Formalise African traditional dispute resolution system in Nigeria, Int’l NGO urges FG

An International non-profit organisation, Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), has stressed the need for Nigerian government to formalise the African traditional dispute resolution system to increase citizens’ access to justice.

The Country Representative of HiiL, Dr Ijeoma Nwafor, made the call while featuring on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Personality Interview Series on Monday in Abuja.

Nwafor said that available data showed that only 15 per cent of Nigerians seek redress in court, while 85 per cent go elsewhere.

According to her, three factors are responsible for the low percentage of people seeking justice in court.

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“Three factors why 85 per cent of Nigerians don’t go to court are: high cost, low accessibility and ease of the system.

“For increase in access to justice, HiiL discovered that African Traditional Dispute Resolution Module, now rebranded as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), needs to be formalised,” she said.

Explaining the concept of ADR, Nwafor said that the system simply means that people are seeking justice and may not necessarily want to go to a formal system.

“If these parties believed they would get fair hearing and their matter resolved, it is necessary that the outcome get documented and archived,” she stated.

The HiiL’s county representative noted that the gap in the African Traditional Dispute Resolution Module was its non-integration into the formal system.

“To address this gap, HiiL recently partnered Ethiopian Government and now, they have a law that makes it possible for traditional rulers to resolve land matters, and this is documented and archived within the formal system.

“If you look into most of our villages, that is what we are lacking. A traditional ruler might resolve a land matter and the next generation comes and starts all over again because the decision was not archived and legally recognised.

“Imagine if the decision was archived and recognised by the formal system, nobody will come and start making trouble all over again,” she said.

Nwafor, who said that all the courtrooms in Nigeria cannot meet the justice needs of the population, added that the need for new innovation in the country’s justice system cannot be over empasised.

“Some justice needs are casual and don’t necessarily need to go to court,” she said.

Nwafor said that HiiL currently has presence in Imo, Ogun and Kaduna states, running pilot scheme on Community Justice Centre.

“We hope that Imo State government will scale up the pilot centre to 53 additional centres and that will enable more people to appreciate the advantages of the community justice centre module’,’ she said.

(NAN)