court2017Followed
Skye Bank Plc v. Iwu
Appeals in labour matters
Decisions of the National Industrial Court are appealable to the Court of Appeal, and the court is not a jurisdictional island.
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Case Law Explorer
Statutes say what the rule is. Judgments say what it meant when it met a real dispute. Search decided Nigerian cases by court, subject, issue and year — each one summarised in plain language, with what it settles and, just as importantly, what it does not.
What you are reading
Every case here is a real, reported Nigerian decision. What we publish is our summary of it in plain language. We do not print a law-report volume and page, because a citation that leads nowhere is worse than no citation at all — and we will not have this platform be the source of one.
Find the decision by its case name in a law report series or through the court's own record, read the judgment, and check whether it is still good law before you rely on it.
The explorer
Results are ordered by authority first and recency second, because which court said it decides how much a decision matters. The spec's judge and case-number filters are not offered: neither is stored, and neither will be reproduced from memory.
Showing 18 of 18
Appeals in labour matters
Decisions of the National Industrial Court are appealable to the Court of Appeal, and the court is not a jurisdictional island.
Read the summaryJudicial independence
The removal of a judicial officer requires the constitutional role of the National Judicial Council to be respected.
Read the summaryParty primaries and candidacy
It is the party that contests an election; a candidate validly nominated cannot be substituted except as the law permits.
Read the summaryBail and personal liberty
Personal liberty is a constitutional right but not an absolute one; national security is a legitimate consideration in a bail decision.
Read the summaryImpeachment procedure
Removal of a Governor is valid only where the Constitution's procedure is strictly followed, and compliance is justiciable.
Read the summaryFederalism and allocations
Constitutional entitlement to statutory allocations is not a lever the Federal Government may pull to enforce its view of a separate constitutional question.
Read the summaryFederal legislative competence
Federal anti-corruption legislation validly operates throughout the Federation, states included, where the Constitution supports the competence.
Read the summaryInternational instruments in domestic law
A treaty domesticated by statute is enforceable in Nigerian courts as part of Nigerian law, but it does not displace the Constitution.
Read the summaryLand Use Act consent
The Land Use Act's consent requirement extends to deemed rights of occupancy, and alienation without the required consent is not safe.
Read the summaryRule of law
The rule of law binds the executive: government may not use its power to pre-empt a court, and must obey court orders.
Read the summaryFair hearing
A domestic disciplinary panel cannot determine allegations of criminal conduct; that is the function of a court, and fair hearing applies throughout.
Read the summaryEnforcing rights against the State
Fundamental rights are enforceable against the State, and are of a different order from rights conferred by ordinary legislation.
Read the summaryFair hearing
A hearing that is not concluded within a reasonable time is not a fair hearing, and the right is not lightly treated as waived.
Read the summaryConstitutional interpretation
The Constitution is interpreted broadly and purposively, not with the narrow technicality applied to ordinary statutes.
Read the summaryStanding to sue
A person challenging governmental action must show sufficient interest of their own; a general interest shared with every citizen is not by itself enough.
Read the summaryConstitutional interpretation
A constitutional formula is applied as the Constitution's own words require, and an election result is not disturbed on a construction the text does not bear.
Read the summaryNature of rights
Not every human right is a fundamental right; the special enforcement procedure is available only for rights the Constitution has entrenched.
Read the summaryLegality of offences
There is no criminal offence in Nigeria except one created by a written law that also prescribes its punishment.
Read the summaryThe hierarchy
Nigerian courts follow precedent: a decision of a higher court binds the courts below it. Chapter VII of the Constitution establishes the structure.
The final court. It hears appeals from the Court of Appeal and has original jurisdiction in disputes between the Federation and a state, or between states.
Binds every other court in Nigeria. Only the Supreme Court itself can depart from its own earlier decision.
Hears appeals from the High Courts, the National Industrial Court and various tribunals.
Binds every court below it, and is itself bound by the Supreme Court.
The federal subjects the Constitution assigns to it, including many revenue, admiralty, company and federal agency matters.
Its decisions do not bind other High Courts, but they are persuasive and are regularly cited.
General jurisdiction, and the court a person approaches to enforce a fundamental right under Chapter IV.
Binds the courts below it in the state. A decision of one High Court is persuasive, not binding, on another.
Labour, employment, trade union and workplace matters.
Binds nothing above it, and appeals from it run to the Court of Appeal on the terms the Constitution sets.
Bodies established by statute for a defined subject — election petitions, tax appeals, investment and securities disputes and others.
Bound by the courts above them, and their decisions are appealable on the terms their establishing statute sets.
How to read one
Read in this order, a judgment stops being a wall of text and becomes a decision you can actually use.
What actually happened, as the court found it. A judgment is a decision about particular facts, and a later case with different facts may come out differently.
The precise questions the court had to answer. A judgment settles the issues before it — not every related question a reader might have.
The legal reasoning necessary to the decision. This is the part that binds later courts, and it is usually narrower than the headline suggests.
Observations the court made along the way that were not necessary to the outcome. Persuasive, sometimes quoted heavily, but not binding.
What the court actually ordered. A party can win the argument and still be disappointed by the order.
Whether the decision has since been followed, distinguished, overruled or overtaken by legislation. A case is only good law until it is not.
A word on citations
A citation exists so that anyone can find the decision and read it for themselves — the parties, the year, the report series, the volume and the page. Case names circulate confidently in conversation, in training material and increasingly in text produced by software, without any decision behind them. Before you rely on a case, find it in a law report or the court’s own record, and check whether it is still good law.