A dramatic scene unfolded at Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State, after a female student and a lecturer engaged in a physical fight inside an examination hall.

The clash reportedly began when the lecturer caught the student involved in malpractice and ordered her to leave the hall; but she refused, insisting her seized phone be returned first.

Witnesses said the confrontation escalated when the student allegedly smashed the lecturer’s phone, sparking a heated exchange of blows.

In a video of the incident, another official was heard urging the student to exit the hall, but she stood her ground until her phone was released.

Attempts to get the university’s reaction were unsuccessful as management has yet to comment on the incident.

A former Equatorial Guinea’s Director General of National Financial Investigation Agency, Baltasar Ebang Engonga, received an eight-year jail term on Wednesday, for embezzlement.

Engonga, who gained notoriety in November 2024 for appearing in a series of sex tapes with other officials’ wives, was convicted by the Bioko provincial tribunal for diverting money claimed as professional travel expenses for personal use.

Equatorial Guinea’s Supreme Court Press Director, Hilario Mitogo, told reporters in a WhatsApp message that Engonga and five other senior officials were found culpable in the embezzling of expenses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in the oil-rich central African state.

Read Also: Equatorial Guinea’s DG of National Financial Investigation Agency caught in sex tango with multiple women

Last November, Engonga, nicknamed “Bello”, made world headlines with the sex tapes, some of them filmed in his office at the finance ministry, published on social media while he was in detention pending the embezzlement case.

Read Also: Woman in Equatorial Guinea sex scandal commits suicide, as Equatorial Guinea restricts multimedia access

The clips prompted a wave of online parodies, including songs and dances and posts about a spoof virility drug dubbed “Balthazariem”.

Mitogo said the provincial court handed Engonga an eight-year sentence and a fine worth $220,000.

AFP

The Presiding Judge, Enugu Judicial Division of the National Industrial Court, Hon. Justice Olukayode Arowosegbe, has declared Section 2 of the Public Officers Protection Act unconstitutional, null, and void.

The Court ruled that S. 2(a) of the POPA suffers from the deficit that it is too remote to contracts to be ordinarily fathomed into contracts of statutory employment or any contract at all, and that it also promotes chicanery on the part of the government as employer against the citizen-public-employees.

Justice Arowosegbe held that it would be unfair, unreasonable, and disproportionate to read Section 2 of POPA into any contract, including contracts of statutory employment, because the grace period is unreasonably short, and the employee could not be found liable for filing outside three months.

The Court reasoned that it would be unfair to interpret a statute in a way that would run counter to labour/employment rights.

On the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Anolam’s case that S. 2(a) of the POPA applies to statutory employment because, it regulates the relationship between the two sides to the employment, since both sides are public officers, Justice Arowosegbe distinguished that, the case did not emanate from the NIC and was also not decided under the Third Alteration Act, because the cause of action arose February 21, 2003 when the plaintiff’s appointment was terminated, and the Third Alteration Act came into effect March 4, 2011.

From facts, the claimant- Dr. Anthonia had claimed six reliefs verging on declarations on his entitlement to retirement benefits, and an orders to compel the defendants to produce her withheld file and pay her terminal benefits, and damages of N50Million.

In defence, the defendant- Independent National Electoral Commission argued that Dr. Anthonia’s action was statute-barred by S. 2(a) of the Public Officers (Protection) Act [POPA] and submitted that, the word “person” as used in S. 2(a) of the POPA, incorporates human beings.

The learned counsel argued that the causes of action herein arose on 23/9/2022 when a pre-action notice was served and the case was filed on February 29, 2024, which is clearly outside the three-month grace provided by S. 2(a) of the POPA, and therefore statute-barred, and urged the Court to dismiss the case.

The learned counsel further submitted that Dr. Anthonia’s action was not a continuation of injury but a one-off cause of action, and urged the Court to dismiss the case in its entirety.

