The Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt has upheld a 2007 Rivers State High Court judgment restraining the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from investigating the finances and public accounts of the Rivers State Government a decision that effectively continues to shield former Rivers State Governor Peter Odili from investigation by the anti-graft agency nearly two decades after he left office.
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The judgment, delivered on Friday in an appeal marked CA/PH/622/2008, saw a three-member panel of the appellate court hold that the 2007 Rivers State High Court decision remains valid, subsisting, and binding because it was never directly challenged on appeal.
The panel, comprising Justices Ugochukwu Ogakwu, Isah Gafai, and Zainab Abubakar, ruled in the appeal filed by the EFCC against the Attorney General of Rivers State, the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, the Rivers State House of Assembly, its Clerk, and former Governor Peter Odili.
Reading the lead judgment, Justice Ogakwu held that the EFCC could not disregard the 2007 ruling nearly two decades after it was delivered, regardless of whatever view the commission may have of the correctness of the decision.
“There was no appeal against the said judgement of the High Court of Rivers State. The judgment remains conclusive and binding, and the constitutional interpretation made therein, whether right or wrong, is accepted as correct and cannot be argued against since it was not challenged on appeal,” Justice Ogakwu declared.
The principle applied by the appellate court is a well-established doctrine of Nigerian law: that a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, however questionable, remains valid and binding on all parties until it is set aside by a higher court on appeal. A party who fails to appeal a judgment within the prescribed time cannot subsequently seek to relitigate the same issues or act as though the judgment does not exist.
The Court of Appeal also ruled that the EFCC could not rely on provisions of its Establishment Act to override a subsisting constitutional interpretation by a competent court, stressing that the Constitution takes precedence over any other legislation. This means that even though the EFCC Act grants the commission broad investigative and prosecutorial powers over financial crimes, those powers cannot be exercised in defiance of a subsisting court order interpreting the Constitution unless and until that order is set aside.
The dispute originated from a judgment delivered on February 16, 2007, by the Rivers State High Court, which held that only the Rivers State House of Assembly, the Accountant-General, and the Auditor-General of the state possess constitutional powers to scrutinise and exercise control over the state’s finances and public records.
The lower court relied on Sections 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, and 128 of the 1999 Constitution in reaching its decision. These provisions deal with the establishment of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of a state, authorisation of expenditure from the fund, the role of the Auditor-General in auditing public accounts, and the powers of the State House of Assembly to investigate and control public expenditure.
The court ruled that those constitutional powers could not be shared with any other person, institution, or agency and consequently restrained the EFCC from investigating the state’s accounts.
The case is closely linked to a long-running legal battle over efforts by the EFCC to investigate the administration of Peter Odili, who governed Rivers State between 1999 and 2007.
Odili had separately secured a perpetual injunction from the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt in 2007, barring the EFCC from investigating, arresting, or prosecuting him, and also preventing the commission from examining the finances of the Rivers State Government during his tenure.
Although the EFCC had challenged the injunction since 2008, the order effectively shielded the former governor from investigation by the anti-graft agency for nearly two decades making it one of the longest-running judicial protections enjoyed by any former governor in Nigeria’s anti-corruption history.
In 2018, the Court of Appeal granted the EFCC leave to challenge the Federal High Court judgment that had given Odili the perpetual injunction. That development prompted the Attorney General of Rivers State and the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly to approach the Supreme Court in separate appeals seeking to overturn the appellate court’s ruling.
However, in March 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals after the appellants withdrew them. A five-member panel led by Justice John Okoro advised the parties to return to the Court of Appeal for the substantive matter to be heard.
The dismissal was widely seen as clearing the way for the EFCC to finally pursue its challenge against the injunction protecting Odili from investigation.
However, when the matter returned to the Court of Appeal, the appellate court held in Friday’s judgment that the 2007 Rivers State High Court decision which is a separate judgment from the Federal High Court perpetual injunction remains subsisting and binding because it was never directly appealed. This effectively means that even if the EFCC eventually succeeds in setting aside the Federal High Court perpetual injunction, it would still face the separate obstacle of the Rivers State High Court judgment, which bars the commission from probing the state’s finances on constitutional grounds.
When contacted for a reaction to the judgment and its implications for the commission’s investigative powers, EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale declined to comment.
The commission’s silence leaves open the question of whether the EFCC will seek to appeal Friday’s judgment to the Supreme Court or accept the appellate court’s ruling.
Reacting to the judgment, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, warned on Saturday that the decision could have far-reaching implications beyond Rivers State, potentially affecting the EFCC’s operations across the entire country.
“Other states will claim the benefit of this decision,” Odinkalu wrote on X (formerly Twitter), suggesting that state governments across the federation could cite the Court of Appeal’s reasoning to argue that the EFCC has no constitutional power to investigate state finances, since such powers are vested exclusively in state Houses of Assembly, Accountants-General, and Auditors-General under the Constitution.
In a pointed critique of the potential consequences, Odinkalu added: “One consequence could be that the EFCC will double down on harassing students and hair salons in order to show activity. The politicians meanwhile can double down on plunder under the cover of judicial protection.”
Odinkalu also noted with apparent surprise the speed with which a certified true copy of the judgment became available a rarity in Nigerian courts where judgments can take months to be processed.
“By the way, in case you have not noticed, the judgement was issued yesterday and there is already a certified copy. That is a small miracle in a country where judgements can take months to break cover,” he remarked.
The judgment raises fundamental questions about the scope of the EFCC’s constitutional and statutory powers to investigate state governors and state finances.
If the Court of Appeal’s reasoning is accepted as correct — that the Constitution vests exclusive power over state financial scrutiny in state institutions, and that the EFCC cannot override a subsisting constitutional interpretation by a competent court the implications for Nigeria’s anti-corruption architecture would be profound. State governors and their administrations could potentially argue that only the state House of Assembly, the state Auditor-General, and the state Accountant-General have the power to examine how state funds are spent, effectively creating a constitutional shield against federal anti-corruption agencies.
This would significantly narrow the EFCC’s operational mandate in relation to state-level corruption, leaving the commission largely dependent on cooperative state legislatures many of which are politically aligned with their governors to initiate accountability processes for state finances.
Critics of the judgment will argue that such an interpretation creates a perverse incentive structure where governors can loot state treasuries with impunity, secure in the knowledge that the constitutional institutions with the power to hold them accountable state Houses of Assembly and state Auditors-General are themselves often captured by the same executive power they are supposed to check.
Supporters of the decision will counter that the Constitution deliberately allocated financial oversight powers to state institutions as part of Nigeria’s federal structure, and that allowing a federal agency to override these constitutional arrangements without specific constitutional authorisation undermines the principle of federalism.
The matter may ultimately require definitive resolution by the Supreme Court to settle the competing interpretations and clarify the boundaries of the EFCC’s investigative jurisdiction over state finances.
Peter Odili, now in his late seventies, has not publicly commented on the judgment. He has consistently maintained his innocence of any financial wrongdoing during his time as governor and has benefited from judicial protection against EFCC investigation since 2007 — a period of nearly 19 years.
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