Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, CON, (in set above), delivering the 40th anniversary lecture of NWLR on Thursday, October 9, 2025 at Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
By Advocatenewsng.com
This is the text of the lecture by Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, CON, former governor of Lagos State and ex-minister of Works and Housing, delivered on Thursday, October 9, 2025 at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports founded by late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAM, SAN, GCON, (1938 – 2009).
The title of the lecture is “Safeguarding the legacy of law reporting and embracing the future in the technological era”.
Excerpts:
“Although our gathering is motivated by the epic occasion of the commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports, (hereinafter referred to as ‘NWLR’) it is impossible to discuss that subject or reflect on that occasion without the thoughts of Chief Abdul-Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, SAN looming very large in the picture.
I will respectfully and eventually hereafter refer to him as Gani as he was fondly known and called.
The undisputable truth is that if Gani had not ventured into law reporting, his work as an activist who used law as his tool, and also as an advocate who trail blazed in the arena of public interest litigation would have been more than enough to memorialize him forever in Nigerian history.
But I do not think that Gani was seeking to be memorialized. I think he was a relentless pursuer of change in a country and society he passionately loved, and anything that obstructed that pursuit was to be disrupted and removed once Gani set his sights on it.
Before NWLR: access and inequity
In the legal profession, before the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports, it was usual to hear of lawyers/Advocates citing cases recently decided by the Supreme Court, which was then based in Lagos, and indeed turning the legal tide in favour of their clients and blind siding the opposition, who were out of Lagos, and had not yet obtained a copy of the judgment delivered in the previous Friday.
Clients suffered for what was no fault of theirs, and rumours were rife of how the counsel who used the judgement had gotten hold of them, even to the detriment of lawyers in Lagos, by fair or alleged foul means.
This was the situation that Gani sought to change, the existing order he sought to disrupt in order to democratize access to law reports and level the field somewhat in the process of the administration of justice.
Although the law reports started in 1985, three years before I was called, I remember quite well that the full impact of the democratization process did not happen immediately because Court of Appeal decisions were not initially included.
So, by the time I started practice there were still game changing decisions of the Court of Appeal, on procedure and substantive law that were not generally known, having not been reported, which I deployed to great advantage.
With the full picture of life before NWLR and after it, with reportage of both Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions, today’s generation of legal practitioners can perhaps have a sense of Gani’s audacity forty years ago, and the unquantifiable debt of gratitude lawyers and Nigerians owe this great patriot of now very blessed memory.
Criticism, monopoly claims and endurance
It is impossible to have an idea or invent something without criticism, and understandably the effort was initially criticized on sundry grounds such as that Gani enjoyed a monopoly, he was making money and other kinds of insubstantial dart that were thrown at him.
The real victory was that millions had almost immediate access to knowing and stating what the law was because Gani published the NLWR without fear and has done so for forty years and shows no sign of relenting.
How many of the NWLR’s predecessors and successors have floundered and withered?
Not a few I would say, and they are now languishing in the graveyard of failed business enterprises and publishing houses.
To those critics who saw only money, I challenge them on behalf of the NLWR to go and revive any of those failed efforts at law reporting and come and make the money.
On behalf of a grateful Nigerian Nation, and justice system, I say to the Fawehinmi family, to the NWLR management and staff, thank you for building to last and for sustaining not only Gani’s vision, but for keeping the jobs he created in that company.
Now that we know what happened before and what has happened after, as we commemorate the 40th Anniversary and start the journey into the 5th decade of the NWLR, perhaps we should pose ourselves some questions, as we embrace the future, to see what lessons history may share with us.
Thankfully, Gani provided that answer in his editor’s message to the maiden edition of the NWLR on October 1st 1985 where he said:
“NIGERIAN WEEKLY LAW REPORTS starts today, Tuesday the 1st of October, 1985. My aim is to make the laws of Nigeria available to all and sundry as quickly as possible. The decisions of the courts which constitute a fundamental part of our laws must be made more readily accessible with a view to ensuring that the learned men at the Bar and on the Bench are more learned and the entire spectrum of the Administration of Justice more JUST.”
Expanding the canon
But Gani did not stop at weekly reports alone of contemporary Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions; he later went on to create the Nigerian Constitutional Law Reports that contains a treasure trove of decisions of Federal High Courts, Appeal Court and the Supreme Court on Constitutional cases especially during the Second Republic of Nigeria’s democratic experience.
He was not done; because the weekly reports started only in 1985. There were Supreme Court decisions before then that had not been reported.
Thus, was born a new law report, much younger than the NWLR but from the same Gani stable. It is called the SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA LAW REPORTS.
In the preface to the first volume, Gani himself discussed the problems and the enormity of his self-inflicted task.
