By Festus Ogwuche
The recent pronouncement of the Supreme Court on the crisis within the
African Democratic Congress (ADC) has generated a line of reasoning that warrants careful juridical scrutiny. Central to that reasoning is the attribution of fault to the Court of Appeal for its reference to “status quo.” With respect, that attribution is misplaced.
The real issue lies not in the appellate court’s pronouncement, but in the subsequent administrative conduct of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which appears to have accorded binding force to what, in law, can only be classified as an obiter dictum.
It is settled doctrine that a court is bound by the issues distilled from the grounds of appeal. In A.-G. Federation v. Abubakar (2007), the Supreme Court restated that courts are confined to the issues properly submitted for determination, and any pronouncement outside those issues, no matter how forceful, cannot constitute the binding ratio of the case. Similarly, in Dingyadi v. INEC (No. 2) (2011), the Court emphasised that it is only the ratio decidendi that possesses binding authority, while obiter dicta, though persuasive, do not create enforceable obligations.
Lord Denning placed it on a more balanced pedestal in Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham, where he admonished that a judge in his judicial reasoning must endeavour to locate the ratio decidendi as different from the obiter ‘not in a particular sentence here and there, but to the material facts as found by the court, plus the decision on those facts.’ Indeed, the ratio and obiter exist at different points in the dissection between procedural flexibility and substantive rigidity of legal phenomena, in their possible blend interplay and integration in courtroom adjudication and drama as possible ends to a wholesome adjudication.
In the ADC appeal, no ground invited the Court of Appeal to undertake a juridical definition or application of “status quo.” The issue neither arose from the pleadings nor formed part of the questions submitted for determination. Consequently, any reference to it must be understood within the well-established category of obiter dicta, and nothing else, as the court is not an all purpose dispute settling tribunal – its business is confined only to the issues before it and no further.
This is not an aberration. Appellate courts, within the tradition of common law adjudication, frequently make such pronouncements. They serve explanatory, advisory, and sometimes cautionary purposes. They do not bind subsequent conduct in the manner that the operative ratio does. To characterise such a pronouncement as a judicial error is to misconceive the nature and function of obiter within our jurisprudence.
The more critical concern is the role assumed by INEC. As an administrative and regulatory body, it is bound to give effect to the clear and operative orders of a court. It is neither required nor permitted to embark on an interpretative exercise that elevates non-binding judicial commentary into enforceable directives. By acting on the basis of an obiter dictum, INEC effectively entered into the arena of contest, selecting from the judgment a fragment capable of altering the balance between disputing parties.
Such conduct raises serious concerns within the framework of administrative law. It suggests a departure from institutional neutrality and a willingness to engage in interpretative selectivity. An electoral body must remain anchored to the certainty of binding judicial orders, not the fluidity of judicial commentary.
As Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo (former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeal, and later justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), famously observed, “The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.” The discipline of judging—and, by extension, of those who implement judicial decisions—lies in resisting those undercurrents.
Equally significant is the approach of the Supreme Court to the question of jurisdiction. Having had the opportunity to conclusively determine this threshold issue, the Court elected instead to remit the matter to the Federal High Court for continuation. This approach sits uneasily with the Court’s established jurisprudence, which consistently treats jurisdiction as fundamental and determinative.
The Court has, in a long line of cases, insisted that once jurisdiction is in issue, it must be resolved one way or the other – being a threshold issue, it does not require any leave of any court as prerequisite to invoke it as preliminary point of objection even for the first time on in the Supreme Court!
Jurisdiction is not a peripheral question; it is the foundation upon which adjudication rests. Where it is in issue, it demands resolution with finality. The decision to defer that determination introduces a measure of uncertainty that is at odds with the Court’s own precedents. The result is a disposition that leaves the central legal question unresolved while prolonging the dispute within the trial court.
In this respect, the decision may be described as lacking in doctrinal clarity. It neither settles the jurisdictional controversy nor provides definitive guidance on the operative effect of the appellate court’s pronouncement. The consequence is a jurisprudential vacuum, one that administrative actors may be tempted to fill in ways that undermine legal certainty.
The broader implication is evident. When judicial pronouncements are not clearly demarcated in their binding effect, and when administrative bodies assume interpretative authority beyond their remit, the legal system becomes susceptible to instability. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the sphere of intra-party disputes, where precision and restraint are indispensable.
The ADC imbroglio, therefore, illustrates a dual failure: not of judicial tradition, but of administrative discipline, compounded by an absence of finality on a fundamental question.
The Court of Appeal cannot properly be faulted for an obiter pronouncement made within the bounds of established judicial practice. The more compelling inquiry is why that pronouncement was treated as dispositive by an institution that ought to know the difference.
In the final analysis, the integrity of the legal process depends on a clear demarcation between what a court decides and what it merely observes—and an equally clear understanding, on the part of administrative bodies, of the limits of their interpretative authority.
Dr. Ogwuche is the President, Campaign for Social Justice and Constitutional Democracy in Africa based in Port Harcourt and can be reached via festusogwuche@gmail.com
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