By Henry Ojelu, Assistant Judicial Editor
When two courts issue different orders over the same dispute, the law can suddenly acquire two voices. For litigants, lawyers, security agencies and ordinary citizens, the consequence is more than legal confusion.
It can mean uncertainty over which order to obey, prolonged litigation and, in politically sensitive cases, the risk of turning a courtroom dispute into a wider public crisis.
That concern has become one of the most persistent issues confronting Nigeria’s judiciary, with the Kano Emirate crisis, the Rivers State political dispute and recent Supreme Court decisions providing striking examples of the problem.
The National Judicial Council, NJC, was sufficiently alarmed by the Kano development in May 2024 to summon the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, and the Chief Judge of Kano State High Court, Justice Dije Aboki, for an emergency meeting.
The NJC said the summons followed “conflicting judgements” emanating from the two courts over the Kano chieftaincy dispute and described the development as “very disturbing”.
The Kano case offered a dramatic illustration. On May 23, 2024, Justice A.M. Liman of the Federal High Court in Kano issued an ex-parte order suspending implementation of the Kano State Emirate Council (Repeal) Law, 2024.
Days later, Justice Amina Adamu Aliyu of the Kano State High Court issued an order restraining security agencies from removing Muhammadu Sanusi II from the palace and also restrained Aminu Ado Bayero from parading himself as Emir.
Then, on May 28, Justice S.A. Amobeda of the Federal High Court, Kano, ordered the police to ensure that Bayero enjoyed the rights and privileges of an Emir and ordered Sanusi to vacate the Gidan Rumfa palace.
The competing orders left security agencies caught between judicial directives concerning the same emirate dispute.
The NJC intervention demonstrated that conflicting orders are not merely a technical problem for lawyers. They can become an institutional problem for the state when government agencies are confronted with apparently incompatible directives.
Rivers political debacle
The Rivers State political crisis produced another example. On September 30, 2024, the Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt ordered the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC, to proceed with the October 5 local government elections.
The order, made by Justice I.P. Igwe in a suit involving the Action Peoples Party, APP, directed RSIEC to use the 2023 voters’ register and ordered security agencies to provide protection for the exercise.
At about the same period, proceedings before the Federal High Court in Abuja generated a contrary position concerning the electoral process. The competing proceedings became part of the wider political and legal confrontation between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike.
The episode illustrated another dimension of the problem: the use of courts of coordinate jurisdiction to obtain orders on politically consequential disputes.
But the concern does not end at the level of trial courts. At the opening of the 2025/2026 legal year of the Supreme Court, the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, BOSAN, told the apex court that conflicting decisions had persisted for years.
BOSAN said it had documented the problem since 2012 and identified uncertainty arising from decisions of both the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
It pointed specifically to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Okafor v Nweke and FBN v Maiwada, which established and reaffirmed the position concerning court processes signed in the name of a law firm.
BOSAN then drew attention to Olowe v Aluko, delivered on May 23, 2025, and Menakaya v Ezim, delivered about two weeks later.
According to the senior lawyers, Olowe v Aluko appeared to adopt a more liberal approach to the principle established in Okafor v Nweke, while Menakaya v Ezim appeared to return to the earlier position.
BOSAN consequently asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria to convene justices of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal alongside leading members of the Bar to identify conflicting decisions and undertake a holistic review.
Doctrine of judicial precedent
The significance of the debate lies in stare decisis, the doctrine of judicial precedent. The purpose of precedent is to ensure that similar legal questions are treated consistently, allowing lawyers to advise clients and lower courts to determine cases with some degree of predictability.
As Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad stated in State v Gbahabo, the doctrine is aimed at “certainty and discipline in the adjudication process.” BOSAN quoted the judgment while making its case for greater consistency in judicial decisions.
There is, however, an important distinction between different judgments and conflicting judgments.
Different outcomes do not automatically mean inconsistency. Courts may legitimately reach different conclusions where the facts, evidence, issues or applicable laws are different. A genuine conflict arises where decisions on substantially similar legal questions or disputes appear irreconcilable.
For the judiciary, therefore, the issue is not simply the number of judgments delivered. It is whether those judgments provide clarity, consistency and finality.
A court judgment is expected to settle a dispute. But where another court issues a contrary order, or where subsequent decisions appear to unsettle an established legal principle, the dispute can move from the courtroom into the public arena.
That is why the harvest of conflicting judgments deserves attention as Nigeria marks another independence anniversary.
The credibility of the judiciary ultimately depends not only on its constitutional authority to decide disputes, but also on the ability of citizens to understand what the law is and to know that similar cases will be treated according to established principles.
