A Study of the Compensation of Nigerian Judges Since Independence

Abstract

Three factors complicate the study of the compensation of Nigerian judges over time: the ever-growing number of jurisdictions and of types of courts within them; the ways in which the judges are compensated for their services (basic salaries, in-kind compensation, and, more recently, cash allowances); and bad recordkeeping. By various means described in the paper, including, sometimes, educated guesses, ways were found to overcome these difficulties and to construct tables giving details of the compensation of most categories of judges approximately every five years from 1959 to 1998. Separate tables convert total compensation for all years to constant 1998 US dollars. Observations are made on the results.

Keywords: Nigeria, judges, compensation of judges, judicial pay