Legitimacy constitutes an important aspect of Nigerian law. It has the strongest link with the allied question of succession. Most disputes as to legitimacy arise in relation to the right to succeed to property either testate or intestate. Consequently, although this paper does not deal with the detailed rules of succession we shall make several references to those rules.

This article attempts to reflect upon the present state of indigenous customary law in South Africa, more particularly as codified in Natal, and to assess the suitability of the system today, as well as its place in the South African legal order. Verloren van Themaat has argued for the retention of indigenous law as follows:

In East Africa the traditional division of “native justice” on the one side and “English law” on the other is gradually disappearing. Within the foreseeable future it is possible to visualize a single system of law administered by one judiciary. The fusion of customary law and modified English law has been, or is being, achieved with a remarkable lack of friction. Generally speaking, however, customary law has had to make greater sacrifices in achieving the fusion than its more powerful brother, the common and statutory law of the three states. The latter has made a few minor concessions; for example, when customary criminal law disappeared in Uganda in 1964, the Penal Code was amended to admit adultery as a statutory offence. Adultery had been an offence among all the different tribes in Uganda. But it is usually customary law which has had to change to achieve a single system of law.

Section 54 of Ghana's Criminal Procedure Code, 1960 (Act 30), gives the Attorney-General discretion to enter a nolle prosequi in the course of a criminal trial. According to the orthodox view, this discretionary power is not subject to judicial review. The orthodox view raises a number of very important questions. First, is it really the case that the power to enter a nolle prosequi is not subject to judicial review? Secondly, if this is the case, how is the Attorney-General accountable for the manner in which he exercises his discretion and how is it possible to ensure that he acts fairly when he enters a nolle prosequi? This article challenges the orthodox theory and advocates a theory based on legal accountability. The proposed theory is founded on the view that accountability and fairness—which are central constituents of good governance—will be enhanced if the discretion to enter a nolle prosequi is subject to legal control. The paper goes on to show that the legal accountability theory is supported by article 296 of the 1992 Ghanaian Constitution and that it also conforms to practices found in other Commonwealth jurisdictions such as England, Canada, Fiji and Australia.

In studying economic co-operation in Africa, it might be useful to start with an investigation of the special characteristics of African international organizations, and the effect of these characteristics on the modalities of African economic co-operation.

Any comparative study of African international organizations has to take into account the bewildering variety of these organizations, and the difficulty of classifying them in a meaningful fashion. There are many factors which need to be considered, as well as the fact that most organizations belong at the same time to various categories. When one tries to evaluate the respective merits of various organizations, one finds quickly that it is really not a particular feature of an organization that matters, but that an organization's performance depends, to an important extent, on the special mixture of various characteristics, which is peculiar to that organization.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) was established in 1958 by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations ECOSOC) by virtue of its powers contained in Article 68 of the United Nations Charter and in pursuance of resolution 1155(XII) adopted on November 26th, 1957 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. In exercise of its power aforesaid, the ECOSOC by its resolution 671A(XXV) of April 29th, 1958, not only established the ECA but also prescribed the legal framework in relation to the functions, membership, etc. of the ECA. The geographical scope of the work of the ECA is the whole continent of Africa, Madagascar and other African islands. This legal framework, which is referred to in resolution 671A(XXV) above as “the Terms of Reference of the Economic Commission for Africa”, provides that the ECA shall be subject to the general supervision of the ECOSOC in the performance of its functions which shall be within the framework of the United Nations, and that the ECA shall take no action with respect to any country without the agreement of that country. In particular, the functions of the ECA are to initiate and participate in measures for facilitating concerted action for the economic and social development of Africa with a view to raising the level of economic activity and levels of living in Africa, and for maintaining and strengthening the economic relations of the countries and territories of Africa both among themselves and with other countries of the world.

An insistent demand from developing countries for capital to finance their economic growth has characterized the second half of this century. The transfer of resources from industrialized countries has, however, encountered difficulties, on the one hand, because of growing economic nationalism which has limited the scope for direct investment and, on the other hand, because of the emergence of excessive debt service burdens in developing countries. As a result, a variety of ways of transferring resources, which would be acceptable to donor countries as well as to the recipients, have had to be explored. One of the means to which the European Economic Community has resorted is the extension of the functions of the European Investment Bank, working in conjunction with the Economic Development Fund, to provide financial assistance outside the territorial limits of the European Community under a series of agreements including successive agreements with the Associated African and Malagasy States.

The Ugandan Supreme Court's decision in Attorney General v Susan Kigula & 417 Others ended a ten year constitutional challenge against capital punishment. The attorney general was appealing the Constitutional Court's declarations that a mandatory death penalty and a delay on death row of more than three years violate Uganda's Constitution. The respondents cross-appealed the Constitutional Court's declarations that the death penalty is constitutional and that hanging is an appropriate and therefore constitutional method of execution. The Supreme Court dismissed both the appeals and cross-appeals. This article summarises the Supreme Court's findings and analyses the court's reasoning. It demonstrates that, while the court's reasoning is generally in line with the interpretations offered by international courts and human rights bodies, the court arguably missed an opportunity to take a bolder approach regarding the relationship between the death penalty and the prohibition on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, particularly in light of recent international trends.

