A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONDITIONS FOR STATE OF EMERGENCY

Abstract

In life nothing seems to be permanent. When it comes to government of human societies, there is the possibility that a phenomenon that an existing legal regime may either not anticipate, or if it does, is unable to comprehend and handle it when it, sadly, happens. The theme of states of Emergency is the device that states have evolved to tackle emergencies situations. The objective of this paper is to examine the conditions for state of emergency, in the bid to know how far declaring states really predicate their declarations on these conditions. The paper adopts a doctrinal methodology, and that is, an examination of conditions for the declaration of state of emergency and how states rely on these conditions to declare state of emergency in appropriate cases. This research found out that not all the state of emergency declared in Nigeria met the conditions stipulated in the extant law. It is recommended that states, for instance, Nigeria, in declaring a state of emergency should make sure that such declaration is a child of necessity-necessitated by the spelt out conditions provided in the law.