He said:
“Decisions of the Supreme Court of Nigeria have an indisputable legal touch of finality. Therefore, no judgment of that court which decides any point of law should go unreported. More than sixty percent (60%) of the judgments of the Supreme Court delivered between 1956 and 1971 were never (before now) reported. Between 1972 and 1984, the reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court were infrequently and sporadically published. Furthermore, some of those which have been reported are not easily available.
I was seriously worried by the problems constantly encountered by the Bench and Bar in this regard. Consequently, in 1985 I started the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports for reporting inter-alia decisions of the Supreme Court. However, the difficulties of the Bench and Bar in respect of the
Supreme Court decisions between 1956 and 1984 still persisted. It is with the determination to obviate these difficulties that I decided to publish Reported and hitherto Unreported judgments of the Supreme Court from 1956 to 1984 and yearly thereafter. Pursuant to this decision, I set up the Editorial Board of the SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA LAW REPORTS. Work on the project by the Board started in earnest on Saturday the 1st of August, 1987.
I must place on record the profound co-operation given by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, The Hon. Justice Mohammed Bello C.J.N. In his letter to me on Monday, the 20th of July, 1987 he promised “to give all necessary assistance you may ask to fulfil the onerous task”. And he kept that promise to the letter.
This Volume deals with 1956 decisions of the Supreme Court (then Federal Supreme Court). In that year, out of the 129 (One hundred and twenty-nine) considered decisions delivered by the Federal Supreme Court (as it was then known) 92 (Ninety-two) of them are reportable. 39 (thirty-nine) out of the 92 (Ninety-two) were previously reported but now re-reported in this Volume; the remaining 53 (fifty-three) reported cases in this Volume were hitherto un-reported.
My aim in embarking on this project is to ensure a proper development of our law by making available to all and sundry including the international community decisions at the apex of our judicial system. By this, there will be less reliance by the Bench and Bar in Nigeria on foreign court decisions (except in areas not covered by our own Supreme Court) thereby engendering nationally and internationally a great respectability for our national judicial independence and integrity. I hope and pray that the use to which the reports are put justifies this aim.”
Digital evolution and international reach
I think it is safe to assert that all the objectives of access to judgments, supporting the administration of justice and internationally projecting Nigerian law and jurisprudence amongst others have not only been met, they have been exceeded.
The existence of an electronic version, the NWLRonline, which was not in contemplation in 1985, but which was established in 2019, confirms that beyond doubt.
As far as the international use of the NWLR goes, all that we need to do to remind ourselves is the fact that as we speak there are arbitration proceedings and other international trials going on outside Nigeria, involving contracts, disputes and actions from here, which are being resolved abroad and inevitably require decisions on what Nigerian Law says about those issues.
The NWLR in hard and electronic form is one of the points of recourse.
And this is what validates the concerns of the organisers of this event about the future of law reporting in general and the NWLR in particular.
This explains why the anniversary is, rightly in my view, being commemorated around the theme: “Safeguarding the legacy of law reporting and embracing the future in the technological era.”
Undoubtedly, rapid developments in technology is impacting the practice of law and the administration of justice – in the global community of which Nigeria is an important part.
From the days, dating back to the 19th Century, when the cyclostyling machine was the king of paper duplication process, which was supplanted by the photocopy machine in the 20th century, technology has been the recurring change in law practice.
The Telex Machine gave way to the facsimile machine, which yielded to the E-mail and the rest is history, just in the same way the Typewriter has become extinct, as desktop publishing was reinvented.
We are now witnesses to the emerging capacity of Artificial Intelligence whose full impact is yet to unfold.
But we are seeing ominous signs that raise concerns in the way that Gani was concerned 40 years ago.
At a recent Body of Benchers event that I attended alarm was raised about noticeably worrying developments where lawyers are embracing Artificial Intelligence in presenting their cases and judges are now facing references to “decided” cases that never occurred because they are generated by Artificial Intelligence.
In a system rooted in precedents, on the principle of “stare decisis”, this is dangerous to say the least.
Why authoritative law reporting matters
Let me attempt a demonstration of possible dangers by highlighting some of the benefits of law reporting that become imperilled by citing non-existent cases.
Properly decided cases, as reported in real judgments, contain statements of profound public policy, such as the principle of “legitimate expectations,” a policy, expounded and applied by the Supreme Court in the case of Margaret Chinyere Stitch v Attorney-General of the Federation & Ors [1986]. 5 NWLR (Part 46) 1007.
Other judgments contain propositions for reform as in the case of N.A Williams & Ors v Hope Rising Voluntary Funds Society [1982] 1-2 sc, 145 where Idigbe Jsc. quoting Lord Scarman said that an appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the exercise of discretion by a Judge was a “ rare bird to fly to this altitude” in reference to the hierarchy of the Supreme Court, even if all sorts of birds, have lately now made the Supreme Court their nesting ground.