Since Nigeria's return to democratic governance in 1999, violent conflicts around identities including religion, ethnicity, indigene / settler differentiation and resource control remain a challenge to peace. Thus far, government responses lack a normative framework to motivate consistent intervention and foster peace. While Nigeria's 1999 Constitution identifies peace as a common aspiration, there is a lack of a non-adversarial institutional mechanism to address violent conflicts related to identity. Despite its limited relevance, the visible institution for conflict management is the court. This article argues for the need to establish a panel of the wise, a conflict and peace intervention mechanism, as an “essential” element of the Nigerian Constitution. It then explores key considerations regarding the proposed panel, in terms of its composition, functions and legal status to intervene in the management of violent conflicts associated with identity and fostering peace in Nigeria.

Competition laws and policies play an important role in developing countries. More than 130 countries have adopted either a competition law or a similar framework of anti-monopoly laws that aims to improve social welfare. Most African countries have already started developing their competition regimes, and regional trade organizations in Africa have provided competition sections in their free trade agreements to enhance enforcement cooperation. For fledgling competition regimes in Africa, the improvement of effective public enforcement and competition law culture has become an essential driver of competition law development. In particular, Egypt has demonstrated its efforts towards the modernization of competition law and the enhancement of fair and free competition, which is an example of the development of the competition regime in a developing African country. This article discusses the development of the Egyptian competition regime from a comparative perspective and suggests proposals for its further modernization.

The common law doctrine of uberrimae fidei is pivotal to all contracts of insurance. It imposes a duty on the parties to act towards each other with utmost good faith by disclosing all material facts and not misrepresenting any fact, either before the contract is formed or while the contract subsists. This article examines the doctrine and its statutory reforms in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. It argues that, before the statutory interventions, the iniquitous doctrine was a potent weapon, most often used by insurers to defeat just and legitimate claims by an insured. Although the legislation has brought some measure of relief to the insured in these jurisdictions, the article concludes that there are still some grey areas in the Nigerian law that need to be addressed to further the cause of justice between the contracting parties.

Land plays a very important role in the lives of many people in most developing countries, and particularly in Africa, where subsistence agriculture is still widely practised. Accordingly, the nature of land administration can either influence or impede development. Land administration in many African countries, since independence, has been carried out through a policy of over-centralization. This has often resulted in administrative and bureaucratic bottlenecks which have hampered the effective distribution and utilization of land resources. Botswana, on the other hand, has avoided this common pitfall. Its system of land administration has been based on a policy of decentralization. One such area is in the field of tribal lands administered under the Tribal Land Act, which is the subject of discussion in this paper.

The importance of agriculture especially in a developing country cannot be over-emphasised. It had been the mainstay of the Nigerian economy since the colonial period. Apart from subsistence farming which catered for the food needs of the local population, Nigeria had exported cash crops in the past.

Unfortunately, the blessings of the oil boom have diverted our attention from agriculture in the past decade with the consequent neglect of it. But the dwindling fortunes of oil appear to have induced us to switch our attention once again to agriculture.

To this end, some practical steps have been taken by Government to encourage investment in agriculture. These include subsidising fertilisers and seeds for farmers, the establishment of various Agricultural Development Projects, the Communal Farm Programmes and the establishment of various River Basins Development Authorities. Other recent measures include tax relief for agro-allied projects; tax holidays for investors in combined agricultural productions and processing; capital allowances for capital expenditure on plant and equipment for, and equipment leasing to, agriculture; removal of import duties on tractors and other agricultural machinery and equipment and increased foreign equity participation within the framework of the Enterprises Promotion Decree.

Many jurisdictions internationally have adopted some form of solvency-based threshold to protect creditors from opportunistic or abusive distributions being paid from corporate capital. When a legislative “test” for distributions involves an enquiry that is too heavily based on a company's balance sheet, and thus on the integrity of the financial reporting standards underpinning its preparation, the utility of such thresholds becomes questionable on a similar basis to that on which the effectiveness of the capital maintenance doctrine has been challenged. Even the addition of a “liquidity” threshold that shifts the emphasis away from a company's balance sheet appears to presume that a corporation's financial health can be accurately determined from its financial statements. This article explores the difficulties involved in so-called “solvency-based” thresholds for distributions and considers other sources of creditor protection that may be more reliable.

Since 1979, there have been significant changes in the law relating to citizenship in Nigeria. These changes came with the enactment in that year of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979. The citizenship provisions of the 1979 Constitution have been slightly modified and reenacted in the 1989 Constitution which will come into effect on October 1, 1992. In this article, we shall examine the current Nigerian law on citizenship as ordained by the 1979 Constitution as well as the changes introduced by the 1989 Constitution. This will be done against the background of the historical development of citizenship laws in the country prior to, and since independence on October 1, 1960.