JURISPRUDENTIAL EXAMINATION OF THE CHALLENGES IN ASCERTAINING NIGERIAN CUSTOMARY LAW

Abstract

Customary law has always been relevant to the lives of theNigerians, particularly in matters of marriage, land holding,chieftaincy, inheritance and succession. Nigerian customarylaw is diverse and essentially unwritten in nature. Thesubstance of the law are in the memory of the people who thelaw applies to. This makes precision and clarity which areassociated with various codes in Western jurisprudence arelacking in African customary law and this has always been achallenge in judicial administration as the contents of thelaw are proved like a matter of facts. The aim of thisresearch is to examine the judicial implication of having thesubstance of the law in loose form. The objective of the studywas to examine the implication of the unwritten nature ofcustomary law in judicial functioning of the courts. Thestudy adopted doctrinal methodology of research and placedreliance on primary and secondary information. The primarysources include official documents. Similarly, secondarysources like textbooks, journals and internet materials wereput to use. The findings of the study were that there is nouniform standard in the judicial application of Nigeriancustomary law because of the fluid nature of the law and thestudy concluded that there is the need to document theapplicable laws to allow certainty in the law to assist thecourts in their judicial functioning. The study recommendedthat efforts should be spared by the various levels ofgovernment in Nigeria to accomplish this project as this willhelp in the judicial application of Nigerian customary laws.