Gov., Kogi State v. Simon (2026) 11 NWLR (Pt. 2051) 321 — Case Summary and Analysis

Equity Chambers — Directorate of Research and Litigation

Research Challenge Submission: Case Summary and Analysis.

Gov., Kogi State v. Simon (2026) 11 NWLR (Pt. 2051) 321 — Supreme Court of Nigeria, Appeal No. SC/CV/638/2025, decided 8 May 2026. Coram: Uwani Musa Abba Aji, J.S.C. (Presided); Tijjani Abubakar, J.S.C.; Chioma Egondu Nwosu-Iheme, J.S.C. (read the leading judgment); Obande Festus Ogbuinya, J.S.C. (dissented); Jamilu Yammama Tukur, J.S.C. Appeal allowed by a majority of 4 to 1.

Paragraph 1 — Reasons for the Majority Allowing the Appeal

The Respondent, a former Deputy Governor of Kogi State, had obtained judgment against the Appellants at the National Industrial Court (4 November 2020) declaring him entitled to unpaid salaries, travel allowances and statutory allocations (excluding monthly imprest), together with ₦170,000,000 as security votes. On appeal, the Court of Appeal (29 April 2024) affirmed the declaratory reliefs but set aside the ₦170 million award and made no order for any specific sum — leaving a purely declaratory judgment, since no further appeal lay from that decision under section 243(4) of the Constitution.

In September 2024 the Respondent returned to a differently constituted panel of the Court of Appeal by motion on notice, this time asking it to order payment of ₦1,070,860,138 (a sum he had personally computed from the 2017 and 2018 Kogi State budgets), to direct the National Industrial Court to enforce that figure, and to award 10% post-judgment interest; the Court of Appeal (25 April 2025) granted the bulk of these reliefs, holding that it was not functus officio and possessed concurrent jurisdiction to enforce its own judgment.

On the Respondent's preliminary objection that section 243(4) made the Court of Appeal's decision final and ousted the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, the majority (per Nwosu-Iheme, J.S.C., with Abba Aji, Abubakar and Tukur, JJ.S.C. concurring) declined to dispose of the objection in limine, holding it "inseparably intertwined with the merits of the appeal itself" (p. 364) since whether the ruling truly arose from the National Industrial Court's civil jurisdiction depended on characterising what the Court of Appeal had actually done.

Resolving that question on the merits, the majority held that a declaratory judgment "neither commands performance nor authorizes immediate execution" (p. 372) and that a post-judgment application remains merely ancillary only where it gives effect to an existing executable order or corrects or clarifies a judgment; once it invites the court "to determine substantive rights not previously adjudicated" (p. 373) it becomes a fresh substantive proceeding notwithstanding its procedural label. Since the 2024 judgment had never fixed any quantum, the September 2024 motion required the Court of Appeal to evaluate competing computations and adjudicate quantum for the first time — "an originating claim clothed in the garb of a post-judgment motion" (p. 374).

The majority further held that section 287(2) of the Constitution assigns enforcement of Court of Appeal decisions to courts subordinate to it (here, the National Industrial Court), not to the Court of Appeal itself, and that having finally decided the appeal in 2024 the Court of Appeal was functus officio as to any fresh determination of quantum. The Court of Appeal's April 2025 ruling was accordingly made without jurisdiction and was a nullity, and, not being a valid decision "arising from" the National Industrial Court's civil jurisdiction, it did not attract the finality bar in section 243(4). The Supreme Court therefore held it had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, allowed it, and set aside the ₦1.07 billion ruling, leaving quantification of the Respondent's entitlements to be pursued afresh before the National Industrial Court as the court of first instance.

Paragraph 2 — Reasons for Ogbuinya, J.S.C. (Dissenting)

Ogbuinya, J.S.C. considered the same threshold question and reached the opposite conclusion. Reading the five reliefs in the September 2024 motion together, he found that they "orbit around the universe of supplication tailored towards the enforcement" of the Court of Appeal's April 2024 judgment and "trace their paternity" to that decision (p. 390), so that the application was, in substance, a genuine post-judgment application rather than a fresh suit founded on original jurisdiction.

He held that the doctrine of functus officio, although real, is a flexible principle that "takes to flight and lies prostrate on confrontation with a post-judgment application" (p. 392), pointing to recognised categories of such applications — including applications to set aside a judgment, for stay of execution, for instalmental payment, and for correction of clerical errors — which courts entertain notwithstanding an earlier final judgment. On that basis, he held that the Court of Appeal had acted intra vires its own (limited) appellate jurisdiction in entertaining and granting the motion, since it was exercising an incident of that same appellate jurisdiction rather than assuming a fresh original jurisdiction as a court of first instance.

Because the April 2025 ruling was therefore a decision made in the exercise of the Court of Appeal's appellate jurisdiction over a matter arising from the National Industrial Court's civil jurisdiction, he held that section 243(4) of the Constitution applied squarely to render it final, so that the Supreme Court was "not vested with the requisite jurisdiction" and lacked "any concrete evidence" to treat the proceedings otherwise (pp. 391, 395). On this reasoning, the preliminary objection was not merely a threshold formality but dispositive of the whole matter: since the Constitution had made the Court of Appeal's ruling final, the appellants' appeal was "a flagrant defilement" of section 243(4), "marooned in the murky ocean of incompetence" (p. 396). Ogbuinya, J.S.C. accordingly upheld the Respondent's preliminary objection in full and held that the appeal, SC/CV/638/2025, was incompetent for want of jurisdiction, striking it out without proceeding to determine it on its merits.

Prepared for the Equity Chambers Directorate of Research and Litigation research challenge, from the reported judgment.