In opposition, Dr. Anthonia’s counsel, I. O. Adani Esq argued that the POPA does not affect a continuous cause of action and would not apply in the case of a person suffering a disability, like being in prison, until the disability is removed.

The learned counsel submitted that the cause of action in the instant case, did not arise 23/09/2022, as stated by the defendant-objectors but, rather the cause of action is on up till now, as continuous cause of action because, the claimant continued to do a follow up on the question of her missing file till the date she filed this action and, even up till now.

In a landmark ruling, the presiding Judge, Justice Olukayode Arowosegbe after holistic analysis of the submissions of both parties and the latest judicial trend on the issue of POPA applicability towards providing an answer to the lingering conflicting decisions of the three hierarchies of superior courts in Nigeria on the issue held that the POPA is consequently not applicable in this instance, where facts were pleaded, raising the questions of unconstitutionality, illegality, malice, abuse of office and deliberate sabotage.

In addition, the Court stated that the defendants-objectors did not file their pleadings before setting the NPO down for hearing, an act that is against NIC Rules, which forbid demurrer. The Court dismissed the NPO for being incompetent, as it was not filed in accordance with the law’s procedure.

Furthermore, the Court reasoned that the questions of payment or non-payment of pension and gratuity, being constitutionally mandatory and specially protected by the Constitution, are fundamental constitutional right questions, and cannot therefore be affected by limitation laws, irrespective of the mode by which the suit was commenced.

Relying on the Supreme Court decisions, Justice Arowosegbe held that POPA, being an ordinary statute, cannot regulate substantive constitutional rights, and that the POPA does not apply to bar actions brought to enforce the constitutional right to terminal benefits, mandatorily guaranteed by SS. 173(1)-(2) of the Constitution.

“The above mandatory constitutional provisions and the fundamental right conventions cited abovein, make it abundantly clear that pleading of allegations of violation of the right to prompt payment of terminal benefits, implies questions of unconstitutionality, unlawfulness, illegality, abuse of office and acting outside the colour of office, when there are no statutory justifiable grounds for such conducts. Such alleged misconducts have always been recognised as exceptions to the applicability of S. 2(a) of the POPA. The provisions of Chapter IV of the Constitution on fundamental rights cited above, which the facts pleaded, if proved, implied, together with the fundamental rights guaranteed in the ACHPRA and UDHR, raised questions of violations of fundamental constitutional rights in this case. These compounded the clear inapplicability of the POPA to the case herein, and I so hold.”

On the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Anolam’s case that S. 2(a) of the POPA applies to statutory employment because, it regulates the relationship between the two sides to the employment, since both sides are public officers, Justice Arowosegbe distinguished that, the case did not emanate from the NIC and was also not decided under the Third Alteration Act, because the cause of action arose February 21, 2003 when the plaintiff’s appointment was terminated, and the Third Alteration Act came into effect March 4, 2011.

Furthermore, examining the POPA and the Supreme Court’s decision in Anolam’s case in the eye of the Third Alteration Act, Justice Arowosegbe maintained that doing so is one of the permissible exceptions to stare decisis as provided for in the Section 254C-(1)(f)-(h) & (2) of the Constitution which provides that the NIC shall have and exercise non-obstante jurisdiction.

The Court reasoned that S. 2(a) of the POPA did not mention contracts in all its provisions, it could not naturally and logically be deemed to be known to the employees when entering into contracts of employment, especially so in the employees’ awareness of S. 7(1)(a)-(b) of the Limitation Act [LA] which directly mentions contracts.

Justice Arowosegbe maintained that employees, being the weaker parties, must be protected against the sharp practices of employers, be they public employers or private employers, that the provisions of S. 2(a) of the POPA, having not specifically mentioned contracts or employment relations, are too remote to be read into any contract of employment in their general, vague and at-large language.

Justice Arowosegbe reasoned that if the Supreme Court, with utmost respect, has been given irreconcilable conflicting decisions since the time of Ibrahim v. JSC till date, without a discernible ratio decidendi on the applicability of S. 2(a) of the POPA to contracts of statutory employment, it shows that the POPA suffers the deficit of being too remote in its language or, at best, too ambiguous and nebulous to be applied to contract of any type.

