By Ndibe Madu, Esq.
The Court of Appeal’s decision of 22 September 2026 declaring Ibrahim Magu’s continued appointment as Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) illegal has reopened a long-running debate over judicial delay, the consequences of unlawful public appointments and the actions taken by public officers whose tenure is later found to have been defective. In this article, Ndibe Madu, Esq., reflects on whether the judgment came too late or at the right time, while revisiting the Federal High Court’s earlier decision and the years the appeal remained pending.
Discover more
Join Diaspora Networks
Barrister Training Resources
Nigeria Investment Guide
Nigerian Legal News
Court
Beyond the question of delay, the article raises a broader institutional concern: what becomes of official acts performed during an allegedly unlawful tenure? It also examines the possible application of the de facto officer doctrine, which may protect official acts carried out by a person apparently occupying a legally established office, even where that person’s entitlement to the office is subsequently found defective.
CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE BELOW AFTER THESE IMPORTANT NOTICES
Log in to primsol.lawpavilion.com and store.lawpavilion.com to enjoy the best E-journals, textbooks, and many more. For further enquiries/assistance, send an email to customercare@lawpavilion.com or call 08050298729
READ HIS FULL OPINION BELOW
What is on my mind – Can Magu’s judgment of 22 September 2026 from the Court Appeal be regarded as judgment too late or judgment came at the right time.
It will be anybody’s guess.
It was a judgment or outcome feared by the judge of first instance over the case when it was before her for adjudication.
Recklessness among the judiciary will never cease in Nigeria.
We recalled the year Ibrahim Magu was appointed acting Chairman of Economic Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and when the appointment was referred to the National Assembly for Approval and it was rejected at the backdrops of the DSS report. The appointment went back again to the National Assembly, and it was finally rejected.
Discover more
Regulatory Compliance Tool
Nigeria Business Law
Legal
News
Law Enforcement Updates
Everyone will be wondering why I am talking about this case.
In 2019, an Abuja lawyer took the matter to the Federal High Court challenging the illegality of that appointment. On 4 December 2019, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, sitting at FHC Abuja, held in a ruling that the EFCC Establisment Act did not prescribe a specific time limit within which the acting Chairman should cease.
In the judgment, she maintained that such statutory lacuna offers the then President Buhari a ‘probabial yam in which he holds the knife and yam and can cut as he wish’. Meaning that he can appoint Magu as an acting chairman as long as he wishes.
The claimant took the matter to the Appeal Court in 2019. The matter was pending at the Court of Appeal until Magu finished his tenure.
On 22 September 2026, the appeal court came out with a decision. The decision categorically held that the appointment of Magu continuously to complete his tenure was illegal.
There are two questions that should be in any body’s mouth , including why it should take eight years to declare Magu’s appointment an illegality.
Why did Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu not declare the appointment illegal and save the judgment for eight years.
I hope we, as the general public, are not asking for too much if we ask that the Act of Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu be referred to the Nigeria Judicial Council for proper scrutiny and to establish bribery or wrong doings.
The next question in our mouth is: What happens to those acts of Magu when he was sitting as an illegal acting chairman of EFCC?
Firstly, an unlawful appointment/tenure of Magu as the illegal acting chairman does not necessarily invalidate everything, actions took while occupying the office.
Nigerian law recognizes the de facto officer doctrine. The basic idea is that where a person is apparently holding a legally established public office under colour of authority, official acts performed in that capacity can remain valid as against the public and third parties, even though the person’s legal entitlement to hold the office is later found defective or illegal as the case may be, as in the case Magu. Nigerian judicial decisions describe the doctrine as protecting people who reasonably relied on the apparent authority of the officeholder.
So, for example, if an acting EFCC chairman:
authorised an investigation;
approved an administrative decision;
signed an official document;
authorised a prosecution or other EFCC action or
exercised statutory powers,
and later, the news came out that his tenure was unlawful, as was the case now, does not automatically mean that every one of those acts becomes null and void retrospectively.
Nigeria has been robbed by not appointing other persons on the post.
This judgment of the Appeal Court exposed the failings of the Judicary.
I cry for our nation. There are two variables that played part here. The judge at the Federal High Court seems to operate under fears or under the influence of pecuniary benefit.
I had my internship in her court in Apo then, and she does not look or sound as someone who can operate under pecuniary influence. Never say never.
Is Magu going to pay back all the salary received while acting illegal as acting chairman of EFCC. The decision will be dropped at the door front of EFCC while we watch.
Ndibe Madu, Esq.
Obadiah Rose Solicitors, Abuja
In this article