Nigeria, Jan. 27 -- Depending on what view one takes of the matter, 10 February promises to be Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja. On that day, a panel of five Justices of the Supreme Court will take arguments on seven appeals connected with the synthetic political crisis in Rivers State.

The issues that the court will be asked to decide include the validity of last October's local government elections in the state; the fate of the faction in the Rivers State House of Assembly, who claim to have switched their affiliation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, on whose platform they were elected) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC); the legality of the state's 2025 budget passed by the rump of the state Ho...