J. Aigbuloko Oyakhirome

It has been rightly asserted1 that a little turbulence every once in a while is not only inevitable but good for us as it helps to demonstrate, in case we forget, just what our Federal system of government is all about. More often than not deeply – held convictions on policy issues appear too divergent for ready compromise and political considerations personality clashes may militate against amicable settlement. Resort to a credible and balanced adjudicator to moderate the extravagant claims of the protagonists become a necessary adjunct. In most federal systems of government the courts2 are assigned the constitutional responsibility of pronouncing on the honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual, state or authority against another. Outright government refusal to implement Court orders are rare as this may attract hostile publicity and form the centre of a political storm. Administrative responses in most cases reveal that it pays lip service to inconvenient judicial decisions, which are, seen as a tedious but unavoidable detour into a domain it regards as its own. This paper seeks to examine some of the various techniques Administration employs in circumventing judicial decisions. This will be done against the backdrop of Administrative response to the recent Supreme Court judgment in the case of Attorney General of the Federation v. Attorney-General of Abia State and 35 others.3