DIARY OF DML (EPISODE 7) - MEDIATION IS INEVITABLE

Flowing from what I was saying last week (please do take a look at the post later, if you're just joining this series), there are a lot of courses some students are taking now that by the time they graduate, it would have become obsolete. 

So you can imagine spending 4/5 years in the university and graduating as an "Illiterate" ...scary right? Human capacity is gradually being replaced with computers.Everything is becoming automated. There is a heavy reliance on technology in everything that we do, from Uber to Air B n B, you name it. 

We now have so many means of social media interaction - Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Tinder .....you name it. It's almost becoming a paperless economy. The future is no longer tomorrow. THE FUTURE IS NOW!!. The new definition of Education is no longer your ability to read and write but the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. The ability to have an open mind and be self aware. 

And somehow in the scheme of things with specific reference to the way and manner we do business, commercial activities have tripled in volumes especially in Lagos. The ricochet effect of this is that the courts have too many cases than they can handle with most of them not being cases that should even be in court in the first place. 

Permit me to shed more light on this at the risk of sounding "legalistic"( Please stay with me). The first point for deliberation is the delay in the court system. I would rather call it congestion but some of these congestions are avoidable. The reason for the congestion starting from the Supreme Court is not far-fetched. Allow me to take you back in history to when the Supreme Court was set up  by the Supreme Act of 1960. As at then we had no Court of Appeal in Nigeria. Later on, we had the Western Nigeria Court of Appeal. Thus the Supreme Court was directly fed by the High Courts and then we did not have up to 20 High Courts in the Federation. Today we have more than 30 High Courts in Lagos alone excluding other courts in Nigeria as a whole. That’s not even mentioning the Federal High Courts. There are  sixteen divisions of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Sokoto, Yola, Jos, Makurdi, Enugu, Calabar, Owerri, Port-harcourt, Benin, Akure, Ilorin, Ekiti and Ibadan All these courts deliver judgements in hordes and 90% of them go to the Supreme Court. It is evident that this single Supreme Court can no longer withstand the avalanche of judgments that come from these various cadres of courts. It is to be noted that as I speak, only appeals filed before 2006 are being attended to and routinely given dates. Any appeal filed after that can only be heard by a special dispensation. 

So what this transcends to is that you cannot with certainty say that when an action is brought in court, it can be concluded within a year and this is not putting into consideration that the judgment may be appealed. The enforcement of the judgment is story for another day. 

To further lend credence to my assertion, I would be using an analogy premised on the travails of Madam Kofo who is into the sale of human hair. She is facing countless issues with her suppliers who have refused to keep to the terms of the agreement she has with them. She is also having issues with clients she has supplied goods to and have refused to pay. She is torn between the devil and the deep red sea. If she decides to sue her suppliers , she stands the risk of not getting regular supplies and this would affect her business. On the part of her clients, any attempt to sue them would not only severe the relationship but the chances of an early recovery of the  indebtedness even though visible may take a while. This analogy as simplistic as it is is the story of the average entrepreneur doing business in this country. Nothing seems to be working. It is indeed very tough running a business in the country talk less of staying afloat which is why every kobo counts. The last thing any S.M.E (Small and Medium Scale Enterprise) needs is to have funds tied down.

I am going to use Lagos as a case study. You have to agree with me that Lagos is the commercial capital of Nigeria. As a result of the commercial activities going on, it is expected that conflicts would arise and there is so much the courts can take.

The "long and short" of my beautiful nonsense as far as Mediation is concerned is this. Mediation can never supplant litigation as there would always be cases that Mediation cannot resolve i.e Murder, Rape, Kidnapping etc . However most cases that surround businesses and commercial activities should first of all be mediated and if it fails parties can then choose to either adopt the traditional means of dispute resolution which is litigation or the alternative form of dispute resolution.