Salient Issues in the Law and Practice of Arbitration in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria is one country that has never really had any hesitation in its embrace of commercial arbitration and the ADRs as far better means of dispute resolution than litigation. Nigerians have always had a warm and vigorous recourse to arbitration and the ADRs in one form or the other. In the traditional societies that preceded the Nigerian state, customary law arbitration and ADRs were much more in use than customary litigation. Then, as now, arbitration and the ADRs were generally conciliatory by aiming at the preservation of existing relationships instead of the mere declaration of rights and liabilities that might not necessarily achieve effective and enduring justice. Arbitration and the ADRs were therefore more in agreement with the African philosophy of each person being his brother’s keeper, than litigation which was confrontational even in the traditional society. The English law of arbitration was also introduced into Nigeria early in the life of the country then as a colony of Britain. Even though the Imperial Government concentrated on litigation as a favoured means of settling disputes in the colony of Nigeria and, even if unwittingly, hampered the growth of the law and practice of the English (Western) type of arbitration and the ADRs, customary law arbitration and ADRs were in marvellous prosperity. After its independence from Britain in 1960 Nigeria took firm and excellent steps at the earliest opportunities it got in 1965 and 1967 to facilitate the growth of the law and practice of international arbitration within and without her borders. It was the first country to accede to the ICSID Convention in 1965, quickly following that up with the enactment of the ICSID (Enforcement of Awards) Act,1 in 1967. Ever since, it has normally modernised and updated its laws and striven in other ways to make itself a conducive place for arbitrations. In fact, the law of arbitration has grown in content and quality over the years even in the midst of daunting infrastructural limitations. In this article we shall survey the development of the trade in the country in the light of certain usual developmental signposts in arbitration. We shall first