The Court averred that S. 7(1) of the LA has bearings on grace periods for institution of suits in contracts because it incorporates explicitly all types of contracts, that POPA cannot be anything but an expropriating statute and must therefore be narrowly construed, while the LA must be broadly construed, being truly a beneficent statute.

“Is it reasonable and fair to introduce discrimination between public and private employees to the detriment of the public employees without any justifiable reason? Is it legitimate, suitable, necessary, fair, reasonable, and in accord with international best practices to treat unequally the public employer and the public employee without any justifiable operational requirement, as all the countries that did away with the like of POPA have confirmed that there is no operational requirement for it? The answer is No.

Justice Arowosegbe reasoned along with the Supreme Court’s denunciation of the POPA in Adigun v. Ayinde that the time limit in the POPA was too short for access to Court, which was a good reason to conclude that the POPA’s too short limitation period and discriminatory ambience were hindrance to right of access to Court like the Constitutional Court of South Africa did in similar situation and struck it down.

“It is worthy of note that the British colonialists, who transposed the POPA in a worse form to Nigeria, from its Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893 [PAPA] in 1916, by widening its inimical dragnets, repealed the PAPA since 1954, but did not repeal it in Nigeria before they left in 1960, and yet, we are still upholding the worse form of it transposed to Nigeria, purely to facilitate the degrading attitude of the colonialists to the rights of Nigerian citizens, a whopping 76 years after in 2025, even when virtually all the contemporary African countries have either legislatively repealed similar colonial legislations in their statute books or their courts have proactively invoked their constitutions to nullify them judicially.” The Court reasoned.

Justice Arowosegbe concluded that, truly, the POPA constitutes a hindrance to the right of access to courts and must be so declared by the courts. The POPA is all-around disproportionately injurious to public servants/workers and the citizens as a whole.

One of the candidates for the Position of the Vice Chancellor of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Prof. Chike Osegbue, has urged the court to declare the appointment of Prof. Kate Omenugha as illegal, absurd, arbitrary and void.

Prof. Osegbue, in an action filed at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Abuja, urged the court to declare him the substantive Vice Chancellor of COOU in compliance with the law of the university, being first of the three candidates recommended by the Council.

The number of the suit is: NICN/ARJ/275, and it has been listed for hearing on 3 September.

Recall that Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, who is the visitor of the institution on the 6th of August appointed Omenugha, who finished fifth on the final list of candidates, as the University Vice Chancellor.

The selection process was conducted by a joint committee of the University Council and Senate representatives, under the chairmanship of Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, the Pro-Chancellor.

Osegbue said the appointment of Omenugha was against the Law of COOU, which provided that the candidate with the highest score should be appointed, or the second or third placed candidates on the recommendation of the Council.

The six defendants in the matter are the Governor of Anambra, the Attorney General of Anambra, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, the Pro-chancellor and Chairman of Council, the Council of COOU, COOU and Omenugha

Osegbue said the appointment of Omenugha by Soludo was in defiance of Ordinance II (4) (d), read together with Statute VI (1) of the 1 Schedule to the COOU Law 2014 and therefore was illegal, absurd, arbitrary, condemnable and wrongful.

He said Omenugha was not among the top three candidates recommended by the Joint Committee of Council and Senate of the university after the interviews.

He said as the topmost of the three candidates ‘duly recommended’ by the Council, he was entitled as the right candidate to be appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of COOU by the governor instead of Omenugha.

Osegbue asked the court to “determine whether the governor could exercise such unbridled whimsical and or untrammeled powers to arbitrarily and unlawfully refuse, fail, ignore and or neglect the recommendation of the Council in the appointment of the VC.

“Determine whether the governor has legal authority to go outside the recommendation of the Council of COOU to appoint Omenugha as Vice-Chancellor in gross violation of the University Law of 2014 in place of the Claimant who came first amongst the three candidates duly recommended by the Council,” he said.

