By Abubakar D. Sani. Esq

It is well-known that certain federal enactments – such as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act and the Child Rights Act – lack extra-territorial application beyond the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. This is obviously because, their subject matter is not contained in the Exclusive Legislative List of the Constitution but, rather, in either the Concurrent or the Residual Legislative Lists thereof. Accordingly, any State interested in enacting such laws has to ‘domesticate’ them by adopting them – albeit with necessary changes to their text, i.e., mutatis mutandis.

What is not so clear is the reverse position, i.e., whether a law enacted by a State House of Assembly (or deemed to be so enacted) can be adopted by the National Assembly and given extra-territorial application across the country – or in any particular part thereof, such as the FCT. This is precisely the situation with the regional/state laws adopted as part of the laws of the FCT by Section 13 of the Federal Capital Territory Act. At least 25 out of the 93-odd laws listed in the 2nd Schedule to the Act fall into this category, including the Penal Code Law.

The question is whether that adoption, ipso facto, without more, suffices to legitimize such laws. Does it? Do the legislative powers conferred on the National Assembly by Sections 4(1)-(4), generally, and 299 (in relation to the FCT), of the Constitution, extend to such carte blanche adoption of sub-national statutes as those of the Sovereign? In the case of pre-1999 Constitution statutes, does such adoption impinge on their validity as existing laws within the contemplation of Section 315 of the Constitution? In other words, what, if any, are the limits of the legislative powers of the National Assembly? This is the real question.

If, in the absence of a State law by which a federal law is adopted in a State, such a law will be invalid thereat, is the reverse proposition also correct, i.e., without a stand-alone federal law adopting a State law at the federal level, will such a law not be similarly invalid? What is the status of the 25-odd laws of the old Northern Region of Nigeria which have been received into and adopted as part of the laws of the FCT vide Section 13 of the Territory’s laws as aforesaid? Are those provisions valid? Do they suffice to confer legitimacy on the said laws within the FCT or not?

To the extent that virtually all the said laws pre-date the 1999 Constitution, do they automatically take effect as existing laws within the contemplation of Section 315 of the Constitution? Is there anything juridically, structurally, fundamentally – or even constitutionally – flawed in such carte blanche adoption or does the National Assembly need to pass/enact a separate, stand alone Act or Acts in the mould of those erstwhile regional statutes in the same way that States have domesticated the aforesaid federal laws within their jurisdictions? If such domestication was required to validate the latter laws, why is it irrelevant in respect of the former?

I believe such a scenario is something of an anomaly because it lacks any conceivable juridical basis. In other words, the provisions of Section 13 of the FCT Act are incapable of adopting the laws of the old Northern Region as part of laws of the FCT. I believe that nothing short of separate ‘federalization’ of each of the 25-odd laws affected therein will do, as there is no constitutional authority for such blanket adoption of sub-national laws by a Sovereign Parliament. In other words, it is a constitutional aberration.

Abubakar D. Sani. Esq.

19th March, 2022