12/08/2026
Not Every Court Can Hear Your Case—Here’s Why👇
We have in Nigeria two courts of records— the inferior court and the superior courts of records.
The superior courts include:
The Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Customary Court of Appeal, the Sharia court of appeal, the high court of FCT, the high courts of the various states, the Federal high court and the national industrial court.
The inferior court includes:
The magistrate court
The customary court and the
Area court.
Superior Court of records are so called because they possess higher judicial authority and have inherent powers.
Inferior courts are so called by the fact that they are directly under the supervisory control of superior courts. They also have limited cases and certain type of cases they can only handle. The powers they exercise are as expressly given by the law and they cannot operate beyond the limits of their powers.
Inferior courts handle less strict criminal cases.
A magistrate’s sentencing power in Nigeria is limited by the state law and sometimes the grade of the magistrate plays a role but generally ranges from 1 year (lower magistrates) to about 7–10 years (Chief Magistrates), subject to the statutory maximum imprisonment term for the offence.
So magistrates courts cannot try capital offenses.
Inferior courts have limited monetary jurisdiction.
Civil cases falling under the jurisdiction of the magistrates courts include breach of simple contract and duties, Landlords and tenants matters (Recovery of premises) Debts recovery etc. also the maximum monetary claims must not exceed 7 million naira in the FCT and as specified by other state laws. If the money you claim from a defendant is more than 7 million then you have to go to the high court.
The next is customary court.
The customary court is a court where local and customary issues are handled. Customary and Area courts in Nigeria mainly handle local, community based disputes especially those governed by customary or islamic laws. Strict legal procedures are not followed rather the traditions of the local people are generally considered.
Cases that can be handled by customary courts are:
1. issues arising from customary marriages, validity and dissolution of those marriages.
2. bride price issues, child custody and guardianship.
3. issues of inheritance and succession
4. disputes on family and community lands
5. chieftancy matters, etc.
Note: some of the cases falling under this heading can still be handled by the High courts or magistrate courts depending on the circumstances.
Also Area courts have jurisdiction similar to that of Customary Court but Area courts are mostly in the Northern part of Nigeria. They handle family and personal law issues. Like marriage, divorce, maintenance and inheritance under islamic law. They also handle some minor civil and criminal cases.
So generally, customary and Area courts handle less serious matters.
The superior courts:
The high courts is the court of first instance or generally called the trial court in the range of superior courts.
What this means is that all cases that should be handled by the superior courts start from there. It is a court of evidence.
The constitution spelt out the cases to be handled by the various high courts. For instance section 251 of the constitution gives exclusive jurisdiction to the Federal High Courts over specific subjects matters. Same with the National Industrial Courts
The second court in the hierarchy is the court of Appeal. This is an appellate court that directly receives appeals from the high courts.
Any litigant who feels dissatisfied with the judgment or ruling of the lower court (high courts) can appeal to the court of Appeal stating his grounds upon which he’s bringing the appeal.
The court of appeal does not take evidence except in exceptional cases. They only evaluate the evidence received at the lower courts and decide if those evidences were properly received and applied by the lower courts. The court of appeal after reviewing the case will either uphold the judgment/ruling of the lower courts or reverse the judgment.
In some cases the court of appeal can also order a retrial. They can refer the case back to the high courts to be tried afresh if they found the proceedings of the trial court to not be in order.
Where a party is still dissatisfied with the outcome from the Court of Appeal he can still proceed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is the last court in the hierarchy and the last court of resort. It sit as appellate court as well. So whatever happens here becomes your fate and if you are still dissatisfied you can then appeal to God. Hahaha
Understanding the court and the cases handled by each is very fundamental as instituting a case in a wrong court is fetal to its adjudication. It will be subjected to jurisdictional issue which is also fundamental as absence of jurisdiction renders void any decision or ruling arising from such proceedings.
Share like and comment if you have learnt a thing or two from this post.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse!
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