Nigeria cannot build stability on a justice system that works only for the few. Economic development cannot flourish where everyday disputes are unresolved. Security cannot be sustained where grievances fester unanswered… A justice system that starts with the people’s lived realities is an indispensable infrastructure of a stable and prosperous Nigeria.
For decades, our national conversation about justice has been stubbornly state-centric. We debate the independence of the bench, the number of new courts built, and the process of appointing senior advocates amongst other institutional issues. These issues matter. But they also mask a deeper and more troubling reality: for millions of Nigerians, the justice system is not a source of protection or opportunity. It is distant, slow, expensive, and intimidating. In practice, it often feels like a system designed without the people it was meant to serve.
If Nigeria is to achieve its ambition of stability, shared prosperity, and economic leadership, this must change. Justice can no longer be designed solely from the perspective of institutions. Reimagining it from the standpoint of the people is essential. This shift from inward-looking justice to People-Centred Justice (PCJ) is not cosmetic reform. It is fundamental to Nigeria’s future.
What People-Centred Justice Really Means
People-Centred Justice starts with a simple idea: justice should be judged by how well it solves the real problems that people face in their daily lives. It asks a different question from the one we are used to. Not, “How efficient are our courts?” but rather, “What justice problems do Nigerians actually experience, and how can those problems be prevented or resolved fairly and quickly?”
For a trader in Onitsha, justice is not a decade-long appeal process; it is recovering payment for goods supplied in good time. For a farmer in Katsina, justice is the timely resolution of a land dispute before it escalates into violence. PCJ measures success by outcomes that people can feel. Outcomes like security, fairness, and closure. It is not focused solely on procedural elegance but rather on timely results.
In this sense, People-Centred Justice is the justice system seeing itself through the eyes of the people it exists to serve.
People-Centred Justice helps to rebuild the social contract between the state/government, and the people rebuild the social contract. When citizens see the law protecting them from unlawful eviction, arbitrary detention, or abuse by those in authority, they begin to believe that the state recognises their dignity. Trust is restored.
Justice as an Engine of Economic Development
No economy can thrive where everyday disputes are costly, unpredictable, or unresolved. In Nigeria, the absence of accessible justice quietly taxes productivity and innovation.
Small and medium-sized enterprises, the backbone of our economy, are especially vulnerable. One unpaid invoice, one unresolved contract dispute, can wipe out years of effort. When justice is slow or unaffordable, risk becomes paralysing. People-Centred Justice lowers the real cost of doing business by providing fast, affordable mechanisms, small claims processes, mediation, community-based resolution that allow entrepreneurs to survive, grow, and create jobs.
The same applies to property rights. For most Nigerians, land is their most valuable asset. Yet weak, inaccessible justice turns this asset into “dead capital”. It becomes something owned, but unusable. When justice systems focus on people’s realities (clear land records, trusted dispute resolution, enforceable decisions), land becomes bankable, investable, and productive. Economic growth follows.
The Missing Link in Social Stability
A society where justice is perceived as something “arranged” for the powerful is a society living on borrowed time. Inequality before the law corrodes trust faster than almost any other failure of governance.
People-Centred Justice helps to rebuild the social contract between the state/government, and the people rebuild the social contract. When citizens see the law protecting them from unlawful eviction, arbitrary detention, or abuse by those in authority, they begin to believe that the state recognises their dignity. Trust is restored.
Justice and National Security: An Overlooked Connection
Nigeria’s security challenges are often framed as military problems. But many of them originate elsewhere in unresolved disputes, unaddressed grievances, and the quiet absence of justice.
Communal clashes, banditry, and cycles of reprisal frequently begin as civil disagreements over land, resources, or local power. Where there is no trusted, accessible system to listen and resolve these disputes fairly, people resort to self-help and violence.
Embracing People-Centred Justice is about strengthening institutions and making the justice pathways effective. It is about aligning them with Nigeria’s economic, social, and security realities. This requires deliberate choices.
In conflict-affected areas, a visible, responsive justice system is one of the most powerful tools against radicalisation. It signals to communities that grievances can be heard and addressed through law, not force. In this sense, People-Centred Justice is a smart security strategy.
Moving from Abstraction to Action
Embracing People-Centred Justice is about strengthening institutions and making the justice pathways effective. It is about aligning them with Nigeria’s economic, social, and security realities. This requires deliberate choices.
We must invest in community-based justice providers, mediators, paralegals, religious and traditional rulers, community institutions who are trusted locally and speak the language of the people. We must harness simple digital tools that allow citizens to access information, track cases, and seek help without navigating a maze of bureaucracy. And we must use data from real evidence of people’s justice needs to guide policy and spending, rather than assumptions made from the comfort of distant institutions.
Nigeria cannot build stability on a justice system that works only for the few. Economic development cannot flourish where everyday disputes are unresolved. Security cannot be sustained where grievances fester unanswered.
A justice system that starts with the people’s lived realities is an indispensable infrastructure of a stable and prosperous Nigeria.
Ijeoma Nwafor is the country representative in Nigeria for The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), while Kemi Okenyodo is the executive director, Partners West Africa Nigeria (PWAN), and Foluso Idumu is the director of Justice Research Institute Gte (JRI).
