1. Supporting Civil Justice Transformation Dialogues and Strategy

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Civil Justice Transformation in Ogun State / 1. Supporting Civil Justice Transformation Dialogues and Strategy

Photo: Cornelia Schneider-Frank from Pixabay

1.1. This report

Between January and March 2021, the Ogun State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Gbolahan Adeniran, convened 25 distinguished justice leaders in the state’s first Civil Justice Transformation Lab. Through a series of three stakeholder dialogues, the aim was to deliver a vision on civil justice in Ogun State whereby people can safely live, work, and do business. HiiL was asked to assist in this process and identify the prevalence of civil justice problems and the bottlenecks in the administration of civil justice for businesses and individuals in Ogun State.

During the stakeholder dialogues, four goals and the Gamechanging Pathways to achieving them were outlined, always keeping the people of Ogun State and the outcomes they need at the centre. These goals and their pathways have been documented in a strategy document for civil justice transformation in Ogun State.

This report supports the civil justice transformation strategy in Ogun State. It provides relevant data and knowledge to support the strategy developed during the stakeholder dialogues. It has been developed along the transformation lab process, informing and subsequently being informed by the different stakeholder dialogues. The final result is a Deep Dive report into civil justice transformation in Ogun State, based on a combination of stakeholders’ ideas, knowledge, and expertise, and research conducted by HiiL. For each of the four goals and pathways formulated by the justice leaders, the report provides data on the expected annual number of problems that need resolutions, how people go about resolving them and what works, and the main enablers and obstacles to implementing the pathways identified to achieve the goals.

1.2 Methodology

This report is based on a combination of different data sources to create a nuanced and in-depth picture of civil justice in Ogun State.

Quantitative research data from the JNS survey: By examining data on people’s experience with civil justice problems, we can obtain a people-centred understanding of the main problems in the lives of Nigerians, what they do to solve them, and how successful these resolution strategies are. This data is based on a study from 2018, when we conducted a nationwide Justice Needs and Satisfaction survey in Nigeria. We interviewed over 6100 Nigerians in 18 different states across six different regions about their experiences with legal problems in the previous four years. Although Ogun State itself was not included in the final sample, the results of the study are considered representative for Nigeria.
Literature review: During the stakeholder dialogues, justice leaders formulated four goals and the pathways to achieve them. For each of these goals, we conducted literature research on the main obstacles and enablers to implement these pathways, looking at studies conducted both in Nigeria and in other countries with similar services. This research is part of HiiL’s ongoing research on game-changing services for people-centred justice.
Input from justice leaders: As noted above, this report has been developed alongside the three stakeholder dialogues held between January and March 2021. Earlier versions of this document provided relevant data and knowledge to support the stakeholder dialogues, while the dialogues themselves informed the further development of the report. The justice leaders were also interviewed about civil justice in Ogun State before the first stakeholder dialogue. All this information has been integrated into the development of this report.
Qualitative interviews: Our partner CRIDLawNet conducted twelve qualitative interviews with a diverse group of experts on civil justice in Ogun State. Depending on the expert’s expertise, questions were asked about civil justice delivery in general or they were tailored specifically to resolving land disputes. The structured interview protocol centred around the main barriers, successes (‘what works’) and potential innovations (‘what could work’) for civil justice delivery in Ogun State. Experts included representatives from the Ogun State Multi-door Courthouse, different Ministries, Ogun State Police, the Citizens Right Department, the business sector, as well as his Royal Highness the Olota of Ota, and the head of programmes at Splash FM, responsible for the radio’s popular dispute mediation show. Some experts asked to be anonymised.