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The efforts by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies ( NIALS) to restate the Nigerian Customary law received a boost last week.

The institute, at a stakeholders summit on the restatement of Customary law, presented its preliminary research findings in the area of the Customary law to the public.

The event, which held at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel, was attended by Customary Court of Appeal Presidents, renowned judges, scholars, and justices of superior courts of record across the country. The summit provided a veritable platform for stakeholders to rub minds, cross-fertilise ideas on the report of the research team and make inputs and contributions to the ongoing project of the institute.

In a chat with The Nation, the Director-General, NIALS, Prof. Epiphany Azinge (SAN) said: “ I believe we were able to set the tone for conversation and then get people to look at what we have done over the past two years. The response and reaction has been quite encouraging, it has prepared us for the next stage of our research proposition and we believe may be, in terms of distillation and aggregation of views, by April or thereabout, we would have been ready for restatement and then we go into the restatement properly.

“It has been a worthwhile exercise, it has been a worthwhile meeting today and we are happy that the public seem to be very elated about what we are doing and there has been a lot of commendations being poured on us for doing what we are doing which is supposed to be our mandate and that the public is appreciative of what we are doing.”

Prof. B. I. C. Ijoma said: “ This is a good project, what we have done is a search for the objective. The institute has definitely done a very good job by taking the bull by the horns because if you go from one place to the other, they do different things, so now, they are trying to find a commonality, which is not easy to find in the social sciences, I think they will succeed.”

Emeritus Professor, E. J. Alagoa said: “ I think this is a correct programme. If they follow it up, they will get to somewhere that will elevate the Customary law to be the basis of justice in the country.

“It is very feasible and it is long overdue. The Customary law applies to great majority of Nigerians at the present time and it will continue to apply to them for a long time. So, what the institute is doing to establish it in the law is the right thing, they will surely succeed.

In her introductory remarks at the summit, the project co-ordinator, Pro. Animi Awah said:

“The objective of this meeting is to disseminate and share our findings. It is also to validate those findings. Contributions made at this summit will further enrich the outcome of the research.

“Contributions are expected to fill in gaps where necessary and give alternative perspectives not captured on the field. Given the quality of stakeholders here such contributions would be taken as key findings which will be incorporated into research without need for further recourse to the field.

“The Restatement of customary law in Nigeria is a project initiated by NIALS. The project is hinged on four themes namely: marriage, inheritance, succession land and chieftaincy.

“In this project NIALS has sought to identify and document with precision, the position of custom across Nigeria. Preparatory to the field-work embarked upon by researchers of NIALS, was a period of intensive desk review of available literature on the customary law, of the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. The field-work was, therefore, targeted at confirming the change if any between customary law as documented and the extant law as accepted and practiced by those affected.”

On the methodology, she said: “At all times throughout the course of the preparatory work, the clear objective of the project was identified to be the documentation of the custom of the communities to be visited on the four themes of the project, as distinguished from reinvention of custom.

“The research adopted a two pronged approach of doctrinal and empirical investigation. The doctrinal approach was desk review of relevant data across the nation, while the empirical research entailed actual collection of data in the field.

“Data collection was through interviews of key informants who are custodians of customs in the various communities. To ensure uniformity and cohesion questions were fashioned for use by researchers in the field. For accuracy the interviews were recorded and later transcribed.”

Speaking on the geographical scope and coverage of the project, Prof Awah said: “The initial scope of the research was the entire rederation. The desk review however revealed that in the North namely the Northeast and Northwest geo – political zones, local customs were virtually non existent as Islam had practically supplanted all customs and is the prevailing law for ordering legal and social behaviour of the people.

“That notwithstanding, the project still incorporated those zones for the empirical research to find if per chance some variations could be found. Unfortunately this was not done due to the security situation in those zones. The research is stepped down and hopefully would be attended to once the situation improves.”

The report we will be considering covers the other four geo political zones namely: Southsouth, Southeast, Southwest and Northcentral.

On the reason for the choice of research areas, Awah said: “Marriage is generally regarded as a very important aspect of the social life of any society. There is certainly no society that does not recognise marriage. Custom in particular, has gone great lengths in making its presence felt in the way people marry. Every society has its custom on marriage.

“So prevalent are these customs in Nigerian societies that the validity of any marriage is largely assessed on the basis of whether the customary practices have been observed. Given its defining role in the social ordering of society, a thorough study of the customary practices of a society cannot be carried out in isolation of marriage. The influence of the subject area is felt in other aspects of custom such as inheritance/succession; where questions of who can inherit are answered on the basis of whether the parties were married or not. Status of a person is also sometimes determined by whether the person is born within a validly recognised marriage or not.”

Inheritance, succession

“Inheritance and succession are also important aspects of customary law/life as it raises certain concerns/issues which focus on gender, age, legitimacy/illegitimacy, nature of the property to be inherited. The critical significance of inheritance and succession appear to be that it determines access to resources and power.”

Land

“In Nigerian cultural milieu, the importance of land cannot be over emphasized. Essentially, farming, erection of houses for both personal and commercial purposes, as well as gift item, are some of the uses of land. As a consequence, land is the most precious commodity of the ancient Nigerian. Its value to the modern Nigeria is still very high. Our fathers lived on and by land. To them it meant everything. Land is also valued because of its spiritual/religious dimension and its links and affinity with the identity of people and groups.”

Chieftaincy

 “The basis of indigenous organisation is the family under the headship of the eldest male member of the family. He directs family affairs and settles disputes among members of the family. Families grow and so villages are formed. This ultimately results in the development of title-holding system. The title-holding system varies in different places. Some titles are vested in certain families and are hereditary while others lapse on the death of the holder. In some cases a title carries with it a definite seniority in the village will be in others seniority is determined by the chronological order in which the titles are assumed.

“Consequently, there has always been in existence the organisational hierarchy of governance or ruling since time immemorial, the ruler in any of such setting is regarded as a chief. A chief is a leader or ruler of a tribe. He is the royal father of all and the traditional head of the community. He is the accredited representative of the ancestors and the custodian of culture and tradition. He has the duty of performing certain traditional religious ceremonies and has the final say in traditional matters. A community without chiefs portrays a society without vision.”