Review of the impacts of poverty on access to justice in Nigeria

Abstract

Over the years, successive Nigerian constitutions have guaranteed the citizens right of access to justice. Access to justice when viewed literally is an opportunity an individual has to approach the court of law to ventilate his grievances against an individual or government. Generically, access to justice means more than merely accessing the court of law but include equal opportunity that citizens have to access political order and available resource in a given society. In Nigeria, despite the constitutional provision for citizens to access justice, so many factors work against realization of same. Among the factors is poverty. The objective of this paper is to review the impacts of poverty on access to justice in Nigeria. The paper was commenced by reviewing the relevant provisions of law that provide for access to justice in Nigeria. For this purpose, the paper adopted a doctrinal research method. It was discovered among others that inequality in the distribution of the nation’s wealth coupled with the lip service that successive governments had paid on human capital development over the years contributed to wide margin in poverty line in Nigeria. This in turn slowed down the pace for which Nigerians access justice. It was based on the foregoing that recommendations were made.