Former NBA President throws weight behind President Tinubu’s Emergency rule.

Has any court in Nigeria declared the suspension of the executive and legislative arms of the state government under emergency rule as unconstitutional or illegal? I have my doubts.

The challenges of 2004 and 2006 in relation to Plateau State were decided on the issue of locus standi.

People who are today affected by this exercise are encouraged to and can however make that challenge in court and let our courts now decide that issue.

But as things stand today, the person who can declare a state of emergency I.e., the President is the one who gets to decide how the subject state will be run.

My position is that a Governor that has been found complicit in the events leading to the declaration of the state of emergency in his territory cannot at the same time be left to administer the state that he has plunged into chaos and near anarchy. One must give way for the other.

Simply put, the declaration of a state of emergency is that the president who makes the declaration or proclamation takes over direct rule of the State through his agent, styled and known as the sole administrator, so it is a direct takeover of the administration of the state by the federal government through the instrumentality of the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the auspices of emergency powers.

It will therefore be incongruous and completely out of place for the President and suspended Governor to rule the subject state at the same time.

The rationale and source of that Presidential power is derived from the Constitution which mandates the President to administer the entire territory referred to as the Federal Republic of Nigeria by himself, through his Ministers or other appointees for the attainment of Peace, order and good governance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The same goes for the House of Assembly of the state which now stands suspended. They can no longer act as legislators or the legislature on account of the suspension. Only the National Assembly pursuant to section 11 of the Nigerian constitution that can during an emergency make laws for the peace, order and good government of such a State.

The fact that GEJ in 2014 did not remove the Governors of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States when he declared as President state of emergency in those states does not make it unlawful if another President decides to act in another manner. The deductions to be made in both situations is that the circumstances were totally different or that the former president GEJ did not have the courage or the guts to suspend the governors for the period of the emergency action, which had he done so would probably have nipped the Boko Haram crisis in the bud. This probably explains why Nigerians rejected him at the polls when he sought reelection in 2015.

– JB Daudu SAN.
Former President, NBA.