Seite - 41 - in Austrian Law Journal, Band 1/2017

ALJ 1/2017 Non-State Law in Nigeria 41 the same to this day. Even though there were no established institutions to ensure compliance with the various customs, oral history and legends have it that the then peoples felt bound by them, as the sanctions for violation adequately served their purposes. When the British colonialists in pursuit of their economic expansionist ideology arrived in the area, one of the major challenges that confronted them was the variety of pre-existing ethnic groups and languages. Quite clearly, the enormous number of ethnic groups more or less corre- lated with the countless traditions, customs and the semblance of religions in the area. Even within an ethnic group, there were local variations of tradition and custom. And because each ethnic community was largely independent of the other, the uncompromising nature of their various oral rules of customs and traditions often resulted in conflicts. What fell within the con- fines of the oral rules in a particular community could be prohibited in another.1 For those in specialised fields other than law, history, sociology and anthropology and perhaps journalism (albeit minimally), the phrase “legal pluralism” may seem like a mere abstract notion that could be allowed to putrefy in the void of anachronism.2 Nevertheless, in this article, the author revisits this tripartite system like an archaeological discovery dug up for reasons of its indomitable character and contemporary effects on the Nigerian political landscape.3 And these reasons are best elucidated within the context of the array of non-state norms hitherto referred to as traditions and customs, which needed to be surmounted in some of the areas comprising evidently heterogeneous peoples since they were forcefully merged by the British to calve out a number of countries; one of which is known today as Nigeria. Because of the multiplicity of these pre-existing local independent customs, it became a major challenge to choose certain rules of some customs in preference to others. Therefore, for exigency purposes, it was decided that the English common law regime (which later became the substantive state law) be applied alongside these said local customs with their attendant complexity, thereby establishing a pluralistic state in the form of legal pluralism. In respect of the problem of applying native law in disputes between natives and non-natives of a particular community, Chigozie Nwagbara4 writes that to ascertain who was a native or non- native for the purpose of administering justice was cumbersome. She emphasises that because there were records of injustices in the native courts as a result, the colonial administrators decid- ed on bringing them (the native courts) within the ambit of statutes so as to ensure immense control. This approach could well be argued to have given credence to the onset of the culture of Western ethnocentrism and rein of hegemonic control in most parts of Africa. And in the same vein, to complement all of these, the introduction of English as the official language of communi- cation also became somewhat obligatory. 1 See generally Burabari Adule Nkor, The Validity of Customary Law as a Source of Nigerian Law, NIGERIAN LAW CLASS, July 26, 2014, https://nigerianlawclass.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/the-validity-of-customary-law-as-a-source-of-nigerian- law-by-burabari-adule-nkor/ (last visited Mar. 27, 2017). 2 See LAMBERT H.B. ASEMOTA, TROUBLES THAT OOZE OUT OF LEGAL PLURALISM: THE HUMAN RIGHTS VIEWPOINT, 25 (2015). 3 See id. 4 Chigozie Nwagbara, The Nature, Types and Jurisdiction of Customary Courts in The Nigeria Legal System, 25 JOURNAL OF LAW, POLICY AND GLOBALIZATION 1 (2014), http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JLPG/article/view/13175/13354 (last visited Mar. 27, 2017).