New Poets of West Africa

This study deals with the laws and practices which have governed the Customary Courts in Nigeria from the pre-colonial to the present period. It analyses the nature of customary law, the constitution and jurisdiction of the Customary Courts, the role of traditional rulers in such courts and the law administered in them. It outlines criminal and civil procedures of the Customary Court; discusses the question of legal representation; and the future and possible abolition of the Customary Courts in the context of Nigeria's problematic dual legal system.