Access to Administrative Justice and the Exhaustion of Remedies Doctrine in Nigeria's Ombudsman System: A Comparative Islamic Law Perspective

Abstract

Nigeria established the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) in 1975 as a statutory ombudsman, promising citizens swift, informal, and accessible redress against administrative injustice. 50 years after the establishment of the PCC, this promise is undermined by Section 5 (2) (b) of the Public Complaints Commission Act, which imposes a compulsory exhaustion – of – remedies requirement. This provision mandates complainants to exhaust all legal and administrative procedures before approaching the Commission. The procedural barrier imposed by Section 5 (2) (b) of the Act was in conflict with the Commission’s mandate of accessibility and it systematically exclude the poor, vulnerable and marginalized from benefiting from the services of the Commission. The paper relies on doctrinal legal research to examine the origins, application and effects of the exhaustion clause with the Nigeria’s ombudsman framework. The paper trace the development of the exhaustion – of – remedies doctrine to the English administrative law, analyses its adoption into Nigeria’s statutory architecture and evaluate its consequences on access to administrative justice. The paper explores a comparison of the Saudi Arabia’s Diwan al- Mazalim (Board of Grievances) and Iran’s General Inspection Organisation (GIO). The paper review various Islamic legal principle, adl (justice), maslahah (public interest), hisbah (accountability), and the prohibition of haraj (undue hardship), the paper finds that Nigeria's rigid exhaustion requirement is defective ad inconsistent with Islamic principles of accessible grievance redress. The paper proposes several reforms which include amendment of Section 5(2)(b) to grant the PCC discretion to waive the exhaustion requirement, issuance of binding guidelines, conferral of binding remedial powers, and constitutional entrenchment to insulate the Commission from political interference. The paper concludes that without these reforms, Nigeria's ombudsman will remain procedurally inaccessible, perpetuating the very administrative injustice it was established to remedy.