Nigeria: Trials & Appeals & Compensation

When oil pollution devastates a community, determining legal responsibility involves more than identifying the company connected to the spill. The answer requires examining statutory provisions like the Oil Pipelines Act, common law tort principles, third-party interference claims, and government obligations under Nigeria's Constitution, with liability turning on specific questions of negligence, maintenance standards, and causation.

Nigeria's environmental rights litigation has evolved through landmark cases that tested constitutional boundaries and expanded access to justice. From the groundbreaking Gbemre decision recognizing environmental protection as a fundamental right, through judicial restraint in Opara, to the Supreme Court's standing expansion in Centre for Oil Pollution Watch...

In Nigeria, justice is not often measured by verdicts, but by waiting, and by waiting, this means, unfortunately, prolonged trials, delayed rulings, and overcrowded prisons, which have all turned courts into actual waiting rooms, like a woman waiting to conceive. This article examines the possible factors behind judicial delay, arguing that it is not merely a procedural flaw but a complex interplay of financial incentives, abuse of procedural safeguards, strategically prolonged litigation, and institutional inefficiencies.

The age of automated decision-making ("ADM") has arrived in Nigeria. Banks and fintech platforms deploy credit-scoring models to determine lending outcomes, and public institutions increasingly rely on data-driven systems in the exercise of statutory functions.

The Nigerian Supreme Court has clarified a critical aspect of tenancy law: accepting rent after issuing a Notice to Quit does not automatically invalidate the eviction notice.

International arbitration is often chosen because it offers parties a final and enforceable decision.[1] In most cases, that finality is one of its greatest advantages.

In a landmark decision delivered on February 25, 2026, the Court of Appeal in Strickland Services Limited v. Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service & Anor nullified the Akwa Ibom State Maritime Sector (Regulation) Law 2017 and ...

The need for litigants and their counsel to adhere strictly to court orders is not merely ornamental. It is a good legal hygiene and the cornerstone of the entire judicial process. This reality informs the widespread consensus in the legal profession that respect and due observance of the law remains the beauty of law.

On 2nd February 2006, the Federal High Court, Kaduna Judicial Division (the "trial court") granted the appellant leave to file his suit under the undefended list.