ABSTRACT
The topic “ Administration of justice in Nigerian courts, problems and prospects” seems to attract to itself the attention and inquisitiveness on the part of the common man or every believer in the Rule of law of what the writer is talking about or what he is going to upon since the mere mention of justice in our society today raises a conjecture and thereafter suffers from universally acceptable definition.
An attempt is made in this essay to scrutinize what hampers the judicial powers vested in the courts under section 6(6)(b) of 1999 constitution which it is said shall extend to all matters between persons, or between government or authority and to any person in Nigeria, and to all actions and proceedings relating thereto, for the determination of any question as to the civil rights and obligations of that person.
Also considered in the essay are the ‘defects’ in and/ or ‘injustices’ written into the substantive law. For instance the ouster of court’s jurisdiction, the down payment or deposit of a substantial amount of money paid into a court before a challenge to chieftaincy dispute is entertained, discrimination on the grounds of protection to the public officers of the state and the adoption of foreign culture and archaic statutes that were largely meant to nurture a colonial society among others are written into or found in the basic law of the state , then it is not possible to talk of justice under such a system. Sometimes a system fails because of procedural defects and inadequacies. When there exists structural injustice in the location of courts (for instance a poor litigant resides share, Kwara state and the Supreme courts is located in Abuja) and there is imbalance in the distribution of wealth in the society, there, the law is easily seen as instrument of oppression and a protection of the status quo.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
As an introduction it is worthy of note that this project centers upon the “Administration of Justice in Nigerian Courts, Problems and Prospects”. The Nigerian political history dated back to the pre-colonial era. The various ethnic groups had one form or system of political and judicial set up that were distinct and peculiar to each ethnic group.
This essay gives us the background of Nigeria judicial system before independent. In the Northern part of Nigeria there was well established monarchical form of government, and its judicial system was based on the shariah which was strongly influenced by Islam. The Yoruba of the south west of Nigeria equally had a monarchical form of government [based on the cultural set up of the society] and the judicial system was based on the royal court of the “Obas”. The South East had a lose form of government based on community headship of splinter groups without a central power as it was the case in the north and south west of the country,
While the judicial system was the same “Communal market system of adjudication”.
The prominent judicial system in the North was the “Alkali courts” presided over by the Emirs or the Alkalis [judges] who were very versatile in shariah law. The South west had courts similar with those in the North which were based on the traditions, customs and practices of the area, these were called “kotu oba or kotu Asipa” depending on who was the presiding judge.
This project also points out that the judiciary continued to build up its standard from this period up to when the country attained its independence in 1960.
One can conveniently insinuate that the success of the judiciary today had been laid long time ago by founding fathers. Also this essay shed more light on what prevalent in Nigeria is the fact that which ever way a court judgment sway, it is always construed by parties on both sides as either the victory for the rule of law[in a win case] and perversion of justice[on the losing side] but all these is human frailties. This is no way an indictment of the judges or the process of adjudication. Thus this is an eye opener to the issues of administration of justice in Nigerian courts.
Also this project examines definitions that are more encompassing but that do not make it to be generally acceptable to all. But few of them are considered below.
