Before the establishment of British judicial institutions in Nigeria, disputes were settled through the machinery of indigenous traditional tribunals. The character of these varied from one area of the country to another. In the Eastern part of the country, the machinery of justice was rudimentary and in no sense institutionalised. The strong tradition of chieftaincy which existed in the North and West enabled these areas to possess fairly well organised traditional tribunals. From 1898 the government of the Niger Coast Protectorate, in agreement with the local communities, began to create systematised native courts. These courts were purely administrative creations which were neither established nor controlled by statute. In 1900, the Grown took over from the Niger Company and by the Native Courts Proclamation established native courts on a statutory basis in the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The system of native courts created by this enactment was modified in subsequent years. In 1948 the Brooke Commission of Enquiry was appointed for the Northern, the Eastern, the Western Provinces and for the Colony to review the operation and jurisdiction of the native courts in the various parts of Nigeria. With the introduction of the federal system of government in Nigeria in 1954, the native courts became a residuary matter on which Regional Legislatures alone could legislate. In the subsequent statutes on this matter, the Eastern and Western Regions adopted the new title “customary court” while the Northern Region retained the old title of native court.

Custom is known as urf in Arabic. In Islam the sources of law are the Holy Koran, the Sunna, the ijma’a, the qiyas and possibly urf Customary law existed before the advent of the Condominium Rule in the Sudan. But the origins of the customs and their nature have not yet been studied seriously. According to section 9 of the Civil Justice Ordinance, 1929, the civil courts of the Sudan may have resort to customary law to reach a decision if there is no express enactment covering a certain situation by applying the formula of equity, justice and good conscience of section 9. Moreover, the law to be administered in personal matters in any suit or other proceeding in a civil court shall be any custom applicable to the parties concerned which is not contrary to justice, equity and good conscience, and has not been altered or abolished and has not been declared void by the decision of a competent court.

This paper has attempted to bring out the essentials of a larger study of Sudanese homicide. This is the first study of homicide and major crime in the Sudan which embraces the many diverse ethnic groups that constitute the Sudanese population. It is the first time that so many cases have been analysed for the purpose of disclosing sociological patterns of killing and violence in Sudanese society. Such studies are rare for African countries and practically non-existent for the Arab countries. The Sudan's unique position, straddling both the Arab and African worlds, make this study in part both a study of African homicide and of homicide in the Middle East.

L’évolution politique des Etats d’Afrique noire semble caractérisée par la succession de mouvements qui affectent, presque en même temps, la plupart d’entre eux. Au moment de leur accession à l’indépendance, les Etats d’Afrique noire adoptérent le modèle de la démocratie pluraliste. Les constitutions établissaient les conditions de la concurrence pacifique pour 1’exercice du pouvoir politique et l’existence de plusieurs partis permettait, apparemment, la mise en oeuvre des règies constitutionnelles. Les nouveaux Etats étaient généralement gouvernés par des hommes qui avaient mené leur peuple vers l’indépendance par l’action politique partisane et la négotiation avec la puissance coloniale. La plupart de ces gouvernants étaient des intellectuels ou des syndicalistes. A partir de 1963, un changement important se produit. La révolte de quelques sous-officiers togolais aboutit à l’assassinat du Président de la République. Ces militaires étaient mécontents mais ils n’aspiraient pas à la conquête du pouvoir. Depuis lors, les coups d’Etat organisés par des militaires se sont multipliés et dix sept pays sont actuellement dirigés par des gouvernements militaires ou issus d’un putsch militaire. Il ne parait pas excessif de parler de “l’Afrique des militaires” après “l’Afrique des instituteurs et des médecins”.

This case, as will be seen from the facts, was between the Itsekiri2 tribe sub-tribe in Warri Division of the Midwestern State of Nigeria, who were plaintiffs, and the defendants, a family from another tribe in Eastern Urhobo Division of the Midwestern State who had founded a home in Okere,3 Warri. It was about the “ownership” of a piece or parcel of land in Okere. The plaintiffs claimed, inter alia, a declaration that in accordance with Itsekiri customary law the piece or parcel of land in dispute at Okere, Warri, was the property of the Ogitsi Family of Okere subject only to the overlordship of the Olu (King) of Warri, now vested in and exercisable by Itsekiri Communal Lands Trustees by virtue of the Communal Land Rights (Vesting in Trustees) Law, 1958, and the Warri Division (Itsekiri Communal Lands) Trust Instrument, 1959.

The Mbeere of Central Kenya have recently been the focus of a programme of land adjudication and registration. Since the early 1960s when the Mbeere anticipated that they too would undergo the land reform process that had been applied elsewhere in Kenya, much of their attention has been riveted to the question of land tenure change. The new mode of holding land promises security of tenure through a registered title, significantly reduced land litigation, and rural development through agricultural loans for which titled land will stand as collateral. Ironically, the implementation of national land legislation has created great insecurity since it has set in motion an unprecedented amount of litigation.

During the academic year 1975–76 I carried out research in the Ghana National Archives to collect information on the history of the Hausaphone Muslim communities in the Gold Coast. In the course of it a number of documents came to light from the administrative files of the colonial period that showed how the Gold Coast Marriage of Mohammedans Ordinance had worked—or failed to work—and the kinds of problems it had given rise to in a typical Muslim Hausaphone zongo, that is Muslim quarter, of the southern Gold Coast.

The law relating to death duties for Swaziland is contained in the provisions of the Death Duties Proclamation of 1942 (now reproduced in the Revised Edition of the Laws as the Death Duties Act).

Some African countries are members of either the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention. Some belong to both. Membership of these conventions confers certain rights and obligations. One of the obligations is that local conditions must be favourable for the implementation of provisions of the international conventions. By this arrangement it is expected that national copyright laws must not be inconsistent with the international copyright conventions ot which the countries concerned are members.

The sole issue of importance in this case was the choice of law for determining entitlement to the estate. The most remarkable of the court's holdings is the proposition that Moslem law governs the estate of an intestate Moslem because it is the customary law to which he was subject. Before discussing this it is necessary to examine the line of reasoning by which it was reached.