THE RULE OF LAW AND THE CHALLENGE OF PLURALISM - 1
A Paper Presented to the workshop on the Rule of Law and the
Administration of Justice in Nigeria, Kano, July 24-27, 1997

[Abstaract / Preamble]    [ Conception and Legitimisation of Power ]   [ Source, Nature and Scope of Law]    [ Law and Morality ]   [ Secularism the Solution? ]   [ Option of Pluralism ]   [ Challenge of Pluralism / Conclusion ]    Abstract The rule of law may be of great antiquity and universal validity, but the evolution of the concept over the centuries and through cultures and civilisations has occasioned quite a variety of perspectives. Thus while it is easy to agree on the principle of the rule of law, the contention may be on the law itself. In a plural society with varying cultures, world-views and therefore legal systems, which law are we talking about? How does the rule of law face the challenge of a plural society? Is secularism a solution? These are some of the questions the paper attempts to address. The paper has also sought to go a little further to suggest an arrangement that may best promote the rule of law and administration of justice in Nigeria. Preamble A senior lawyer who has been teaching and practising law for over a quarter century, recently observed that in the British legal system a person is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty, in the French legal system a person is presumed guilty until he is proved innocent, and in Nigeria a person is presumed guilty until he is proved guilty. Anybody who has lived in Nigeria in the last few years should have no difficulty agreeing with him. The problem, to be sure, is not so much the inadequacies of the legal system, like the blatant refusal of the executive to allow the law to take its course. To make matters worse decrees and tribunals are constantly churned out clearly aimed at subverting the cause of justice. The rule of law has been replaced with rule by law, laws made by people who seem to be oblivious of (or are they incapable of distinguishing?) the difference between law and justice. To be fair, the arbitrariness of the executive and the supplanting of the cause of justice by the executive is neither entirely new nor is it incomprehensible in contemporary Africa, giving the level of education, or lack of it as it were, and the absence of civility in the training of our armed forces. What is new and incomprehensible is this phenomenon where wives of executives have suddenly become executives themselves, undertaking public functions and spending substantial part of public funds under all manners of names, without any constitutional provision. Some of these first ladies have even become law unto themselves, directing and supervising the torture of staff of government house with fire. Now an association of wives of cabinet ministers calling itself ‘League of Cabinet Wives’, have applied to corporate affairs for registration under part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Decree No. 1 of 1990. (1) The Rule of Law The concept of the rule of law has been traced as far back as Greek antiquity and Aristotle’s famous remark is oft quoted, thus “The rule of law is to be preferred to the rule of man. We do not permit a man to rule but the law because a man rules in his own interest, and becomes a tyrant but the function of a rule is to be the guardian of the justice and, if justice then of equality.” (2) One cannot agree more. For a Jew, Christian or Muslim this is nothing new or strange, it echoes the essence of divine message. Indeed many Muslims scholars, philosophers and jurists have expounded on this concept with such passion and eloquence that render Aristotle’s remark a mere truism. So without labouring the point any further, the rule of law is an idea of great antiquity and universal validity, firmly grounded in unassailable logic. While it is easy to agree on the principle of the rule of law, it is not easy to agree on the law itself. What precisely is nature of that law which must be allowed to rule? In other words what is the source of that law? Should it emanate from the same man whose rule is so dreaded because of his knack for tyranny? Or should it emanate from other than man? Who then is this other? Should it emanate from God? But not everybody believes in God much less His creation of man and the universe. Karl Marx, for example, was reported to have said that God did not create man, rather it was man who created God. In other words, for him (Karl Marx), God was nothing but a figment of man’s imagination. Karl Marx was nurtured in a milieu that had fed fat on the humanism of the renaissance and had become literally intoxicated by the freedom it had wrested from an oppressive Church, that it was wandering if God really existed and if He did what was His future? In time it was proclaiming the death of God and books were being written on the history of God. But even those who believed in God had, over time, so transformed their idea of God that God had become curtailed to the domain of salvation and personal piety. There are, thus, a variety of perceptions of this law whose rule every body seems to have no quarrel with but whose nature depends on the different believes, world-views, and cultures. Some of the areas of  fundamental differences appear to be, the concept and legitimisation of power; the source of law; and the relationship between law and morality. We shall now look at these three areas in some detail.