A Farmland Dispute in the Wrong Courtroom: The Limits of Sharia Court Jurisdiction: Lumo v. Abu [2026] 11 NWLR (Pt. 2052) 473 SC
A Farmland Dispute in the Wrong Courtroom: The Limits of Sharia Court Jurisdiction Lumo v. Abu [2026] 11 NWLR (Pt. 2052) 473 — Supreme Court of Nigeria Does it matter which court hears your case if every party involved is Muslim and everyone agrees Islamic law should apply? According to the Supreme Court in Lumo v. Abu , it matters enormously — because a court's power to hear a dispute doesn't come from who the parties are or what law they'd like applied. It comes from the Constitution, and the Constitution drew a much narrower box around the Sharia Court of Appeal than several courts along the way seemed to assume. The Facts Sani Lumo, together with seven siblings, sued Alhaji Abu at the Lower Sharia Court in Dogondaji, Sokoto State, over a farmland their late father had lent to Abu. With their father a year deceased and the family preparing to divide his estate, they wanted the land back, describing exactly where its boundaries sat — bordered by a mosque, a road, a school...