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July 15, 2020 8:40 am
"In Usman v. State (2014) AFWLR (Pt. 746) 412 at 445 Paras. C-E the Supreme Court Held that:-
There is no doubt that every Court is endowed with jurisdiction by Statute or the Constitution and where a Court exercise jurisdiction in a matter which it does not possess, the decision from such an exercise is a nullity. Therefore every Court must assure itself that it has the requisite jurisdiction before embarking on the hearing of the matter to avoid a waste of precious judicial time.
In the instant case, the lower Court embarked on hearing the matter knowing very well that it had no jurisdiction to do so going by the provision of the Adamawa State Board of Internal Revenue Law, 2007. See further the case of Ogologo v. Uche (2005) 14 NWLR (Pt. 945) 245 Para. E Ratio 2 where it was Held that:-
Where a law has given exclusive power to a body to decide a matter, the Court cannot come in before that body has exercised that power. It can come in only where there is exhaustion of all remedies before that body and the Court will then be able to decide whether that power had been exercised lawfully."
- PER A. M. BAYERO, J.C.A. IN TRANSMISSION COMPANY OF NIGERIA P.H.C.N V ADAMAWA STATE BOARD OF INTERNAL REVENUE
suit no: CA/YL/148/2018
Legalpedia Electronic Citation: (2020) Legalpedia (CA) 01819
