Abstract

The question of conflict of jurisdiction between the High Court and the Customary Court of Appeal has been an interesting subject of consideration in academic and judicial circles. Unfortunately, this ‘impasse’ has alarmingly unleashed the floodgate of otherwise avoidable preliminary objections in courts, with concomitant costs to the smooth and speedy dispensation of justice. This study was undertaken to finding a way out of the protracted problem. The study concluded by arguing that the High Court and the Customary Court of Appeal, though courts of coordinate jurisdiction, do not have concurrent jurisdiction. One major cause of the problem of purported jurisdictional conflict was the restrictive interpretation usually given to section 247 (1) of the 1979 Constitution (now section 282 (1) of the 1999 Constitution). Therefore, it was recommended that a more liberal interpretation should be given to that provision to include other principles of law necessarily incidental to questions of customary law, such as fair hearing/natural justice, the weight of evidence and equity. Additionally, it was suggested that some provisions of the extant laws be amended to deal with likely elements of ambiguity, like amendments to the High Court Law, the Customary Court of Appeal Law and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: the proposed draft amendments were included.

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