I have had the privilege of sitting beside His Royal Highness, the Emir of Lafia, Honourable Justice Sidi Dauda Bage Muhammad I, CFR, Chairman of the Nasarawa State Council of Chiefs and a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, on several occasions. In him, I observed the composure, dignity and calm deliberation that one instinctively associates with a judge who has served at the highest level of the justice system of our country. His interventions were measured, reflective and marked by a quiet competence that commanded attention and respect without demanding either. It was during one such encounter that His Royal Highness offered a simple but profound observation which set in motion the train of thought that resulted in this series of articles. The Supreme Court, he suggested, should not be regarded merely as the highest court and the court of last resort in Nigeria. It should also be understood as a public-policy institution. That observation remained with me because it illuminated a dimension of the Court insufficiently emphasised in public discourse in Nigeria.
The more I reflected upon it, the more compelling the proposition became. The Supreme Court of Nigeria may indeed be regarded as one of the last bastions of the sovereignty, unity and continuity of our country, not primarily in the physical sense, but in the deeper metaphysical, moral and constitutional sense in which a nation recognises itself as one political community governed by common sentiments, rules and institutions. The Supreme Court is therefore not merely the highest institution within the judicial hierarchy, nor simply the final tribunal available to litigants who have exhausted every other legal avenue. In a profound constitutional sense, it stands alongside the Presidency and the National Assembly as one of the three great institutions through which state authority is expressed. The Executive governs and administers; the Legislature makes laws and gives representative expression to the political will of the people; while the Judiciary, culminating in the Supreme Court, interprets the Constitution and the law, determines the lawful boundaries of governmental authority and provides final judicial resolution when competing claims threaten to unsettle the constitutional order.
Its public-policy significance therefore arises not because judges are elected to formulate policy, nor because courts should assume the functions of either the Executive or the Legislature. Rather, it arises from the consequences of constitutional interpretation. Whenever the Supreme Court determines the limits of federal or state authority, interprets the rights of citizens, resolves disputes between constituent units of the Federation, defines the constitutional powers of institutions or pronounces upon issues capable of affecting the political stability of the country, such as election results, it is doing considerably more than settling a dispute between the parties before it. It is in fact helping to define the operating principles of the Nigerian state itself. Its judgments consequently extend beyond the immediate interests of litigants. A controversy may begin as a dispute between two individuals, between a citizen and government, between political organisations, or between the Federation and one or more states. Once a fundamental constitutional question reaches the apex court, its determination may shape institutional behaviour, public authority and the constitutional inheritance transmitted to succeeding generations. This is why the Supreme Court cannot always afford to regard the cases before it merely as isolated contests involving the technical rights and liabilities of adversarial parties. Behind pleadings and procedural rules may lie questions of democratic continuity, federal balance, citizens’ rights, institutional credibility, economic organisation and, ultimately, Nigerians’ faith in the constitutional order.
But there is an important qualification to be made here. Recognition of the national consequences of judicial decisions must never become an invitation to judges to substitute political calculation for law. The national interest cannot be employed as an amorphous justification for disregarding constitutional provisions, overlooking illegality or manufacturing convenient outcomes. Indeed, the first and highest national interest must be the faithful maintenance of the constitutional order itself. That was another of His Royal Highness’s observations that remained fixed in my mind.
A court that bends the law today in pursuit of what appears to be stability may unintentionally weaken the basis of stability tomorrow. Once citizens believe constitutional principles can be displaced when political stakes are high, the authority of law itself becomes conditional. The Court’s contribution to national security and continuity therefore rests precisely upon its willingness to apply the law even when the surrounding political atmosphere is difficult.
This leads to a larger question: what do we actually mean by constitutionalism? A constitution is a document establishing institutions, allocating powers, defining procedures and recognising rights. Constitutionalism is, however, something deeper. It is the culture by which power is exercised with wisdom and prudence, public authorities acknowledge limits, political actors accept lawful decisions they dislike, and government remains subject to rules superior to temporary holders of office.
It is at this point that some reflections by John Buchan in his book The African Colony, written in the aftermath of the South African Boer War, become relevant despite the very different colonial and historical setting in which he wrote, and his prejudices against the African races. I have read the book several times. Buchan observed that a country’s constitutional requirements are not determined solely by immediate political needs. History also matters, because theories and habits of government may sink deeply into the consciousness of a people and become part of their political outlook.
This insight is especially important in societies where constitutional rules must mediate deep memories, competing identities and recurring struggles over power, because durable institutions depend as much upon accepted habits of mutual accommodation as upon written provisions. There is considerable wisdom in that proposition. Constitutions do not operate in historical vacuums. They are interpreted and experienced by societies carrying memories of previous governments, political crises, conflicts, compromises and expectations. Institutions derive legitimacy not merely from text, but from confidence in their consistency and fairness.
Nigeria’s Constitution must therefore be understood against the background of the extraordinary historical journey through which the Nigerian state has passed. It traversed conquest, amalgamation, colonial administration, independence, federal experimentation, political crises, military intervention, civil war, successive constitutional arrangements and eventual democratic restoration. The document under which we presently govern is part of that accumulated national experience. That historical experience leads naturally to the federal question, and to the place of the Supreme Court in holding together a political community whose diversity is both its strength and its perpetual constitutional challenge and critical weak joints.
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