*Draw Parallels With CJN’s Controversial Uzodimma Judgment And Call It State Capture Of The Judiciary

Growing public anger has erupted across social media and political circles over the Supreme Court’s failure to deliver judgment in the ADC leadership appeal six days after hearing arguments from all parties on April 22, with Nigerians accusing the apex court of deliberately sitting on the verdict to run down the clock on the opposition’s ability to conduct primaries, describing the delay as “state capture” of the judiciary and drawing uncomfortable parallels between the current Chief Justice of Nigeria’s handling of the case and his role in the controversial 2020 judgment that installed Hope Uzodimma as Imo State Governor in what many Nigerians still call the “miracle judgment.”

The criticism, while rooted in frustration rather than formal evidence of judicial misconduct, reflects a deepening crisis of public confidence in the Supreme Court’s independence at a moment when the fate of Nigeria’s entire opposition architecture rests on the timing of a single judgment.

The urgency driving the public anger is mathematical. The party primaries window opened on April 23, one day after the Supreme Court heard the ADC appeal. The INEC deadline for completing primaries, including dispute resolution, is May 30. Every day that passes without a ruling reduces the ADC’s capacity to organise congresses, conduct primaries, and meet the regulatory requirements for fielding candidates in the 2027 elections.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the appeal marked SC/CV/180/2026 on Wednesday, April 22, after granting an accelerated hearing with compressed filing timelines that suggested urgency. Justice Mohammed Garba, who led the five-member panel, announced that judgment was reserved to a date that would be communicated to parties. Six days later, no date has been communicated.

For a case that was granted accelerated hearing status, with the court imposing 24-hour filing deadlines and compressing weeks of ordinary procedure into days, the absence of a judgment date after six days has struck many Nigerians as inconsistent with the urgency the court itself signalled.

“You accelerated the hearing. You compressed the filings. You made everyone rush. And now you sit on the judgment while the primaries window burns?” one commentator asked on X, capturing the frustration that has been building since April 22.

The term “state capture,” borrowed from political science to describe a situation where public institutions are co-opted to serve private or partisan interests rather than the public good, has been widely deployed by Nigerians to characterise what they perceive as the Supreme Court’s handling of the ADC case.

The argument, as articulated across social media platforms and in private conversations among lawyers and political analysts, runs as follows: the ruling APC benefits from a weak, fragmented, and legally paralysed opposition. The longer the ADC remains without a definitive Supreme Court ruling, the longer it remains unable to conduct officially recognised primaries. The longer it cannot conduct primaries, the closer it gets to missing INEC’s deadlines. And if it misses those deadlines, the opposition’s primary vehicle for the 2027 presidential election effectively ceases to function, leaving the APC facing no credible organised opposition.

In this analysis, the Supreme Court does not need to rule against the ADC to destroy it. It merely needs to delay ruling long enough for the INEC calendar to do the work for it.

“This is how state capture works,” one prominent social media commentator wrote. “You don’t need to say no. You just need to say nothing, for long enough.”

The comparison to civil servants who “sit on files” resonates deeply in a country where bureaucratic delay is one of the most effective tools of institutional sabotage. Nigerians are familiar with the phenomenon of government officials who neither approve nor reject applications, contracts, or requests but simply allow them to languish in files, effectively killing them through inaction while maintaining the appearance of procedural propriety.

The accusation is that the Supreme Court is applying this same technique to the ADC appeal, neither allowing nor dismissing it but holding it in a judicial limbo that produces the same result as a dismissal without the political cost of an adverse ruling.

The most incendiary element of the public criticism involves the Chief Justice of Nigeria’s association with the 2020 Supreme Court judgment that installed Hope Uzodimma as Governor of Imo State, a decision that remains one of the most controversial in the history of the apex court.

In January 2020, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions of both the election tribunal and the Court of Appeal, which had affirmed Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP as the winner of the 2019 Imo State governorship election, and declared Uzodimma of the APC as the rightful winner. The court relied on results from 388 polling units that had been excluded from the collation, adding them to Uzodimma’s total and finding that he had won the election.

The judgment was widely criticised by legal scholars, opposition politicians, and segments of the public who questioned how a candidate who came fourth in the declared results could be declared the winner through the addition of excluded votes. The decision was dubbed the “miracle judgment” or the “Imo miracle” and became a symbol of what many Nigerians perceived as judicial complicity in electoral manipulation.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria at the time of that judgment, and the specific role of justices who participated in it, is a matter of public record. Nigerians are now drawing a line between that controversial precedent and the current handling of the ADC case, arguing that a judiciary that could produce the “miracle judgment” is capable of using delay as a tool to achieve political outcomes that a direct ruling might not deliver.

Whether this connection is fair or unfair, justified or conspiratorial, it reflects the damage that the Uzodimma judgment did to public confidence in the Supreme Court’s independence, damage that has never been fully repaired and that now colours public perception of every politically significant case before the apex court.

Among legal practitioners, the reaction has been more measured but no less concerned.

Some lawyers point out that reserved judgments at the Supreme Court can legitimately take weeks or even months, and that six days is not an unusually long period for an appellate court to deliberate on a complex jurisdictional question.

However, others note that the accelerated hearing procedure adopted by the court created a reasonable expectation of an expedited judgment. The court compressed filing deadlines to 24 hours. It heard oral arguments within days of the briefs being filed. The entire procedure was designed to resolve the matter with urgency. A judgment that takes weeks after such an accelerated process would represent an internal contradiction that is difficult to explain on purely judicial grounds.

