Abstract: | Examination of the Constitutional safeguards against preventive detention, first during peace time, and secondly during emergency or war periods. Although in Nigeria the individual is protected against preventive detention in three principal ways, these protections become meaningless during emergency, when the President can make regulations that could override any existing law that is in conflict with the Emergency Powers Act, 1961. Though this matter must be viewed with some concern, on the other hand, if Nigeria is to survive as a democracy it must be able to protect itself from any disruptive forces that may make its government ineffective. Notes. |