Osegbue prayed the court to nullify the appointment of Omenugha on the grounds that it was illegal, absurd, arbitrary, condemnable and wrongful.

He said Omenugha was not among the first three candidates recommended by the Joint Committee of Council and Senate of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University.

“A declaration that the purported appointment of Omenugha by Soludo as the Vice Chancellor is null, void and of no effect in that is contrary to and done in violation of Ordinance 11 (4) (d), read together with Statute VI (1) of the 1 Schedule to COOU Law 2014,” it said

• Contests transfer of LG funds suit to Abuja

Osun State government has instituted an action at the Supreme Court of Nigeria against the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) over the alleged unlawful withholding of statutory allocations meant for its 30 local government councils since March 2025.

In the originating summons filed on Monday on behalf of the Osun State by a team of lawyers led by Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and Musibau Adetunbi, SAN, the state is asking the apex court to compel the Federal Government to release all withheld funds and to stop what it described as “an unconstitutional and arbitrary seizure” of local government allocations.

The plaintiff, Attorney-General of Osun State, argued that the AGF failed to comply with subsisting judgments of both the Federal High Court, Osogbo Division, delivered on November 30, 2022, and the Court of Appeal ruling of June 13, 2025, which recognized the local government chairmen and councilors elected on February 22, 2025.

The originating summons is supported by a 35-paragraph affidavit deposed to by the state commissioner for finance, Mr Ogungbile Adeola Olusola.

According to the summons, the AGF, in a March 26, 2025 letter, had advised that the funds be withheld pending resolution of what he described as a local government crisis in Osun.

Rad Also: Withholding Osun State’s allocation is a violation of the constitution, a blatant abuse of rule of law — NBA to Tinubu

But, Osun State insists that the Court of Appeal ruling settled the matter, affirming the legitimacy of the February 2025 elections, and nullifying the October 15, 2022 local government polls conducted under the previous administration.

The state is seeking multiple declarations, including that the AGF has no constitutional power to withhold local government allocations nor to act in contravention of valid court judgments.

It also wants the Supreme Court to order the immediate release of all allocations withheld since March, to be paid directly into the accounts of the duly elected councils.

Among its prayers, Osun is asking for a perpetual injunction restraining the AGF from withholding, suspending, or seizing local government funds in the future, so long as democratically elected councils are in place in the state.

“The seizure, suspension, withholding and/or refusal to pay the allocations and revenues due to the constituent local government councils of the Plaintiff State… is unconstitutional, unlawful, wrongful and ultra vires the powers of the Defendant,” part of the suit reads.

The summons emphasizes that by virtue of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the existence of democratically elected local government councils is guaranteed, and that the AGF is duty-bound under Section 287 to enforce decisions of the courts, not undermine them.

The plaintiff raised the following five issues for determination: Whether having regard to the clear and unambiguous provisions of Section 287 (2) & (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) which mandates all authorities and persons, including the Defendant herein, to enforce the decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court of Nigeria, is the Defendant not under a constitutional obligation to enforce/give effect to the judgment of the Federal High Court, Osogbo Judicial Division, delivered on the 30th day of November, 2022 in Suit no FHC/OS/CS/103/2022 and more particularly the ruling of the Court of Appeal delivered on 13th June, 2025 in Appeal no CA/AK/15/2025 which declared the said Federal High Court’s judgment as the authority regulating the state of affairs of Local Government Councils in the Plaintiff State; such that the contravening act(s) of the Defendant as disclosed in its affidavit of urgency of 13th August, 2025, ought to be declared a nullity.

Whether the said ruling of the Court of Appeal delivered on 13th June, 2025 in Appeal no CA/AK/15/2025 does not constitute a clear bar to the advice and opinion of the Defendant as expressed by him in his letter dated 26th March, 2025, such that the Defendant ought not to have again expressed such advice and/or opinion in view of the clear pronouncement of the Court of Appeal which favours the Local Government Chairmen and Councilors elected in the Plaintiff State on 22nd February, 2025, as against those purportedly elected on 15th October, 2022?

