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Native Courts Of Northern Nigeria: Techniques For Institutional Development, David Nathan Smith

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

One of the first acts of Nigeria's new military Government followingthe coup d'etat that disposed of the previous Government on January 15,1966, was to announce that its ultimate goal with regard to judicial reformis to integrate the locally administered native courts into theRegional Governmental court structure. As a first step, the more than750 native courts of Northern Nigeria,' previously supervised by theMinistry of Justice, were placed under the supervision of the politicallyindependent Judicial Department. More recently, the native courts havebeen made independent of the native authorities, the local governmentunits, and the judicial powers of the Emirs' courts have been withdrawn.