In a landmark ruling, the Court of Appeal in Abuja has decisively barred the Federal High Court in Kano from handling the legal dispute surrounding the Kano Emirate. In a split decision of two Justices to one, the appellate court ruled that the federal court has no jurisdiction to deliberate on matters related to Kano State’s chieftaincy, stating that such cases should solely be handled by the Kano State High Court.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole, who delivered the lead judgment, emphasized that chieftaincy issues fall under the jurisdiction of state courts, not the Federal High Court. Therefore, he ordered that the case be returned to the Kano State High Court, the appropriate forum for resolving such matters.
The Presiding Justice, Mustapha Mohammed, along with another Justice, concurred with Kolawole’s assertion that the Federal High Court had no jurisdiction over the Kano Emirate dispute. However, they disagreed with Kolawole’s recommendation to have the case reassigned to a judge of the Kano State High Court. Instead, they ruled that the proper course of action was to strike out the case entirely, asserting that the federal court should never have been involved in the matter in the first place.
As a result, the two dissenting Justices ordered that the proceedings of the Federal High Court be struck out, reaffirming that the matter should have been addressed exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Kano State High Court. This ruling has significant implications for how future state-specific legal matters are handled in the country.