“Whether the Federation acting through the Defendant in his capacity as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation, can in any form whatsoever assume the constitutional role of this Honourable Court, as it appears to have done and/or attempted to do in an affidavit of urgency which it caused to be filed before the Federal High Court on the 13th of August 2025.

“Whether upon being served with the ruling of the Court of Appeal delivered on 13th June, 2025 in Appeal no CA/AK/15/2025, which ruling constitutes the latest in time delivered by the said Court of Appeal in respect of the perceived Local Government crisis in the Plaintiff State, the Defendant can still continue to hold on to any perceived Local Government crisis in Osun State as the reason for its failure to pay the statutory allocation due to Local Governments in Osun State.

“Whether upon being served with the ruling of the Court of Appeal delivered on 13th June, 2025 in Appeal no CA/AK/15/2025, and which to the knowledge of the Defendant, none of the parties had appealed against, the Defendant is not under a constitutional obligation to withdraw his advice/opinion contained in his letter dated 26th March, 2025 and direct that all the withheld funds of the Local Government Councils in Osun State be released forthwith to the democratically elected Chairmen and Councillors elected pursuant to the election conducted on 22nd February, 2025 and sworn in on 23rd February, 2025.

“Upon a proper construction of Section 7(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), which guarantees the existence and subsistence of democratically elected Local Government Councils in all the States of the Federation including the Plaintiff State, whether the act of the Defendant in withholding, suspending and/or seizing the statutory allocations due to the constituent Local Government Councils of the Plaintiff State since March 2025 till date without any lawful justification whatsoever, does not pose a threat to the existence, governance and/or subsistence of the democratically elected Local Government Councils in place in the Plaintiff State.

Simultaneously, the state has filed another suit at the Federal High Court, Osogbo, challenging the decision of the court to transfer an earlier case on the funds from Osogbo to Abuja for hearing. The suit, originally adjourned till November 2025 sought to stop moves by the Federal Government to pay the allocations to court-sacked All Progressives Congress (APC) council officials.

On August 25, 2025, Osun State Attorney-General, through counsel Musibau Adetunbi (SAN), filed a motion before the Federal High Court, Osogbo, seeking a stay of proceedings in that Suit No: FHC/OS/CS/94/2025 pending determination of the fresh Supreme Court case. The state warned that proceeding with the case at the lower court while the apex court is seized of the matter could result in conflicting judgments.

In an affidavit, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Olufemi Akande Ogundun, described the Federal Government’s actions on the funds as “an affront to the rule of law.”

He argued that only the Supreme Court can conclusively determine the constitutional issues raised, citing precedents such as A.G. Kano State v. A.G. Federation (2007) and RMAFC v. A.G. Rivers State (2023).

The Osun government is also opposing a directive of the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, contained in a letter dated August 21, 2025, transferring the case from Osogbo to Abuja to be heard by a vacation judge.

In its motion on notice, the state asked the court to set aside the “purported fiat,” arguing that it violates both the court’s rules and the Chief Judge’s own vacation notice of May 28, 2025, which designated Lagos as the nearest vacation court for cases from Osogbo.

The state further accused the AGF of “self-induced urgency,” noting that despite being served with originating processes, he failed to respond for over 80 days before filing an affidavit of urgency on August 13, 2025. According to Osun, the Chief Judge’s transfer order “casts the lot of the court with the AGF” and risks creating a perception of bias.

With the matter now before the Supreme Court, the state government has urged the judiciary to halt all lower court proceedings until the apex court resolves the substantive issues.

No date has yet been fixed for hearing of the suits.

While President Donald Trump on Monday denied that he aspires to be a dictator, in another breath, he decided to make a related point: that lots of people actually seem to want a dictator.

“And they say … ‘He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator,’” the president said of his critics. “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’ I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator.”

