The Gift of Martial Law: Military Tribunals for Civilians
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Published:October 2024
Soldiers presented martial law as a way to streamline justice for the civilians they ruled, but martial law was poorly suited to civilian society. What appealed about military tribunals as a tool to govern civilians? How did soldiers justify using martial law in peacetime? How did civilians adapt to life under a legal system that was not designed for them? Who among them supported it, and who chafed against it? Martial law established a third path in Nigeria’s already plural legal system, running perpendicular to the common law and customary courts that Nigerians already knew well. It manifested mainly as tribunals, which were panels of military officers and judges empowered to interpret the Supreme Military Council’s decrees. Their purpose was to adjudicate the decrees the military handed down, on everything from how much could be charged for a bag of rice to what constituted treason.