Rivers emergency ruling sparks outrage: Supreme court accused of rubber-stamping executive power after crisis expired
The Supreme Court’s judgment on the Rivers State emergency declaration has been criticised as a hollow legal exercise delivered long after its impact could matter. According to Prof. John Egbeazien Oshodi, the ruling—affirming the President’s authority to impose a state of emergency in Rivers State—arrived nine months after the crisis began and three months after the emergency itself had already ended, rendering the verdict “useless and meaningless.”
Oshodi argues that justice in this case did not merely come late; it came after the political damage had already been normalized. He describes the outcome as a stark reminder that “burial comes after death”—the judgment served only as a formal conclusion to a constitutional injury that time itself had already fixed into reality.
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Delivered on December 15, 2025, the Supreme Court ruling did not restrain executive power, protect democratic balance, or reverse alleged abuses. Instead, Oshodi says, it validated a dangerous pattern in Nigerian governance: allowing executive authority to act swiftly and widely, while the judiciary responds only after consequences are irreversible.
He contrasts this judicial delay with the U.S. Supreme Court’s rapid intervention in the Bush v. Gore presidential election case, noting that democratic courts must act quickly when constitutional harm is unfolding. In Nigeria, however, the emergency declaration case lingered in silence for months.
Governors affected by the declaration filed their challenge in March, just days after the emergency was announced. But the court remained inactive throughout the emergency’s lifespan, only reserving judgment once the declaration had naturally expired. By the time the verdict arrived, Oshodi insists, its legal force had evaporated.
The ruling, he says, signals to presidents, security agencies, and institutions that swift executive action can outpace judicial oversight. In his view, this precedent teaches powerholders that constitutional limits can be bypassed simply by waiting for the courts to move at their habitual pace.
Oshodi also criticises the media for failing to question the delayed timing of the judgment, arguing that public silence enables institutional impunity and conditions Nigerians to accept democratic erosion without protest.
The professor concludes that under the leadership of Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the Supreme Court failed to treat the Rivers crisis as urgent, abandoning its duty to act while the alleged constitutional injury was still reversible.
The lasting lesson, he warns, is clear: Nigerian democracy now risks being shaped not by law, but by time—and by those who know how to manipulate it.
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