LEAVE THE WIG ALONE — FIX THE JUSTICE

By Victor Agusiobo

Speaking at a church service marking the commencement of the 2026/2027 Legal Year of the Anambra State Judiciary, Governor Soludo challenged the Nigerian legal profession to ditch imported wigs and gowns in favor of locally produced attire.

Over the years, the wig, the gown and the slow walk of judges into court have come to represent a sense of justice and a temple.

In Nigeria, it may be debatable whether the same costume produces a different kind of justice. But it sure resonates with that feeling albeit distantly

One is therefore troubled by the new call to localize our judicial apparel namely to remove the wig and the gown. In short, to dress our judges in something more Nigerian.

On the surface, it sounds patriotic. Underneath, it is dangerous.

THE WIG IS NOT THE PROBLEM

Let us be honest. The wig is not responsible for rigging elections in courts. The gown did not delay any judgment especially land cases for ten years. The wig did not disallow bail for a defendant in a bailable offence. Men did all that and more wearing the wig.

To blame the wig for our justice is like blaming the stethoscope for a bad doctor. The instrument is not the sickness.

In fact, in Nigeria, the wig is doing more work than we admit.
When a Nigerian judge wears that wig, he is borrowing something. He is borrowing the memory of a system where a judgment means something. Where a court can stop a prime minister. Where a common man can win against the government and go home and sleep.

That borrowing elevates the symbolism around our judiciary. It reminds the judge himself that he is not just a man in a chair but something higher.

Remove the wig, and what remains? A man in agbada, delivering the same judgment without the borrowed dignity. A reminder lost.

*REFORM FIRST, LOCALIZE LATER

Localization can indeed be patriotic but far less so, if it’s empty. In other words if we change the dress without changing the justice, what have we achieved? We have simply given a Nigerian stamp to our brand of justice.

That is worse. Because the failure will be ours, fully ours. We will have owned it and blessed it with culture.

A call to localize the apparel without working on the quality of justice and without a model will further offer a stamp to our brand of justice. It will make the rot look legitimate.

STILL A TEMPLE?
A temple is not made by clothes. A temple is made by what happens inside it.

In the UK, the judiciary is a temple because the priest behaves like a priest. The judgment is the sacrifice, clean, feared and respected.

In Nigeria, we have the temple clothes, but the sacrifice is often polluted. The judgment often comes late, terribly twisted and usually bows to power.

So the question is not whether the priest should wear wig or isiagu? Does the priest still believe in the god he serves?
That belief must be rooted first in order to give room for justice.

How about the delays? A case that takes 15 years is no longer justice but a punishment for seeking justice.

We must fix the fear. A judge who cannot rule against government is a civil servant in a wig.

And the almighty election tribunals? Well, a court that asks for impossible proof is a burial ground and not a court.

When we have fixed those things, then we can talk about what the judge should wear. Then the dress will mean something, because the man inside it will mean something.

LAST LINE

Let us leave the wig alone for now.The wig is not our colonial chain. Our home-grown chain is the idea that a court can be used to bury truth and still be called a court.

Let us first make our judiciary a temple of justice in fact and in deed, not just in gown.

When justice is real, the judge can wear anything: wig, agbada, boxers or nothing on his head and we will still stand up when he enters.

This is true because we will obviously not be standing for the cloth but for the justice inside