Why did Trump add this addendum? Maybe he’s being provocative. Or maybe the guy who has repeatedly suggested he should have absolute power and gone to great lengths to expand his power is planting a seed that it might be a good thing – even a popular thing.

Who can say?

What we can say, though, is that Trump is more or less right. Many people are increasingly entertaining the idea of a dictator. They are his supporters.

They don’t necessarily say, “Yes, I want a dictator.” But polling shows Republicans have edged in that direction – to a pretty remarkable degree.

And that’s allowed Trump to keep poking and prodding for a broad new grant of presidential authorities with little pushback from a base that once prided itself on limited government and federalism.

Perhaps the most startling poll on this came last year. A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey asked about Trump’s comment that he wanted to be a dictator, but only for a day. Trump said it was a joke, but 74% of Republicans endorsed the idea.

Okay, that was only for a day. That’s a pretty limited form of dictatorship. And maybe some people felt they were getting in on the “joke” by endorsing it to a pollster.

But there’s plenty more where that came from. When you ask such questions in more nuanced ways, you find that the Trump-era GOP is increasingly authoritarian-curious, at the very least.

Polls generally show more than half of Republicans say they want fewer checks on Trump’s power, and upwards of one-third endorse some version of unchecked power.

Let’s start with that first part.

A Pew Research Center poll early this year showed 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed that many of the country’s problems could be better solved “if Donald Trump didn’t have to worry so much about Congress and the courts.”

That’s a larger number than two polls that asked a similar question last year, but all showed a majority of Republicans endorsing this sentiment. The number in the Pew poll spiked to 78% among Republicans who identified with the GOP “strongly.”

Saying Trump should face fewer hurdles, of course, isn’t the same as saying he should be a dictator.

But when you dig a little deeper, you’ll find a significant number of Republicans endorsing that kind of power – as many 3 or 4 in 10.

Some of the most striking findings on this:

• 44% of Republicans said the courts shouldn’t even be allowed to review Trump’s policies, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll earlier this year.
• 28% of Republicans said a president should be able to ignore Congress or the Supreme Court when those institutions “hold our country back,” an Axios/PRRI poll around the same time showed.
• 36% of Republicans said they wouldn’t be at all bothered if Trump were to “suspend some laws and constitutional provisions to go after political enemies,” a Monmouth University poll in December showed. (Just 23% said they would be “bothered a lot” by this; the rest were in the middle.)
• 28% of Republicans said the country needed a president who was “willing to break some rules and laws to set things right,” per a late 2023 Fox News poll.
• 24% of Republicans said ahead of the 2024 election that if Trump lost, he should “do whatever it takes” to take power, according to another PRRI poll.

So to sum up, around one-quarter of Republicans – or more – have endorsed the idea of Trump seizing power, breaking laws and violating the Constitution when necessary, and being completely unchecked by Congress and the courts.

(And to be clear, this isn’t just a matter of lots of people not understanding the concept of checks and balances. When pollsters have asked these kinds of questions broadly about presidents and not Trump, Democrats have been significantly less likely than Republicans to embrace these ideas.

So where does this leave us with Trump’s new comments?

They help explain why Republicans don’t push back on Trump’s power grabs. In that way, the president is pointing to a very real phenomenon.

But it’s also not ridiculous to think Trump might be pointing to support for dictators for a very specific reason: to legitimize his power grabs. Trump often uses the “many people are saying” construct to promote ideas he likes, after all.

If many people more or less want a dictator, maybe it’s not so extreme for him to be asking for more unchecked power?

It’s also worth noting the context in which Trump is lodging this. There is a growing argument in more extreme portions of the right that the country is marching inexorably toward a more authoritarian brand of government. (See: Tucker Carlson last week.)

To the extent people embrace that idea, it’s not a big logical leap to think your side should do the authoritarianism before the other side can.

We’ll see if Trump keeps fertilizing this seed he’s planted. All of the above shows how much that’s worth paying attention to.

CNN