Benue State University, Makurdi
LAW JOURNAL VOLUME 9, 2019/2020
Law and the Society in the 21 st Century: Exploring the Relevance of Sociological Jurisprudence in Contemporary Nigeria
Abstract
The clamour to restructure political arrangement of the Nigerian nationhood may be a long standing one but not with the kind of zest with which protagonists of the movement have driven their views in the last decade. Sentiments aside, it is obvious that the breakdown of law and order and impunity by those in government, power brokers and their cronies has given unprecedented impetus to the conclusion of several Nigerians that it is better to restructure the basis of our existence as a nation than wait to witness the fallout of Nigeria as a failed state. Looking at the root cause of breakdown of law and order in Nigeria from the perspective of her Legal Order therefore, the paper queried the positivist philosophy that has been the pivot of Nigeria’s legal order, arguing that for law to compel obedience, it must generate from the core values of the society it seeks to govern because law ought not to be an abstract set of rules imposed from the top. Instead it must be indigenous to the people and partaking of their culture. Taking a position that the attitude by which law is left only to skilful reasoning of positivist philosophy as exist in Nigeria without adaptation to the core values of the Nigerian society defeats the intended ends of law, the paper argued that such attitude has only caused respect for the law only in breach and disregard of its mandate by the society. The paper recommends a shift towards sociological philosophy as the way out of the quagmire into which Nigeria is steadily devolving. In the end, bioethics concept has also been recommended as a supplement to cater for traditional criticism of sociological philosophy. |
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Faculty of Law,
Benue State university,
Makurdi.
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