TRADITIONAL AGENCIES OF JUSTICE

Abstract

People all over the world including Africans have organizations that ensure that fairness is upheld amongst the people. Different means through which conflicts and disputes are resolved are employed for a peaceful co-existence. These practices amongst Africans have been in use since ages and have been passed on from one generation to another. The agencies that handle cases in African societies are varied. They apply different perspectives as the case demands. Even though the traditional agencies of justice in African societies have huge prospective in boosting justice and promoting peace to all and sundry; recently they face a lot of challenges. Due to westernization with accompanied urbanization, most people tend to ignore and by-pass the communities established mechanisms of conflict resolution in preference to the modern methods. The goal of this paper is to find out the institutions that resolve conflicts amongst the people, their mode of operation and also to seek out reasons why some people ignore the communities' mode of conflict resolution. This study focuses on Oyi communities of Anambra State Nigeria. Data collection was based on library sources, observation and oral interview. It was established that some people ignore the traditional agencies of justice because of some irregularities such as dishonesty and collusion by the members entrusted to safeguard the rights of the people, and also because of westernization and religion. Members of the traditional agencies of justice were advised to refrain from these abnormalities for a more unified system. Africans should therefore take positive steps towards improving their traditional agencies of justice, such as imbibing truthfulness and fair play.