Akwa Ibom Customary Courts: Who will Save Our District Court Chairmen?

By ~ Meti M. Ukpeh, Esq.

[Uyo-based Human Rights Lawyer ]

In Nigeria, beyond the Superior Courts of record recognized by the Constitution of Nigeria(as amended), there exist several other layers of courts, most of which exist by dint of the laws of the various states. In this class are the Customary Courts, Magistrates Courts, the Area Courts, among others. 

In Akwa Ibom State, the Customary Courts occupy the immediate layer after the Customary Court of Appeal (though yet to be established), which explains why appeals from the Customary Courts go to the High Courts(S.67, CCL,2022).The Customary Court is the closest court to the grassroots(S.1, 14, and 18, CCL.)

The Customary Courts in the state handle not less than 70 percent of the cases adjudicated upon in the State. I am not quite exact as to the total number of Customary Court Chairmen bearing this burden but I suspect that the figure must be hovering above ninety and closer to one hundred. 

Beyond the fact that about 90 percent of the land cases are filed and tried by Customary Court Chairmen, they handle civil claims up to the sum of N5 million limit,(S. 14, 18) apart from small claim cases and limited criminal cases(S. 22, CCL) 

Notwithstanding this workload of the Customary Court Chairmen, nobody, seems to pay attention to them in any respect. If there is any reckoning from the public, it is mostly negative in nature. 

Sometimes, the ‘best’ we hear about the Chairmen is usually in terms of corruption. In fact, in most of such instances, there is the blanket allegation of corruption in their courts. 

Nobody, in the first instance, isolates the nefarious activities of those that are involved nor do we recognize the immense value and contribution of the Customary Court Chairmen to the administration of justice in the state. 

Just as I remarked in my last intervention in this column, I am harkening to escalate this issue of the Customary Court Chairmen to the public space. By this, I expect the Hon. Attorney General and, by extension, the Governor of the state, to pay due and special attention to this category of arbiters that are doing a yeoman’s job in the administration of justice in the state. Because Customary Court Chairmen are not reckoned with as judicial officers in the Constitution, their affairs are not governed by the activities of the National Judicial Council but by the State Judicial Service Commission, comfortably populated by appointees of the Governor. 

To this end, therefore, there is a limit to the intervention the commission can make on behalf of the Customary Court Chairmen. 

Regrettably, also, the Customary Court Chairmen are expected to be seen and not heard. They are not in a position to ventilate publicly their grievances except we lawyers do it or from concerned members of the society 

Although the Chairmen have their association, the impact of the union cannot be felt, as there is a red line they cannot cross. They continue to suffer in silence. 

My only prayer and hope is that their silence and loyalty to the system is not tested to the extent that the Customary Court Chairmen will throw caution to the wind and behave as the Magistrates of Cross River State, who engaged in a public protest, carrying of placards. This show of shame must not be allowed to happen in Akwa Ibom State before arresting the deplorable drift in the condition of service of the Customary Court Chairmen to the lowest ebb. 

It is in this connection that I choose to X-ray some of the challenges confronting this lower bench, which are gradually impairing the delivery capacity of the Customary Courts. 

Firstly, as stated earlier, because the Customary Court Chairmen are not recognized as judicial officers under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria(as amended), their interests are not catered for by the National Judicial Council. Since they are not judicial officers, what then is their status? Do we regard them as civil servants?

It may be argued that, since their emoluments are directly payable by the State, then they must be civil servants. The danger, however, in classifying them as such is that they would partake of all the features of civil servants as well as in their privileges.  

Then, our Chairmen, like civil servants, can join political parties and become politicians also, just like the civil servants. 

Our Chairmen would no longer have any restriction as to social interaction and can mingle with any class of people they deem fit. It further implies that they can no more be guided by the judicial code of conduct. 

It would also mean that the Chairmen can be transferred across sectors by the Head of the Civil Service as he deems fit, and no more by the Chief Judge. 

In fact, directives as to what manner of judgment to be delivered in cases can come from superiors in the civil service. All a Chairman then needs to prefix in his judgments is, ‘I am directed…’. Finish!  

