It has been 60 years of highs and lows for the Nigerian judiciary. Some pronouncements have been lauded for restoring faith in the country’s rule of law and democracy, others have left tales of shame by confounding settled principles of moral and legal justice.
After centuries of informal and traditional methods of dispute resolution in Nigeria, the judiciary became the formal institution for settling disputes with the advent of the colonial masters.
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As one of the three arms of government alongside the executive and the legislature, the judiciary under Section 6(6) (b) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 is vested with the power to determine “all matters between persons, or between government or authority and to any persons 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.”
A lawyer, Max Ogar, names the recent Supreme Court decision upholding an earlier judgement on the right of females to inherit family property in Igboland as against an age-long custom as one of the major decisions of the apex court.
It has also been argued that the judgment of the FCT High Court which annulled the June 12, 1993, presidential election, adjudged to be the freest and fairest election in Nigeria and which was believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola, and upheld by the Supreme Court, is one of the most outrageous decisions of the apex court.
Although the British colonial authority set up formal courts in the southern part of Nigeria in the 1800s known as Courts of Equity, according to another lawyer, Onyekachi Duru, many of them did not preclude the operation of native courts based on customs.
Between 1863 and 1900, two Supreme Courts were established for Lagos and the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.
While both had civil and criminal jurisdictions, the Southern Supreme Court exercised the same powers and jurisdictions vested in Her Majesty’s High Court of Justice in England.
Duru in his paper “The role and historical development of the judiciary” explained that while the Supreme Court exercised appellate jurisdiction over the High Courts, between 1934 and 1954, appeals from the Supreme Court went to the West African Court of Appeal (WACA) and that appeals from the WACA went to the Privy Council’s judicial committee.
However, 1954 was a watershed when a Federal Supreme Court was established.
Between 1958 and 1972, Justice Adetokunbo Ademola became the first indigenous Chief Justice of the Federation at the Supreme Court.
When Nigeria became a republic in 1963, the Supreme Court of Nigeria became the highest court and the last point of appeal. This was because the Privy Council was abolished.
Justice Ademola was succeeded by Justice Taslim Olawale Elias and served from 1972 to 1975 after he was nominated from the bar.
In the same year, regional level High Courts presided over by Chief Judges were established.
Appeals from each of the Regional High Courts went to the Federal Supreme Court, while that from Customary or Native Courts Grade A went to the Regional High Courts.
From thence, there was the promulgation of the Federal Revenue Court Decree of 1973, 15 years after the idea was muted.
The earlier decision was reached at one of the independence constitutional conferences in the 1950s; to establish a High Court for the determination of causes and matters within the Exclusive Legislative List as is the case with other countries with the federal system of government.
More specifically, it would be a court for government’s revenue disputes.
Disputes over the court’s jurisdiction led to the enactment of Section 230(1) of the Nigerian Constitution of 1979, and was replicated in the amended Federal High Court Decree of 1991 with same jurisdiction conferred on it by Section 7 of the Establishment Act of 1973.
From a single division in Lagos, the High Court now has 38 divisions in all the 36 states and two divisions in Lagos.
From the five judges, led by a pioneer judge, Justice S.O. Lambo, from 1973 to 1975, it now has 82 judges.
The Court of Appeal of Nigeria was then established as an intermediate appellate court through the Federal Appeal Court Act of 1976.
It had Justice D.O. Ibekwe as its pioneer president.
The court has now grown to 20 divisions across the federation with about 80 justices.
While each state has its High Court, the appellate court is empowered not only to entertain appeals emanating from their decisions, but also from the National Industrial Court, Code of Conduct Tribunal, Election Petitions Tribunals, Investment and Securities Tribunal and Disciplinary Tribunals of Regulatory Bodies for various professionals.
Also, the court, under Section 239 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999, has original jurisdiction to determine questions of whether a person has been validly elected as the President or Vice President of Nigeria.
The legal profession has also expanded over the years to over 120,000 lawyers currently after the Nigerian Law School was founded in 1962 in Lagos with six pioneer students from the English Bar: S.A Ajuyah, J.S. Anyanwu, S.O. Chinke, I.A. Idamiebi, Onyeabo Obi, N.N. Onuoha, I.O. Sonoiki and N. Wachukwu.
Over 400 lawyers have been awarded the prestigious rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). Rotimi Williams and N.B. Graham Douglas were the first set of lawyers who received the annual recognition on April 4, 1975.
Furthermore, the evolution of the Nigerian judiciary is tied to the country’s various constitutional amendments.
Amid the major constitutional amendments of 1963, 1979 and 1999, the judiciary has advocated for reforms of the legal instruments to expedite resolution of disputes and interpretation of the law as it ought to be.
Some of the laws which have been amended in recent years are the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) of 2015, which tried to harmonise the penal and criminal procedure laws in Nigeria; the Evidence Act 2011 to accommodate electronic and other sources of evidence; the Electoral Act for the determination of election disputes, the Violence Against Persons Act (VAPP) for gender-based offences, among other legislations.
The judiciary’s clamour for financial autonomy received a boost in May, 2019, when President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Executive Order No 10 for both legislative and judicial autonomy.
Before the order, the administration upped the funding for the judiciary from N70bn in 2016 to N100bn annually since 2017 via statutory transfers.
This move was hailed for aligning with the provisions of Sections 83(1), 212(3) and 162(9) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999.
Despite these highs, the conviction and removal of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, and his replacement with Justice Tanko Muhammad, on January 25, 2019 and raids on residences of judges across the country by the Department of State Services (DSS) on October 8, 2016, have been described as some of the darkest lows of the judiciary.
Besides, many challenges have been identified in the judiciary.
They include poor funding, political interference, corruption and delays due to inadequate manpower and technology.
Others are dilapidated structures, low quality of judicial officers due to flawed recruitment processes, poor welfare for judges, absence of a fair and transparent system and lack of independence.
As a result of these challenges, cases take many years to be determined in the courts; often at huge costs to the litigants.
The Director General of the National Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), Prof. Tawfiq Ladan, said the judiciary in the past 60 years had its highs and lows in the discharge of its constitutional obligation under Section 6 and Chapter 2 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999.
Prof. ladan said, “It’s high moments were in the First, Second and Fourth Republics, as well as during military regimes between 1967 and 1999 in standing against executive arbitrariness and abuse of power and legislative recklessness in the discharge of its functions.
“Happily, however, the National Judicial Council (NJC) has fairly lived up to its expectations by consistently sanctioning erring judges – as the bad eggs among them – by means of dismissal, suspension, warning, etc. Above all, it’s been six decades of mixed blessings for Nigeria and Nigerians.”
A former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Prof. Maxwell Gidado, said it had been “so far so good” considering that Nigeria had to rebuild its laws from what the colonial masters left behind to suit local circumstances.
“But we cannot claim to have reached a 100 per cent mark because every now and again there are cases where the common man goes to the court and comes back not happy.
“Access to justice is not cheap, the rich can afford the senior lawyers whereas the poor can’t.
“Having said that, at the Supreme Court, we have been having judgements which sometimes leave much to be desired.
“If only those at the helm and the lower courts can be bold enough to call a spade a spade…that is the day we can claim to have reached 100 per cent mark.
“In summary, it has been so far so good.”
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