By Opatola Victor
Under the Nigerian Constitution, Section 11(4) gives the National Assembly power to step in and legislate for a State only when the House of Assembly of that State is unable to perform its functions. But that same section ends with an important caveat. It makes it clear that this power does not extend to the removal of a State Governor or Deputy Governor. That clause may appear minor, but it is a very deep and clear pointer. It defines the limit of the National Assembly’s reach. It signals that this provision was never designed to function in the absence of a valid and functioning executive authority in the State.
Section 11(4) presumes that the Governor and Deputy Governor are still in office, still validly elected, still performing their roles, and still available to give effect to whatever laws the National Assembly might temporarily enact on behalf of the State Assembly. That is why the Constitution draws a line: legislate if you must, in the interest of peace and order, but you cannot go beyond that line. You cannot interfere with the executive leadership of the State. That is not your territory. That is not your role.
Section 11(4) of the Constitution is a safeguard clause — it is not a radical substitute for State governance. It comes alive in situations where the State House of Assembly is temporarily disabled, but crucially, it preserves the dignity and position of the executive branch of the State — that is, the Governor and the Deputy Governor. It allows the National Assembly to step in, but only to fill the temporary legislative vacuum, not to usurp or bypass the elected executive. This is why the Constitution makes it explicitly clear that “nothing in this section shall be construed as conferring on the National Assembly power to remove the Governor or the Deputy Governor of the State.” Now, this language does more than prohibit removal. It expresses a constitutional assumption — that both offices Governor and his deputy remain occupied and functional. It signals that the validity of any legislative intervention under Section 11(4) depends on the continuing existence of a duly elected State Executive. The Governor is not merely a ceremonial figure in this process; he is the constitutional anchor of the State, the one who signs Bills into law, issues proclamations, sign state gazette, implements laws, and symbolises the continuity of government. Therefore, to remove or sideline him — whether explicitly or functionally — is to collapse the entire premise on which Section 11(4) stands. And it will amount to driving absurdity to the extreme to suggest or argue that the President will sign a bill passed by the National Assembly acting for a State under section 11(4), because it makes a mess of the last proviso of Section 11(4) which expressly intents that the Governor and its deputy be speared from removal envisaging that they must be functionally in office – the riding question will then be why does the Constitution expressly pre-empt the removal of the Governor under Section 11(4).
Now, contrast section 11(4) with Section 305 of the Constitution, which gives the President power to declare a state of emergency in a State, with the approval of the National Assembly. Ordinarily, even that power was not intended to be used to sweep away elected Governors or dissolve elected State Assemblies. The Constitution does not envisage that a declaration under Section 305 automatically means that elected officials must be removed or suspended. The framers never intended for that provision to be used to override the people’s mandate or suspend or erase the constitutional structure of a State.
But presently, the interpretation of the spirit of the Constitution has taken a different turn. In Rivers State, the emergency powers under Section 305 was used in a way that completely displaced and suspended the elected Governor and dissolved the House of Assembly. An administrator was appointed in their place. Whatever the justification for that move may have been at the time, its implications for the Constitution are profound. This is an extremely drastic shift from constitutional normalcy. It is the legal equivalent of putting a State in political quarantine. But more to the point, it produces a state of affairs where the assumptions of Section 11(4) are no longer valid.
Once the entire constitutional structure of a State—both legislature and executive—is suspended, we are no longer in the territory of Section 11(4). That provision becomes irrelevant, not because its words change, but because its very foundation—its assumptions—no longer exist. Section 11(4) was built on the idea that the State still has a Governor and a Deputy Governor in place, that the State is still standing in some form, and that the National Assembly is merely stepping in to hold up one arm of the structure. But when the entire structure is gone—when the State has effectively been taken over and is being run under “emergency protocols” —there is no room for Section 11(4) to operate. Its purpose disappears. Its jurisdiction vanishes. Its mechanism becomes useless.
It is not a question of one section being superior to the other. It is a question of compatibility. Section 305, once fully triggered and exercised to the point where it displaces the State’s elected officials, creates a situation where the assumptions behind Section 11(4) are no longer present. The National Assembly cannot legislate for a State that no longer has a functioning Governor or Deputy Governor to implement those laws. This is not just a technical point. It is a constitutional necessity. If we allow both sections to operate at the same time, in the same space, without regard for their differences, we would be allowing a dangerous overlap. We would be granting the National Assembly more power than the Constitution ever intended. We would be allowing it to step into a void where even the Constitution says it should not go. That is why the final clause of Section 11(4) is so important. It is not just a restriction. It is a message. It tells us where to draw the line. And once the President has crossed into and utilised emergency powers the manner it did under Section 305 and has suspended the entire government of a State, that line has already been crossed. There is no going back to Section 11(4) at that point.
There are those who may argue that since Section 11(4) only prohibits the National Assembly from removing the Governor — then the President’s suspension of the Governor under Section 305 does not affect the use of Section 11(4). But this argument is dangerously unthoughtful.
First, that interpretation strips the proviso of Section 11(4) of its spirit and intent. The provision is not merely about the act of removal — it is about preserving the integrity and continued relevance of the Governor in any legislative intervention. If the Governor is no longer there — not by resignation, not by impeachment, not by illness, but by president’s fiat — then Section 11(4) cannot operate because the National Assembly would no longer be assisting a functioning executive, it would be legislating in a vacuum.
Secondly, the logic that “the President removed him, not the National Assembly” is not only evasive — it is a in-effective argument. It creates an incentive for constitutional mischief where one arm of government suspends democratically elected officials under one section of the Constitution, and another arm steps in to govern in their absence under a different section. The Constitution was never designed to be gamed this way. It envisions a structure of mutual restraint, not inter-institutional collusion to bypass democracy.
Even worse, the argument that Section 11(4) can operate after a Governor has been suspended or rendered irrelevant by a state of emergency, it means proponents of such arguments admits that the National Assembly can now legislate for a State without any legitimate Executive branch to implement those laws. That leads to institutional absurdity. Who signs those laws into operation? Who issues the Gazette? Who ensures enforcement? A sole administrator with no electoral legitimacy? That cannot be what the Constitution intends.
So to be clear: Section 11(4) presumes and depends on the continued presence of a valid Governor and Deputy Governor. To argue otherwise is to take two unrelated provisions — Section 305 and Section 11(4) — and twist them into a dangerous machinery for suppressing elected State institutions. The National Assembly cannot legislate for a State that has been effectively put under presidential receivership in the present manner.. To do so is to insult the very federal balance on which our Republic stands.
Opatola Victor is a Legal Practitioner with Legalify Attorneys and can be reached via Victor@legalifyattorneys.com
