Former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has criticized Nigeria’s judiciary for focusing too much on technicalities instead of real justice.
Speaking in Ilorin, Kwara State, at the second Prof. Yusuf Ali Annual Lecture organized by Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, Osinbajo said the country needs a total reform of its legal and judicial systems.
He explained that the main goal of any justice system should be to serve the people, not to glorify legal formalities.
According to him, many court rulings, including some from the Supreme Court, focus more on procedure than fairness.
“Even English courts, which our system is based on, have moved past rigid technicalities. They now allow corrections at any stage to ensure justice,” Osinbajo said.
He added that Nigeria’s continued use of outdated legal practices damages public trust in the judiciary.
“Inconsistency in the Supreme Court’s decisions, especially outside electoral cases, remains a serious issue,” he said. “A justice system that values form over substance will eventually lose its purpose.”
Guest lecturer Prof. Chidi Odinkalu (SAN) also spoke, urging lawyers and law students to challenge the colonial roots still influencing Nigeria’s legal system.
His lecture, titled “Towards Decolonising Legal Briefs: Effective Implementation of the Local Content Law for the Benefit of Nigerian Lawyers,” called for true independence in how Nigeria thinks and practices law.
Odinkalu noted that while Nigeria is politically independent, its legal system still depends heavily on colonial structures.
He said reforming the judiciary is essential for building a truly independent nation.
KWASU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Jimoh Shaykh-Luqman, thanked all who contributed to the development of the university’s Faculty of Law.
He announced that several new facilities including a departmental building, a 500-seat auditorium, and two 250-seat lecture theatres would be completed by December.
Prof. Yusuf Ali, after whom the lecture was named, said every nation needs a unifying goal, which Nigeria currently lacks.
He observed that Nigerians only seem united during football matches, and that sense of togetherness quickly disappears.
He urged citizens to face the country’s ongoing problems and work together to fix them, instead of just looking back nostalgically at the past.