“If you treat the hearing as urgent, you must treat the judgment as urgent. You cannot rush the hearing and then sit on the judgment,” one Senior Advocate who asked not to be named stated.

Others have pointed out that the Supreme Court regularly delivers judgments on the same day or within days of hearing arguments in election petitions and other time-sensitive matters, demonstrating that the court has the institutional capacity to work at speed when it chooses to.

The question many lawyers are asking is not whether the court can deliver quickly but whether it is choosing not to, and if so, why.

The delay places the ADC and its leadership in an impossible position.

If they wait for the Supreme Court judgment before conducting primaries, they risk missing the INEC deadline if the judgment comes too late or if it requires further proceedings at the trial court level.

If they proceed with primaries without the judgment, as they attempted with the April 14 convention that INEC refused to monitor, any primaries conducted may be declared invalid because they were held without a definitive judicial resolution of the leadership question and without INEC recognition.

The ADC has already been removed from INEC’s portal. Its convention was held without INEC monitoring. Its leadership is not recognised by the electoral commission. And the Supreme Court judgment that could resolve all of these issues remains reserved without a date.

For the broader opposition coalition that agreed at the Ibadan summit on April 25 to field a single presidential candidate for 2027, the ADC’s paralysis is an existential threat. If the ADC, which has attracted Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Rotimi Amaechi, cannot conduct valid primaries, the entire opposition realignment project could collapse.

Beyond the specific case, the public anger raises a broader question about the role of the judiciary in Nigeria’s democracy.

If citizens believe that the Supreme Court is deliberately timing its judgments to achieve political outcomes, the legitimacy of every subsequent ruling is compromised. The judiciary’s authority rests on the public’s belief that judges decide cases on legal merit, free from political calculation. Once that belief is shaken, every decision, whether favourable or unfavourable, is viewed through a lens of suspicion.

The opposition summit in Ibadan declared that “institutions that should safeguard our freedom and protect the will of the people are increasingly under assault.” David Mark stated that “the independence of democratic institutions is being compromised.” Governor Makinde warned that “democracy is not destroyed overnight. It is weakened step by step.”

The Supreme Court’s handling of the ADC judgment, whether the delay is innocent or intentional, has become the latest exhibit in the opposition’s case that Nigeria’s institutions are being captured by the ruling party.

The resolution is simple: deliver the judgment.

If the court finds that courts lack jurisdiction over internal party affairs, as Okutepa SAN argued, the ADC’s leadership will be validated, INEC will be compelled to restore the party to its portal, and primaries can proceed.

If the court dismisses the appeal on procedural grounds, the parties will know where they stand and can pursue alternative legal remedies or political arrangements within the remaining time.

Either outcome, delivered promptly, serves the cause of justice and democracy. Only continued silence serves the cause of those who benefit from the opposition’s paralysis.

Every day without a judgment is a day closer to the practical death of the opposition’s 2027 project. And every day of silence deepens the public conviction that the delay is not incidental but instrumental.

The Supreme Court has the power to end the uncertainty with a single judgment. Whether it exercises that power in time for the judgment to matter, or whether it waits until the judgment becomes academic because the primaries window has closed, will tell Nigerians everything they need to know about whether their apex court serves the Constitution or serves power.

As one Nigerian wrote on X, encapsulating the public mood: “Justice delayed is justice denied. But in this case, justice delayed is democracy denied.”

The nation awaits.

Follow Our WhatsApp Channel _______________________________________________________________________

[A MUST HAVE] Evidence Act Demystified With Recent And Contemporary Cases And Materials

“Evidence Act: Complete Annotation” by renowned legal experts Sanni & Etti.

Available now for NGN 40,000 at ASC Publications, 10, Boyle Street, Onikan, Lagos. Beside High Court, TBS. Email publications@ayindesanni.com or WhatsApp +2347056667384. Purchase Link: https://paystack.com/buy/evidence-act-complete-annotation

______________________________________________________________________ ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR LAWYERS: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE Reimagine your practice with the power of AI “...this is the only Nigerian book I know of on the topic.” — Ohio Books Ltd Authored by Ben Ijeoma Adigwe, Esq., ACIArb (UK), LL.M, Dip. in Artificial Intelligence, Director, Delta State Ministry of Justice, Asaba, Nigeria. Bonus: Get a FREE eBook titled “How to Use the AI in Legalpedia and Law Pavilion” with every purchase.

How to Order: 📞 Call, Text, or WhatsApp: 08034917063 | 07055285878 📧 Email: benadigwe1@gmail.com 🌐 Website: www.benadigwe.com

Ebook Version: Access directly online at: https://selar.com/prv626

______________________________________________________________________ “Bridging Theory And Courtroom Practice” — Hagler Sunny Okorie, Nathaniel Ngozi Ikeocha Unveil ‘Functional’ Tort Law Book For Nigerian Legal System The book, titled The Law of Torts in Nigeria: A Functional Approach, authored by Professor Hagler Sunny Okorie Ph.D and Ikeocha, Nathaniel Ngozi Esq, offers law students, practitioners, and academics a comprehensive guide to understanding and applying tort law in Nigerian courts. Interested buyers can place orders via the following contact numbers: 08028636615, 08037667945, 08032253813, or +234 902 196 2209. ______________________________________________________________________ “Enhance Legal Practice With Authoritative Reports” — Alexander Payne Offers Comprehensive Law Reports, Spanning Over A Century Of Nigerian Jurisprudence

Interested buyers are encouraged to place their orders and enquiries via: 0704 444 4777, 0704 444 4999, 0818 199 9888 Website: www.alexandernigeria.com