“Many Frivolous Appeals At Appellate Courts Stem From Lawyers Seeking SAN Rank” — Akaraiwe SAN Advocates Two-Stream Reform To Boost Pro Bono Work

*Says “Courts Were Not Built For Lawyers, They Were Built For Citizens To Get Justice”

Ikeazor Ajovi Akaraiwe, SAN, decried the “tenacious clogs” impeding Nigeria’s justice system in a poignant keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 2025 Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Umuahia Branch, urging a collective moral and institutional overhaul to restore its wheels to free motion.

Delivered on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, under the theme “Tenacious Clogs in the Wheels of Justice Delivery in Nigeria,” Akaraiwe’s speech painted a sobering picture of deep-seated obstacles that have normalized delays, eroded trust, and hindered prosperity. “These clogs are not new; they are old, deep-seated, and institutional. They persist because they have been tolerated, even normalized,” he stated, emphasizing that “justice is the very soul of civilisation, and the rule of law, the fulcrum thereof. Without it, there can be no peace, no order, no prosperity.”

Akaraiwe began by applauding the NBA Umuahia Branch for the theme’s linguistic ingenuity, swapping “cog,” a small but necessary part in progress, for “clog,” an “obstacle, a hindrance, a weight that impedes motion.” He defined “justice delivery” as encompassing “the entire dispute resolution and rights enforcement mechanism within the judicial architecture,” from filing to execution, ensuring it is “not merely done but seen to be done.”

Highlighting the first clog as constitutional, Akaraiwe zeroed in on the inoperativeness of the Second Alteration Act 2010, which substituted Section 233 of the 1999 Constitution. “The new Section 233 only provided for appeals to the Supreme Court of Nigeria as of right,” he explained, noting that appeals requiring leave, such as those on facts or mixed law and fact, are now “dead on arrival” as the court lacks power to grant them. He lamented the Act’s breach, citing circulating Constitution copies that ignore the amendment as “quite frankly, scandalous,” and urged the Supreme Court to enforce it to alleviate its “sheer volume of appeals.” Drawing from personal experience, he recalled an appeal lasting from 2008 to 2020, warning that without reform, “appeals are known to last 10-12 years at the Nigerian Supreme Court.”

The second clog, inadequate infrastructure and manpower, drew stark international contrast. Akaraiwe recounted a 2010 visit to Vancouver, Canada, a city of three million, where he toured a complex with 60 high courts on one side of a road and a similar number of magistrates’ courts opposite, handling just one case that day. “If a single city in Canada can sustain sixty courts, what justification is there for a state like Abia to contend with a fraction of that capacity?” he asked, proposing Abia have “no fewer than one hundred (100) High Courts” to relieve judges’ burdens. He criticized Nigeria’s 1,500 courtrooms for 200 million people, leading to “weary judges, frustrated litigants, and delayed justice,” and called for digitization, research assistants, and tackling the “adjournment culture” through equipping, not scolding. “When one judge handles the workload meant for ten, both quality and speed suffer,” he asserted.

On remuneration and integrity, the third clog, Akaraiwe decried lawyers dragging cases for “appearance fees,” eroding dignity. He praised the NBA’s 2023 Remuneration Order as a “landmark step” but stressed enforcement via the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), warning, “When lawyers are decently compensated, they are better positioned to act with dignity and independence. But when we allow ourselves to be treated cheaply, we make the law cheap, and by extension, justice itself.”

The fourth clog targeted bench appointments, advocating peer review affidavits from seniors and transparency in publishing nominees, akin to SAN processes. “If we desire a high-quality Bench, we must draw from the deepest wells of competence, character, and courage,” he said.

Weak judicial independence, the fifth clog, stems from funding reliance on executives, breaching Sections 81(3) and 121(3) of the Constitution. Enforcement failures, the sixth clog, render judgments “hollow,” with agencies defying orders, as in cases of El-Zak Zaky and Col. Sambo Dasuki. Access barriers, the seventh clog, including high fees, transport, and delays, exclude the poor, demanding stronger Legal Aid and NBA pro bono schemes. “A justice system that excludes the poor cannot claim to be just,” he said.

Akaraiwe’s boldest critique, the eighth clog, blamed the SAN quest for frivolous appeals flooding courts. “It is an open secret that many frivolous appeals at the appellate courts emanate from lawyers seeking to qualify for the rank,” he revealed, proposing reforms: adapting WAEC subject classifications to require broad expertise, for example one judgment each from four categories like criminal, commercial, land, and election matters, and creating a second SAN stream, 100 high court judgments plus one each at appeal and apex levels within 10 years, to curb adjournments and boost pro bono work.

For renewal, Akaraiwe prescribed institutional fixes like more courtrooms and technology, professional rebuilding through mentoring and ethics, and ethical imperatives, proposing professional ethics as a mandatory, repeated university course. “Justice is not a trade; it is a trust,” he intoned, quoting Micah 6:8 and Isaiah 1:17.

In conclusion, he invoked legal icons like Gani Fawehinmi, Chief Rotimi Williams, Femi Falana, and others as exemplars, calling Bench and Bar to action. “The courts were not built for lawyers. The courts were built for the citizen to come get justice. We must not stand as clogs on the path of justice.” Echoing Abraham Lincoln, he prayed, “May God give us the might to do the right.”

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