By
Chidi Odinkalu
Nigeria’s Supreme Court held a special session on 27 November 2023 to formally usher in a new legal year. It provides an occasion for a retrospective on the performance of Nigeria’s judiciary by its leaders in a season of unprecedented levels of public angst over the political weaponisation of judges and a set piece moment to compare notes on the dysfunctions that afflict the judicial system. The outcome was interesting to the point of anti-climactic.
On that occasion, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, also administered the oath on 57 new entrants into the coven of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN). One of the new SANs was born in 1981. Two years later, in 1983, his dad, a lawyer, began proceedings against Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Ltd, a multinational company in the hydrocarbons sector, in Warri. At the time, Warri was part of Bendel State, which was created by the military a mere seven years earlier in 1976.
