CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Research
Disputes are generally inevitable resulting from human interactions. They may be family disputes, land related disputes or disputes resulting from commercial transactions. Whenever dispute arises between two persons or more, there may be need for a neutral party, independent or non interested person as the case may be to intervene between the disputants with a view to solving the misunderstanding or dispute. This ensures peace, harmony, order, security and overall development of the society. However, if dispute arises and effort is not made to resolve it, it can lead to break down of law and order in the society.1
The advent of colonialism in Nigeria did not merely distort the culture of Nigerians, but brought with it many long lasting effects on the people. One area in which this distortion is most noticeable is in the area of administration of justice, particularly in the methods or mechanisms for dispute resolution.2
In the process of litigation, parties incur a lot of costs in the form of filing fees, professional fees of their lawyers and other incidental expenses. As human activities and interactions increased, people became more aware of their rights and also desirous of protecting those rights. All these had an impact on litigation. Therefore, the courts became congested and the process, slower.
Despite the rise in the inherited colonial modes of justice and dispute resolution in Nigeria, indigenous or traditional modes of dispute resolution persist.3
The practice of arbitration has always been a more economical and friendly method of resolving disputes both in traditional and modern settings. Dispute settlement through the process of arbitration had been with various indigenous communities in Nigeria before the advent and introduction of English Legal System of court litigation or what we call adversarial process. The various indigenous methods of resolving disputes include but not limited to negotiation, mediation and intervention by heads of clans or family heads and
indeed arbitration.4
Arbitration has been used successfully over the years to achieve amicable resolution of disputes without recourse to the tedious process of litigation. However, inspite of its tremendous achievements, arbitration is faced with some challenges. These include the attitude of Nigerian courts towards enforcement of customary arbitral awards, high level of illiteracy of the customary arbitrators, highly formalized and legalistic nature of modern arbitration etc.