Lawyers in Abeokuta have declared a three-day boycott of courts in the Ogun State capital city over policies introduced by the State Judiciary. This is contained in a statement by the Publicity Secretary of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abeokuta branch, Abdulbasit Shuaib, yesterday, in Abeokuta.
This was as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, declared fresh war against delay in the justice system, directing judges across the country to adopt proactive case management strategies to ensure faster and more efficient resolution of cases.
Also, convener of Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD), Dr Chekwas Okorie, called on the judiciary to save the country’s democracy from the machinations of overzealous politicians.
Meanwhile, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has launched an Electronic Case Management System (ECMS) to digitise judicial processes, improve access to justice and enhance the efficiency of case administration across its 15 member states.
According to the NBA statement, the boycott, which holds from 6 to 8 July, will affect the High Court, Customary Court of Appeal, Magistrates’ Courts and Customary Courts.
‘This action follows unsuccessful efforts to resolve concerns through meetings, correspondences and consultations with judiciary stakeholders.
‘The issues are the implementation of the Four-Oaths-Per-Day Policy. Astronomical increase in the fee for filing oaths from N200 to over N1,500, representing an increase of approximately 650 per cent’, the NBA said.
Others the NBA said are the imposition of a N100,000 virtual court sitting fee per session.
It said the policies constitute significant obstacles to legal practice and effective representation of clients, adding that the policies had adversely affected access to justice and the administration of justice in Ogun.
The branch, however, directed all members to boycott proceedings at the courts within Abeokuta.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the opening of the National Workshop on Case Management for Judges of the Superior Courts of Record, organised by the National Judicial Institute (NJI), Kekere-Ekun said ‘the judiciary’s effectiveness is judged’ not only by the quality of its judgments, but also by the speed and efficiency with which justice was delivered.
According to her, prolonged litigation, unnecessary adjournments, procedural abuse and poor scheduling practices have continued to frustrate access to justice, increase litigation costs and weaken public confidence in the courts.
‘To the ordinary litigant, justice delayed often translates into justice denied,” the CJN said, warning that delays also create uncertainty for businesses and investors as well as undermine confidence in the rule of law.
She urged judges to take stronger control of proceedings, enforce timelines and deploy pre-trial procedures effectively to reduce case backlogs.
The CJN stressed the importance of technology in modern justice administration, encouraging the use of electronic filing, virtual hearings, digital case-tracking systems and automated scheduling tools to make their jobs easy.
She cited jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom (UK), Singapore and South, where active judicial leadership and structured case management improved court efficiency.
Earlier, the NJI Administrator, Justice Babatunde Adejumo, had urged judges of the Superior Courts of Record to embrace proactive case management as a means of reducing backlogs and eliminating administrative bottlenecks.
Okorie said the ongoing attempts to exclude some opposition political parties, particularly the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), from the 2027 general election could throw the country into a huge crisis.
The elder statesman, who spoke to The Guardian on the ongoing disputations over the legal status of the NDC, urged the Court of Appeal to address the various issues being canvassed by the parties to the dispute, even as he warned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against indolence and nonchalance.
While contending that it belongs to the court to deal with the matter expeditiously, Okorie stressed that since the NDC had already followed INEC processes from congresses to primaries and convention, the spirit and the letters of the law are involved.
He added: ‘Where the two are considered, the spirit of the law is usually considered superior to the letters of the law. Any attempt to disenfranchise the NDC that has gone through these processes by several thousands of Nigerians who have already passed through the screening processes as candidates, whether for House of Assembly or to presidential’.
For Okorie, any attempt to deny an Igbo person of note, like Peter Obi, contesting the presidency is anarchy being sponsored and promoted by the judiciary and by whosoever is sponsoring them.
‘I will extend it to what is happening in ADC. Any attempt to use any means or intrigue whatsoever to deny former Vice President Atiku Abubakar the right, the opportunity to fly a presidential flag on the platform of ADC that is being also pummelled left, right and centre by intrigues that are traceable to known faces, is also equivalent to excluding the North from contesting the highest office of the land, which has never happened since Independence. That is another angle of anarchy that I don’t know how the security agencies that have not been able to handle the issue of insurgency will handle it’.
The ECOWAS e-platform was officially unveiled in Abuja yesterday during a ceremony attended by senior officials, judges, diplomats, legal practitioners, civil society organisations and development partners.
The launch marked a major milestone in the court’s digital transformation agenda, replacing largely paper-based procedures with a secure, multilingual online platform for filing, managing and tracking cases.
Designed to automate judicial and registry operations, the ECMS allows electronic filing of cases, digital document management, virtual hearings, electronic notifications and real-time monitoring of proceedings.
The ECMS is available in English, French and Portuguese, making it accessible to legal practitioners and litigants throughout the ECOWAS region.
President of the ECOWAS Court, Justice Ricardo Gonçalves, described the launch as a defining moment in the history of the regional court and a significant step towards strengthening access to justice for more than 400 million citizens within the ECOWAS community.
He said the introduction of the platform demonstrated the court’s determination to embrace technology in delivering faster, more transparent and more efficient judicial services.
‘We have gathered, in person in Abuja and virtually across the entire ECOWAS region, to mark the beginning of a new era in which technology strengthens access to justice, enhances efficiency and promotes transparency in the administration of justice, for the benefit of over 400 million citizens’, he said.
Chief Registrar of the ECOWAS Court, Dr Yaouza Ouro-Sama, also described the launch as the beginning of a new chapter in the administration of justice across West Africa.
He said the ECMS represented more than innovation, describing it as a transformational project that would strengthen the rule of law and reinforce public confidence in regional judicial institutions.
Tracing the evolution of the project, the Acting Deputy Chief Registrar and ECMS Project Team Manager, Mrs Marie Saine, said it emerged from the court’s long-term vision to modernise judicial administration and improve access to justice throughout the region.
She explained that the initiative aligned with ECOWAS Vision 2050 and the court’s Strategic Plan 2026-2030, known as ‘Justice 2030’, which prioritises greater efficiency in judicial processes, stronger protection of human rights and wider access to justice.
