Ben Oloko (University of Nigeria) has posted Personal to the Holder: The Non-Transferability of the Powers of the Attorney-General and The Inapplicability of the Doctrine of Necessity to Cure a Vacancy in the Office on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The office of the Attorney-General occupies a singular position in the constitutional architecture of Nigeria: it is simultaneously a political appointment, a constitutional office, and a repository of personal, non-delegable discretionary power over the machinery of criminal justice. This article interrogates the proposition that the powers of the Attorney-General of the Federation and of a State are personal to the individual occupant of the office, and that where the office falls vacant, the doctrine of necessity cannot be invoked to validate criminal processes issued or continued in the Attorney-General’s name. The article uses, as its factual fulcrum, the elevation of the erstwhile Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Enugu State, Dr Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh, SAN, to the Federal Executive Council as Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology on 6 November 2025, and the delay of nearly seven weeks before the appointment of his successor, Barr Osinachi Nnajieze, on 23 December 2025 — a period during which criminal charges continued to be filed and prosecuted. The article further examines section 31 of the Police Act 2020, which conditions the institution of criminal proceedings upon the prior legal advice of the Attorney-General, and argues that this provision reinforces, rather than dilutes, the personal and non-delegable character of the office.
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