In an interview with Arise News from 5:30, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Oba Maduabuchi slammed the Federal High Court’s ruling that halted the local government elections in Rivers State, calling it a judicial overreach and a “waste of time.” Maduabuchi argued that the court’s intervention in a state matter, where it lacked jurisdiction, only served to create unnecessary confusion and delay.
“It has not done anything, once you don’t have jurisdiction, you’ve wasted everybody’s time,” Maduabuchi stated, emphasizing that the Federal High Court should not have entertained the case in the first place. He called the court’s ruling an “aberration,” criticizing the judge for failing to promptly recognize the limits of the court’s authority. “The Judge should have declined the jurisdiction quickly,” he added.
Maduabuchi explained that the first question any judge should ask when determining jurisdiction is what the primary issue of the case is. In this instance, the matter before the court was a local government election in Rivers State, an issue outside the Federal High Court’s purview. “What is it about? It’s an election in Rivers State. Now if it’s an election in Rivers State, do I have jurisdiction over an election in Rivers State? The answer is no,” Maduabuchi stated emphatically.
He further pointed out that the judge’s decision to make such an order is where the confusion began, leading to unnecessary complications in the lead-up to the October 5, 2024, elections. “The Judge making that order in the first place is where the confusion started,” Maduabuchi said. Had the judge declined jurisdiction from the outset, he argued, the issue would have been redirected to the appropriate state court, and the current legal confusion could have been avoided. “If the Judge had said I do not have jurisdiction, go to Rivers State, we would not have all this confusion,” he concluded.