Loading content
Supreme Court · 1986
May the executive take matters into its own hands while the courts are seised of the dispute?
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.
This decision is reported in the Nigerian law reports. Locate it by its case name in a law report series or through the court's own record, and read the judgment before relying on it.
The question the court actually had to answer. Everything a judgment settles flows from this, and nothing beyond it does.
May the executive take matters into its own hands while the courts are seised of the dispute?
A dispute over possession of premises was before the court when the executive acted to take possession itself.
The question was what the courts should do when the executive presents them with a fait accompli.
The Supreme Court condemned executive self-help and ordered that the position be restored.
It held that the executive is bound by the law and by the orders of the courts, and cannot resort to force while a matter is pending.
Stated narrowly, as the case is genuinely cited for — not stretched into the broader proposition it is often summarised as.
The rule of law binds the executive: government may not use its power to pre-empt a court, and must obey court orders.
Our explanation of what the decision means for an ordinary reader. It is not the judgment.
This is the case Nigerian lawyers reach for when a government body ignores a court. The Supreme Court said plainly that the executive is under the law, not above it, and that self-help is not available to it.
It matters far beyond its own facts: it is the reason a court order against a government agency is a legal obligation and not a suggestion.
The part most summaries leave out, and the part that most often causes a case to be cited for something it never decided.
Named generally. Read the official text of any instrument you intend to rely on.
This decision is reported in the Nigerian law reports. Locate it by its case name in a law report series or through the court's own record, and read the judgment before relying on it.
Subject area: The Constitution