Not A Green Light: Supreme Court’s Rivers Emergency Verdict Was A Red Flag On Procedure
THE Supreme Court does not decide by headlines—but Nigeria’s digital public often interprets by them. The Rivers State emergency rule narrative is a case in point. The Court’s ruling in AG Adamawa & Others v. AG Federation did not give presidential emergency powers in Rivers a constitutional clean bill of health. Instead, it issued what constitutional scholars describe as a red flag on the approval mechanism, jurisdictional discipline, and legislative accountability.
The Court acknowledged, in principle, that emergency rule could be constitutionally invoked under extreme threats to public order. However, this was not a pronouncement on Rivers State specifically. The justices were careful not to confer direct legitimacy on the proclamation itself. Rather, the judgment turned decisively on how emergency approval must happen, not whether Rivers met the threshold for emergency.
In unusually clear language, the Court held that the National Assembly’s constitutional duty to approve emergency proclamations must obey strict legislative form. The House of Representatives must not rely on voice votes for such a resolution. It must instead conduct a division vote, record the results, publish the voting log, and ensure the process is verifiable by citizens. The Rivers proclamation failed this test publicly, as its approval was obtained via a voice vote, leaving no record of individual members’ votes, constituencies, or verifiable tally. For legal analysts, this is not a mere technicality—it is a constitutional fatality.
Yet the Court did not invalidate the Rivers emergency rule, not out of endorsement, but because the wrong plaintiffs brought the case. The Court held that Adamawa and the other states had no standing to challenge a proclamation made outside their territories, and they also failed to secure consent from Rivers State. The Court’s original jurisdiction, which applies only to disputes between states and the Federation, was improperly invoked. The result: the case was struck out, not decided on the merits.
In constitutional doctrine, a strike-out signals that the Court was asked to rule where it had no authority to rule. Even so, the Supreme Court still commented briefly on the substantive issues due to their national importance. It made clear, however, that such comments, while influential, do not equal a binding constitutional verdict.
The implications for Nigeria go beyond Rivers: the judgment exposed the danger of rubber-stamp emergency approvals, reaffirmed legislative supremacy in emergency oversight, and reminded executives that constitutional powers collapse where accountability is bypassed. The Court did not say “Rivers emergency rule is approved.” It said something far stronger: “Emergency rule must pass the test of law, not the volume of applause.”
