SUMMONS AND VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION IN ARBITRATION PROCEEDINGS: A CONTEXTUAL OVERVIEW AT CUSTOMARY ARBITRATION

Abstract

One of the most fundamental elements of arbitration, whether native or orthodox, is voluntary submissionpursuant to mutual consent or arbitration agreement freely reached by the disputing parties. Where this basicelement is lacking, then the proceedings is anything but arbitration. Could this approximate to a tendency towardstechnicality? It is in this wise that the paper interrogates the contemporaneous use of the words ‘summons’ and‘voluntary submission’ and questions the compatibility approvingly accorded same in the vexed, or rathercelebrated case of Agu v Ikewibe (1991) 3 NWLR (pt.180) 385 against all known basic conceptions of arbitration.African societies have many modes of resolving disputes apart from arbitration. To extrapolate the flexibility ofnative adjudication procedures in the guise of arbitration will, with all due respect, result in crass miscarriage ofjustice. Accordingly, expressions such as ‘summons’, ‘commands’, ‘compulsion’, and the like, which are antitheticto voluntary submission cannot approximate to arbitration. The paper urges the apex court as the guardian ofNigerian jurisprudence to right the wrongs and set proper perspectives in this regard at the earliest opportunity.