DISPUTE

• Date: 06 February 2019

(1) "Finally, I think it is overstretching the meaning of the word "dispute" to contend, as Chief Williams did, that mere wrongful assumption of jurisdiction over a matter of public right, in any suit filed by a private party, by the High Court of a State constitutes "dispute" which will entitle the Attorney General of the Federation to invoke the original jurisdiction of this Court." - Per Bello, J.S.C. in The Federation v. Imo State Suit No. S.C. 88/1982; (1982) 13 N.S.C.C. 567 at 583.

(2) "The word dispute which is the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction has not been defined in our Constitution. In the Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged, it is appropriately defined as being synonymous with controversy. It’s meaning is given as "an attempt to prove and maintain one’s own opinions, argu-ments or claims of another; controversy in words." A dispute under section 212(1) of the Constitution must be one that is appropriate for judicial determination. It must not be one which only political decision can resolve. It includes suits of civil nature and must raise an issue or question (whether of law or fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends. It must be real and substantial admitting of specific relief. It must be definite and concrete. The word "controversy" was considered in the case of Aetna Life Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn v. Harworth 300 US 227 57 S.Ct. 461. In that case, Chief Justice Hughes said at p. 464 of 57 Supreme Court Reporter: - "A controversy in this sense must be one that is appropriate for judicial determination. Osborn v. Bank of United States 9 Weat 738, 819, 6 L.Ed. 204. A justiciable controversy is thus distinguished from a difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character; from one that is academic or moot.................. It must be a real and substantial controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts." Section 212(1) of the Constitution definitely tells us that the dispute it refers to is not just a difference or controversy or a political hypothetical or abstract character. The section sufficiently indicates the question it must raise to be justiciable." - Per Obaseki, J.S.C. in Attorney General of Bendel State v. Attorney General of the Federation & Ors. Suit No. S.C. 17/1981; (1981) 12 N.S.C.C. 314 at 380; (1981) 10 S.C. 1 at...