Oditah Warns on Dangers of Nigeria’s Two-speed Justice System Where Political Disputes are Fast-tracked

• Says Nigerian court proceedings are viewed abroad as catastrophic and hyper-technical

Wale Igbintade 

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and distinguished legal scholar, Fidelis Oditah KC, has raised the alarm that Nigeria operates a two-speed justice system in which political and electoral disputes are fast-tracked. At the same time, ordinary citizens are left to languish in protracted litigation.

Oditah said Nigeria’s justice system is sliding into systemic paralysis as courts increasingly prioritise electoral and political cases at the expense of socio-economic justice, a trend he said is undermining investment, eroding public confidence, and weakening democratic governance.

The leading commercial lawyer and arbitrator raised the alarm in a detailed keynote address delivered recently in Lagos at an event marking the 40th anniversary of his Call to the Nigerian Bar. 

Oditah, a member of the Nigerian Law School Class of 1985, titled his lecture “Judicial Gridlock and the Adverse Implications of Prioritising Electoral Justice Above Socio-Economic Justice.”

In his address, he delivered a sweeping critique of Nigeria’s civil and criminal justice system, characterizing it as gridlocked, overly technical, and increasingly detached from the lived realities of ordinary Nigerians.

According to him, courts are overwhelmed by chronic delays, weak institutional capacity, and a deeply entrenched culture of procedural formalism that frustrates the timely resolution of disputes.

“Cases remain in court for 20 to 30 years,” Oditah said, noting that litigants frequently die before judgments are delivered.

 “Our problem is no longer access to justice but exit from justice,” he added.

He cited the protracted land dispute of Okafor v Nweke as a stark illustration of judicial failure.

The case, which commenced at the Onitsha High Court in 1955, was not concluded until January 2025—70 years later —without a determination on the merits, after the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on technical grounds concerning the execution of court documents.

“For seven decades, the parties were trapped in litigation, only for the case to collapse on a technicality,” Oditah said, describing the outcome as “an indictment of our justice system.”

He attributed much of the gridlock to what he called the courts’ excessive and self-destructive obsession with form and procedure rather than substance. 

According to him, lawyers routinely exploit procedural defects by recasting them as jurisdictional issues, triggering endless interlocutory applications and appeals.

Oditah argued that Nigerian courts have wrongly conflated jurisdiction, the authority of a court to hear a matter, with admissibility, which concerns procedural compliance and can often be waived.

“This confusion has turned procedural defects into fatal errors. It has encouraged litigation by ambush rather than the pursuit of justice,” he said.

He also pointed to international criticism of Nigeria’s judicial system, noting that foreign courts have described Nigerian proceedings as catastrophic, sclerotic, and hyper-technical, particularly in arbitration and commercial matters.

While ordinary civil and criminal cases stagnate, Oditah said electoral and political litigation moves at an extraordinary pace and receives priority, effectively creating a two-tier justice system.

He explained that under Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution, election petitions must be concluded within strict timelines, with interlocutory issues deferred until final judgment. 

According to him, these provisions were mainly designed to protect the political class.

“Politicians ensured that their disputes receive urgent attention, even as cases involving land, contracts, labour and human rights are left to rot in the system,” he said.

Oditah contrasted the rapid resolution of political disputes, including recent high-profile cases that moved from trial courts to the Supreme Court within months, with socio-economic cases that remain unresolved for decades.

He said the prioritisation of election litigation has diverted enormous judicial resources from regular courts. 

Citing data from civil society organisations, he noted that nearly 1,900 pre-election cases were filed ahead of the 2023 general election, with hundreds of appeals reaching the Supreme Court. In addition, 1,209 post-election petitions were filed nationwide.

To handle these cases, he said 338 judges were deployed to election petition tribunals nationwide, effectively suspending proceedings in their substantive courts.

“When judges are reassigned to tribunals, their dockets are frozen. Thousands of litigants are sacrificed so that political disputes can be resolved quickly,” he said.