The Customary Court of Appeal of Enugu State has declared Executive Order No. 1 of 2025 inoperative, blocking the state government from converting rural lands into urban areas and removing them from the jurisdiction of customary courts.
In a unanimous judgment delivered on Monday, May 4, 2026, by a panel led by Justice G. C. Nnamani, President of the Customary Court of Appeal, the court ruled that the order cannot oust the territorial jurisdiction of customary courts over lands held under customary right of occupancy. Justices E. N. Nnamani and R. E. Ogbodo sat with him.
Governor Peter Mbah signed the order on January 9, 2025. It designated the entire Enugu East Local Government Area including rural communities such as Ugwuogo, Ibagwa Nike and Agu Oja Layout as an urban area. The order also covered parts of Udenu, Isi-Uzo (Eha-Amufu communities), Oji River, Awgu, Nkanu West (Agbani) and Nsukka local government areas.
The ruling arose from Suit No. CCN/10L/2024 (Motion No. CCA/EN/74M/2025). Engineer Ikenna Anselem Obinwanne had sought an order of certiorari to quash proceedings in a land dispute pending at the Nike Uno Customary Court. His lawyers, led by Louis Onyia, argued that the customary court lacked jurisdiction because the executive order had classified Agu Oja Layout as urban land falling exclusively under the High Court.
Justice Nnamani dismissed the application. The court held that the January 2025 order could not apply retrospectively to a suit filed on May 3, 2024. Citing the Supreme Court decision in Goldmark Nig. Ltd v Ibafon Co. Ltd (2012), the justices stated that no law can have retrospective effect to override existing legal proceedings.
The judgment also examined the Enugu Capital Territory Development Authority Law No. 5 of 2009, which the applicant had relied on. The court clarified that the law merely established a development-control authority and did not constitute a designation of urban areas under Section 3 of the Land Use Act of 1978.
Justice Nnamani further ruled that the governor’s power to designate urban areas does not extend to places that retain a clear rural character. “Urban areas are characterized by high population density and developed infrastructure like built-up streets, macadamized, sometimes crisscrossing, thoroughfares of asphalt or tar, flyovers, public bus terminals, timed traffic lights, railway stations,” the court stated. “Rural Ugwuogo with its wilds, wildernesses and forests, as well as other villages and hamlets of Enugu East Local Government Area are not and cannot be termed urban areas.”
The court described the executive order as defective and declared that it cannot oust the jurisdiction of customary courts in Enugu State over suits involving lands subject to customary right of occupancy. It noted that the order had created a “vortex of adverse consequences” by altering the jurisdictional balance of the courts.
The decision prevents the state government from using the order to reclassify rural lands as urban and thereby shift related disputes away from customary courts.
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