Warns Nigeria’s justice system is failing investors and the poor
Nigeria’s judiciary is locked in a crisis of delay, technical obsession and misplaced priorities that is choking economic growth, eroding public trust and entrenching inequality, senior lawyer Fidelis Oditah KC, SAN warned on Monday.
Delivering a keynote address at the 40th Call to the Bar anniversary celebration of his 1985 Nigerian law School set at the Oriental Hotel in Lagos, Oditah said Nigeria’s courts have become gridlocked by decades-long litigation, procedural ambushes and what he described as a self-destructive fixation on technicalities over justice.
“The problem in Nigeria is not access to justice,” he said. “It is exit from justice.”
Oditah argued that while the judiciary should be a driver of democracy, economic development and social cohesion, it has instead become a bottleneck that discourages investment, prolongs disputes and denies ordinary Nigerians meaningful remedies.
He cited cases that lasted between 20 and 70 years, including the landmark Okafor v Nweke land dispute, which began in 1955 and ended in 2025 after seven decades of litigation, not on the merits but because court documents were signed in the name of a law firm rather than an individual lawyer.
This is hyper-technicality at its most destructive,” Oditah said, warning that Nigerian courts increasingly nullify entire proceedings over procedural defects that should be curable.
He traced the gridlock to chronic underfunding, weak case management, outdated infrastructure, political interference in judicial appointments, and what he described as a dangerous conflation of jurisdiction and admissibility.
According to Oditah, Nigerian courts routinely treat procedural irregularities—such as signing errors, filing defects or failure to meet preconditions—as jurisdictional flaws, rendering years of litigation worthless.
“This misunderstanding of jurisdiction is strangling our justice system,” he said, adding that many issues wrongly labelled as jurisdictional should instead be treated as matters of admissibility, which can be waived.
The senior advocate also criticised the culture of endless interlocutory appeals and adjournments, describing them as weapons in an “unending war of attrition” that benefits delay over resolution.
But the most damaging distortion, Oditah said, is the elevation of electoral and political litigation above all other forms of justice.
He noted that constitutional timelines and special tribunals ensure election disputes are resolved within months, while land, commercial, labour and human rights cases languish for years or decades.
“This has created a two-tier justice system,” he said, “where politically connected litigants get fast-track justice and ordinary Nigerians get trapped in procedural quicksand.”
He cited data showing that thousands of judges were diverted to election tribunals during the 2023 general elections, forcing the suspension of regular court business nationwide. In contrast, socio-economic disputes affecting livelihoods, businesses and property rights were left unresolved.
The consequences, Oditah warned, are severe.
Judicial delay discourages domestic and foreign investment, weakens contract enforcement, cripples small and medium-sized businesses and fuels capital flight. He pointed to long-running commercial disputes involving aircraft leases, oil contracts and arbitral awards that have remained unresolved for more than a decade.
International observers have taken notice. Nigerian courts have been described by foreign judges as “catastrophic,” “sclerotic” and “hyper-technical,” damaging the country’s reputation as a place to do business.
Beyond economics, Oditah said the gridlock undermines democracy itself.
“When citizens lose faith in the courts, they turn to self-help, mob justice and violence,” he warned. “That is how the rule of law collapses.”
He also criticised Nigeria’s derisory cost regime, arguing that token cost awards encourage frivolous litigation and penalise successful parties, unlike arbitration where losing parties routinely pay millions in legal costs.
To reverse the crisis, Oditah proposed sweeping reforms, including better funding, zero tolerance for judicial corruption, stronger case management, limits on interlocutory appeals, clearer jurisdictional boundaries between courts, realistic cost awards, and a merit-based judicial appointment system free from political patronage.
He said many of the solutions are “low-hanging fruits” that require judicial courage rather than constitutional amendments.
“Our justice system will not fix itself,” Oditah said. “Credible justice is the product of deliberate choices. Unless we make those choices, no amount of funding will cure the gridlock.”
