By Adeola Akinremi
“Democracy dies in darkness.” I thought about those words this week as I walked past The Washington Post headquarters on K Street in northwest downtown Washington, D, C. Some phrases become so familiar that they risk fading into the background. Then a particular moment restores their weight, reminding us that they were never merely a newspaper’s motto—they were a warning.
Nigeria’s democracy is eroding. It is eroding quietly and gradually. Almost imperceptibly. Our democracy is eroding one frivolous lawsuit at a time. Democracies rarely collapse in a single dramatic moment. It starts with obstructions to the execution of the laws. It starts when politicians and their lawyers purposely overload the judicial system with baseless claims, disrespecting the authority of the court and compliance with its governing laws.
Every hour a Nigerian judge spends untangling a political vanity project is an hour stolen from someone else. This isn’t merely a waste of time. It is theft. It is the theft of justice from those who actually need it. It is stolen from the widow waiting for justice. From the entrepreneur trapped in a commercial dispute. From the investor waiting for legal certainty before committing capital. From the citizen who believes the courtroom is the last refuge of fairness.
Last year, a report by the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) claimed that 90% of Nigerians faced at least one legal issue in four years. These cases according to the report are unresolved and they have a significant impact on people’s health, finances, and family lives. Think about that for a moment. Imagine waiting five years for your land dispute because another politician has filed his twentieth pre-election lawsuit or post-election petition.
The message of the report is that our justice system falls short in serving Nigerians. Yet, politicians waste the court’s time. They waste the country’s time. They waste our future.
For far too long, politicians have treated litigation as an extension of campaigning. Lose at the polls? Go to court. Lose in court? File another suit. Lose again? Appeal. Find another technicality. Find another courtroom. Find another headline.
The courtroom becomes the campaign office by another name.
The result is predictable. Court dockets swell. Genuine disputes wait longer. Businesses postpone decisions. Citizens lose confidence. Judges spend valuable hours disposing of cases that should never have crossed the registry. Then we blame the judiciary. We say the court is too slow. But when the courtroom becomes the campaign office by another name, what can the judges do?
Every abuse of process steals judicial attention. Every abuse of court steals confidence in democracy.
There are Nigerians who have nothing to do with politics. A small business owner whose customer breached a contract. A family fighting over inherited land. A young entrepreneur waiting for a court to determine ownership of intellectual property before an investor will sign the cheque. For them, every adjournment is not a headline; it is a mortgage unpaid, a child kept out of school, a business expansion abandoned. When courts become congested, justice does not simply slow down. It becomes more expensive. Hope becomes more fragile and we cannot talk about “RENEWED HOPE” when actually it is a reversal. In a country where legal disputes often linger for years and where millions of citizens report unresolved legal problems affecting their livelihoods, every needless political lawsuit quietly steals time from someone whose only ambition is to get on with life.
As a country we rarely think of judicial time as a national asset. Public resources expended on each case, judicial calendar used, Judges time spent, someone else’s hearing postponed, someone else’s justice delayed are assets wasted.
Countries build prosperity not only with roads, ports and power stations. They also build it with institutions that resolve disputes quickly, predictably and credibly.
The World Bank’s long-standing work on the business environment consistently recognised that efficient contract enforcement and legal certainty are among the strongest predictors of investment confidence. Investors can tolerate commercial risk. What they struggle to tolerate is legal uncertainty.
That is why every wasted day in court carries an economic cost that rarely appears in any government budget.
Nowhere is that cost more evident than in the legal questions emerging from Nigeria’s digital economy.
While politicians are swelling court dockets with frivolous lawsuits, another case quietly arrived before the courts.
This one was not about the next occupant of Aso Rock. It was about who governs Nigeria’s digital future.
The dispute between the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) and Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was presented to the public as a disagreement over a ₦30 billion claim arising from allegedly unapproved advertisements.
That was the smallest issue before the court.
The larger question was whether Nigeria possesses the legal authority to regulate multinational digital platforms that profit from Nigerian consumers while operating beyond traditional territorial boundaries.
Could Nigeria require global technology companies to comply with domestic advertising standards?
How far does Nigeria’s regulatory jurisdiction extend into cyberspace?
What obligations do multinational platforms owe Nigerian consumers?
These are not abstract legal questions.
They are nation-building questions.
Every major economy is wrestling with them. The European Union has answered some through landmark legislation and court decisions. India is developing its own jurisprudence. Brazil has increasingly relied on its courts to define the responsibilities of global technology companies.
Nigeria should be helping to shape that global conversation.
Instead, the ARCON suit was discontinued before the courts had the opportunity to establish meaningful precedent.
Perhaps settlement served the immediate interests of the parties.
But the nation lost something much larger.
It lost an opportunity to define the contours of its digital sovereignty.
Precedent is one of the judiciary’s greatest contributions to economic development. A carefully reasoned judgment does more than resolve a dispute between litigants. It tells regulators how far they may lawfully act. It tells businesses what standards they must meet. It tells investors where certainty exists. It tells citizens what protections they can reasonably expect in an increasingly digital marketplace.
That is how institutions mature.
That is how markets deepen.
That is how confidence grows.
Imagine if our courts devoted more of their energy to defining Nigeria’s position on artificial intelligence, digital advertising, data governance, consumer protection and platform accountability than repeatedly dismissing political cases that should never have been filed.
Imagine the confidence that would inspire.
Imagine the investment that would follow.
Imagine the institutions that would emerge.
Instead, too often, tomorrow’s economy waits while yesterday’s politics refuses to leave the courtroom.
This is the true cost of vexatious litigation.
It is not merely a waste of filing fees.
It is not merely an abuse of judicial process.
It is the theft of time from people whose cases could create jobs, protect rights, punish corruption or define the legal architecture of a modern economy.
The solution begins with courage. Judges should continue imposing meaningful costs against litigants who abuse court processes. The current penalty is not enough. The Nigerian Bar Association must hold lawyers to higher professional standards. Political parties must stop treating the judiciary as an extension of their campaign machinery.
Most importantly, politicians must rediscover a democratic virtue that has become dangerously unfashionable.
The greatest casualty of political vanity isn’t the politician who loses. It’s the citizen who never gets heard.
Adeola Akinremi is a public policy advisor and strategic communications expert with extensive multilateral experience advising on economic and policy reforms across global markets. As Founder and CEO of Hintells, he leads an AI-powered intelligence platform that connects businesses and African diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. He can be reached via email: [email protected]
