A retired Justice of the Supreme Court has told a room full of senior lawyers and judges that corruption is turning Nigeria’s courts into markets.
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Hon. Justice Amina Adamu Augie was delivering the public lecture at the 40th anniversary of the Nigerian Law School Class of 1986, a class she taught before her own judicial career, on the subject “The Rule of Law and Justice Delivery: The Last 40 Years, Today and Tomorrow. Whither Nigeria?”
She named corruption, political interference, inadequate funding and delay as the major obstacles confronting the judiciary, and refused to soften the first of them.
“The third, which I will not dress up, is corruption. Where it exists on the Bench, at the Bar, or in the Registry, it poisons everything by turning the one place that a citizen should find impartiality into one more market stall.”
She cautioned against painting the whole judiciary with that brush, saying most judges and lawyers are honest, hardworking and underpaid, and that the system must be structured to protect the integrity of its officers rather than to expose them to temptation.
She said the unethical conduct of some senior members of the profession had done serious damage to public trust in the administration of justice.
“Have we kept faith with them? In part, YES, in part, NO. Public trust has paid the price. The public today is quick to believe the worst of lawyers, and sorry to say, not always without cause.”
“When a few senior members of the profession have been found to traffic in the corruption of justice, the damage is not to them alone; it stains the gown we all wear.”
And she said the remedy is not presentational.
“Restoring that trust is not a matter of better public relations. It is a matter of conduct and a profession willing to discipline its own, without fear or favor, no matter how senior the offender may be in the legal profession.”
She reminded the lawyers in the room that their primary responsibility is to the court and to the administration of justice rather than to their clients, that professional ethics require honesty, candour and respect for the rule of law, and that lawyers must resist the temptation to manipulate judicial processes, fabricate evidence or procure favourable judgments by improper means.
She identified inadequate funding as a direct threat to judicial independence, and gave the argument a formulation that shifts its centre of gravity.
“A Judiciary that must beg the executive for a Courtroom roof, vehicles, or even the Judges’ entitlements is not fully free; financial autonomy for the Courts is not a perk for Justices and Judges, but a guarantee for litigants.”
She described delay as the chronic disease of Nigeria’s justice system, and lamented the cost of litigation.
Drawing on her years on the Supreme Court, she said the apex court is overwhelmed by appeals, including matters that should never reach it. She recalled an appeal concerning the burning of twelve goats, which had come before the Supreme Court notwithstanding its workload.
Constitutional amendments, she said, are necessary to restrict the categories of appeal that may reach the apex court, so that its Justices can concentrate on matters of greater legal and national significance.
She criticised the persistent disobedience of court orders by government authorities, citing the prolonged detentions of the former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki and the Islamic Movement leader Ibrahim El-Zakzaky despite judicial orders for their release.
Such conduct, she said, weakens the authority of the courts and teaches citizens to regard the law as optional.
Reflecting on four decades, she acknowledged the progress made since the return to democratic rule in 1999, but said she was disappointed that justice remains slow, expensive and out of reach for many citizens.
She noted that Nigeria ranked 120th out of 143 countries in the 2025 World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, calling it an uncomfortable reflection of the country’s institutional weaknesses.
She called for reforms to strengthen judicial independence, expand access to justice, improve case management and restore ethical standards in the profession, and urged her former students, many of whom now hold senior positions on the Bench and at the Bar, to use their influence to defend the rule of law.
“If Governments obey the Courts, if its Judgments are enforced, if justice comes within a reasonable time and within reach of the poor, if the profession upholds its integrity and disciplines its own”, then Nigeria, she said, would be better positioned to secure its future.
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