By
Akinyode P.O; Alade K. O; Aremu O. M; Chukwuma C.B; Odeyemi O. B and Phillip H. I.
Abstract
Prior to the colonization of Nigeria, customary arbitration had always been the accepted means of dispute resolution. This changed drastically with the establishment of the court system by the colonial masters. Today, there are two types of arbitration in Nigeria: customary and modern arbitration – assimilated from British arbitration law, which is the main focus of this paper. The latter, as one of the legally backed mechanisms of Alternative Dispute Resolution in Nigeria is governed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act (ACA) While modern arbitration has evolved to become popular among the major cities in the country, it has not gained notoriety among the people settled in rural communities. Flowing from this background, this paper examines arbitration as a means of greater access to justice, discusses the need to take modern arbitration to the rural grassroots, and most importantly, the approaches needed to take arbitration to the rural communities for easy, fast, and less expensive settlement of disputes (as opposed to litigation, which is time-consuming, costly, and rigorous). Constraints hindering the growth of arbitration in Nigeria and the new trends in the dispute resolution mechanism are also assessed in the study. Given that Nigerian courts continue to buckle under the weight of long-winding, ever-increasing piles of cases, broader acceptance and adoption of arbitration is arguably the best solution to the lingering problem.
Keywords: Arbitration, Justice, Grassroots
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