The Chairman will then become subjected to the civil service rules. I can continue to replicate the hazards of this classification of Customary Court Chairmen as civil servants.  

I believe that it is the amorphous nature of the Customary Court Chairmen that is partly responsible for the continuous subjugation of the Customary Court Chairmen to hardship. 

As remarked above, while civil servants enjoy several privileges and packages as civil servants, Customary Court Chairmen cannot and do not partake of this. A recent example is the upliftment of Law Officers’ emoluments but none for the Customary Court Chairmen. 

Is it that the Customary Court Chairmen live on another planet and are undeserving of this entitlement? Who will bail them out? 

While I appreciate the State Government for struggling to provide motor vehicles for some magistrates, it is regrettable that none is provided for the Customary Court Chairmen as they are expected, out of the paltry sum they receive as salaries, to buy and  maintain a vehicle and equally fuel it.  

For the Customary Court Chairmen, vehicles are not luxury but necessities as they cannot be endangered in struggling with defendants in commercial buses, tricycle and motorcycles. This will constitute undue exposure. 

I recently saw one of the Chairmen in Uyo, struggling with passengers to board a commercial vehicle and if asked why? His response might simply be that he didn’t have enough money to repair his car or fuel it or doesn't even own a bicycle, hence his decision to manage the available sum as fare. 

An average Chairman earns less than N200,000 per month. Certainly, it is either we expect them to be homeless or at best live in areas that are not safe and habitable. The truth is that they are not likely to live within civilization. 

A decent two-bedroom apartment in a safe environment will command monthly rent of N400,000 at the barest minimum. What then remains of the emolument to feed or meet other logistics? Nothing! 

Notwithstanding the abandonment we have meted out to them, we complain of high level of corruption in the Customary Courts.

If anything, I would expect that the first class of people to be availed the contributory home ownership scheme would have been Chairmen, just like their superior counterparts at the High Court level. 

My Governor and the Judiciary, I believe this is a must, except we are equally ashamed and uncomfortable with the amount we are paying them, so as to meet the deposit. How much are we allocating to their courts for maintenance monthly? How much is allocated for stationery monthly? Do they have access to laptops, free printers and photocopiers? Without disclosure, I know that their allocation cannot buy a cartridge for a printer. 

These are working tools without which the Customary Court Chairmen cannot be efficient. I am also aware that some of the Customary Court Chairmen do not have court rooms, while others share court rooms. 

This inevitably is affecting the turnover of cases, yet we complain of delay in the administration of justice. How many functional libraries exist at their disposal? Scanty! The available ones require logistics to access. 

Again, there is no special provision for this and still must come from the meagre resources accruable to them-- may ask again: who will then save the Customary Court Chairmen? It may even affect their productivity in court including intellectual soundness. Some are even still shocked by the advent of S.26 and its attendant consequences of having the usual lawyer-courtroom intellectual fireworks. They need proper Welfare and retrainings.

The worst scenario in all these is that they are not accorded priority and primacy in the appointment process to the higher courts. 

In this regard, let me commend the present Chief Judge who seems to have done remarkably well in this respect by reconstituting the courts. This must be unceasing, however.  Let at least 50% percent of the appointments to the higher courts revolve round the lower Courts. 

The net effect of all the above is that there is a need to urgently accommodate Customary Court Chairmen as judicial officers by way of constitutional amendment; the alternative is to properly, through the Customary Court Law, create a clear cadre for them that will come with all material appendages attached to judicial officers. 

Having said this, may I, therefore, appeal to the Governor, Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary to urgently intervene in this sector so that our Customary Court Chairmen are not turned into what they ought not to be. The society daily condemns them without appreciating their travails. 

While not condoning corruption by giving excuse of frustration and temptation for the corruption of some few, I pray and urge that we do not continue to tempt them through poverty and castration. 

Without working tools, there is only so much they could do. I hope that the concerned stakeholders will urgently harken to this call

Customary Court Chairmen are not insulated from the environment and the society. They are products of the society that must be handled with care. They are in my view gradually becoming vulnerable and fragile. They require our collective protection. A state of excellence requires excellent and corruption-free Customary Court Chairmen.