Hello, reader,
My thought this morning is about the controversy trailing the announcement of 22nd September,2014 by the Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the resumption date for schools throughout the federation as part of its effort to manage the spread of the ebola virus disease that the nation has been battling with, for some time now.While the governments of some states of the federation have refused to obey this order by announcing their own dates of resumption for schools in their states, the relevant question now is whether or not there is any legal justification for this, especially in case you think the Federal Government is superior to the state governments.

THE LEGAL POSITION
First, it should be noted that Nigeria operates federalism.In Nigeria there is a document ,which is the constitution,that regulates the relationship between the government at the center and its federating units which are regarded as the states of the federation.In the constitution, there are legislative lists that list out what and what the government at the center ( i. e. the Federal government) and the governments of the federating units can make laws upon.Of this lists, we have the one containing only the items that it is only the Federal government that can make laws,policies or decisions on.This is called the exclusive legislative list.See the list at www.mylegalgists.blogspot.com tomorrow.There is also the list called the concurrent legislative list.This is the legislative list containing those items both the Federal Government on one hand and the state governments on the other hand can both legislate upon.They both exercise legislative powers on the items contained on that list.This is why there are state and federal ministries of health and those of education in the country.Bear in mind that it is as a result of this same constitutional arrangement you have never heard of Ogun State Ministry of Defence or Osun State Ministry of Aviation.This is simply because defence and aviation are items exclusively meant for the Federal Government to legislate upon . Where today's legal gist actually lies is that the issues of resumption of schools borders firstly on, education and, secondly, on health of the school children and the nation at large.My readers should further take note that both education and health are items contained on the concurrent legislative list.

So, constitutionally speaking, issues bordering on health or education in Nigeria is not outside the jurisdiction of the state governments in Nigeria and I conveniently conclude here that the governments of Osun, Ogun, Ekiti, Oyo, Lagos states and some other states in the North are not wrong to have postponed resumption dates for schools in their domains beyond 22nd September,2014 as announced by the Federal Government. This is one of the reasons  why the Federal Government cannot take the matter to court to challenge those states.

Thank you for your attention and do have a nice day at work!