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INTRODUCTION
Since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in May 1999, a deluge of political litigation has besieged the country's judiciary. The Supreme Court, in particular, has been summoned relentlessly to arbitrate in a series of constitutional struggles between the Federal Government, based in the federal capital territory of Abuja, and the constituent states of the federation. These inter-governmental conflicts have involved some of the most constitutionally contentious, politically explosive and regionally divisive issues in the federation, including the ownership of offshore oil resources, the distribution of public revenues, the implementation of Islamic Sharia law, the management of the police and public order, and the status and control of local governments.
This article analyses the federalism decisions of the Nigerian Supreme Court during the two constitutional terms of President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, the longest period of continuous civilian rule in the country's post-independence history. It begins with an examination of the problematic ethno-political, constitutional and institutional contexts of judicial federalism in Nigeria. This is followed by a discussion of fifteen different inter-governmental disputes decided by the Supreme Court during Obasanjo's civilian tenure. A political analysis of the Court's federalism work is then followed by the conclusion, which summarises the findings of the paper.
THE FRAUGHT CONTEXT OF JUDICIAL FEDERALISM
A daunting challenge for conflict management in Nigeria involves the deep centrifugal tensions built into this federation of three major ethnic groups (the Muslim Hausa-Fulani in the north, Christian Ibo in the south-east, and religiously bi-communal Yoruba in the south-west), hundreds of smaller ethno-linguistic communities (the so-called 'minorities'), and roughly equal numbers of Muslim and Christian adherents. These tensions have fuelled a secessionist war (1967-70), the collapse or abortion of three democratic republics, a succession of military coups, and continuing ethno-political violence.
Nigeria's military rulers sought to contain some of this turbulence by transforming the country from a centrifugal union of three regions at independence in 1960, into a more integrated 36-state federation by 1996. Although this transformation functioned remarkably well to prevent a recurrence of secessionist warfare, the military's authoritarianism encouraged hyper-centralisation and ethno-political contention, producing a crisis of national unity by the end of military rule in 1999. This crisis was underscored by the regional economic nationalism of the Ijaw and other...