And this in my view is a subliminal message on the need for reform about the kinds of appeals that can go all the way to the Supreme Court.
Some judgments, such as Adegoke Motors Ltd v Adesanya [1989] 3 NLWR (Part 109) 250 contain philosophical statements of profundity that underscore not only the limited human nature of the judges of the Supreme Court and the finality of their work as a rationale for litigation to come to an end after the Supreme Court.
In that case the court per Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, JSC famously said: “We are not final because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final.”
Of course, as precedent, the judgment in the law report also serves as an accurate statement of what the law is at any point; in the way the landmark case of Idundun v Okumagba [1976] 1 NLWR, 200 cast in stone, the 5 (FIVE) ways of proving title to land.
If lawyers now start citing non-existent cases that, for example, suggest that there is a 6th way to prove title to land such as by simply saying it is mine, or that there is now a right of appeal on mixed law and fact to the Supreme Court, or other contradictions to what has taken uncountable hours and years of industry to develop in our jurisprudence, then yesterday is too late to be worried.
Global examples of AI hallucinations
And if you think this is a Nigerian thing, please perish the thought.
As I was preparing this speech, my learned friend, Otuedon Sagay, graciously shared with me a report from an online site called “techcrunch.com” about developments in the United Kingdom along the line of the non-existent cases generated by artificial intelligence.
Let me reproduce the short but profound contents:
“In a ruling tying together two recent cases, Judge Victoria Sharp wrote that generative AI tools like ChatGPT “are not capable of conducting reliable legal research.”
“Such tools can produce apparently coherent and plausible responses to prompts, but those coherent and plausible responses may turn out to be entirely incorrect,” Judge Sharp wrote. “The responses may make confident assertions that are simply untrue.”
That doesn’t mean lawyers cannot use AI in their research, but she said they have a professional duty “to check the accuracy of such research by reference to authoritative sources, before using it in the course of their professional work.”
Judge Sharp suggested that with the growing number of cases where lawyers (including, on the U.S. side, lawyers representing major AI platforms) have cited what appear to be AI-generated falsehoods, “more needs to be done to ensure that the guidance is followed and lawyers comply with their duties to the court.” She said her ruling will be forwarded to professional bodies, including the Bar Council and the Law Society.
In one of the cases in question, a lawyer representing a man seeking damages against two banks submitted “a filing with 45 citations —
18 of those cases did not exist, while many others “did not contain the quotations that were attributed to them, did not support the propositions for which they were cited, and did not have any relevance to the subject matter of the application,” Judge Sharp said.
In the other, a lawyer representing a man who had been evicted from his London home “wrote a court filing citing five cases that did not appear to exist. (The lawyer denied using AI, though she said the citations may have come from AI-generated summaries that appeared in “Google or Safari.”)” Judge Sharp said that while the court decided not to initiate contempt proceedings, that is “not a precedent.”
Precedent, stare decisis, and professional duty
As we can see, Judge Sharp was confronted with non-existent cases on one hand and cases that did not contain quotations attributed to them on the other hand.
Clearly, as observed by Judge Sharp, those were not precedents.
Precedent is pivotal to case law which helps law reporting to thrive and it is rooted in the legal maxim “stare decisis et non quieta movere” which means to stand by and adhere to decisions and not to disturb what is settled.
As we can see, Artificial Intelligence is a tool for potential good with possible side effects.
According to Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher in the book “The Age of AI” at page 159:
“Generative AI can create vast amounts of false but plausible information.”
At page 81, they observe that:
“AI does not possess what we call common sense. It occasionally conflates two objects that humans could quickly and easily distinguish.”
At pages 67 and 69, they observe that:
“…Streaming services such as Netflix use algorithms to identify clusters of customers with similar viewing habits in order to recommend additional streaming to those customers.”
While:
“In medicine it is facilitating the discovery of new drugs and the detection or prediction of future maladies. AI has detected breast cancer earlier than human doctors by identifying subtle radiological indicators; it has detected retinopathy, one of the leading causes of blindness by analysing retinal photos…”
But AI is machine Learning, where the machine does not know that it does not know something.
So, it generates an answer and this is called Hallucination.
Who should act? A call to leadership
Now that we have an idea of what AI is, and indication of some of what it can do and cannot do, it should interest us that the US Government has, by Executive Order, assembled a team to evaluate the long-term opportunities and impact of AI in the administration of criminal justice.
We should take a cue from the book “The Age of AI” at page 79 where it says:
“AI cannot reflect, the significance of its actions is up to humans to decide. Humans, therefore, must regulate and monitor the technology.”
This puts an end to any debate about the need for us to act.
So like roses that have thorns, we must embrace AI, use its positives while avoiding its perils.
We must use it for research, quick reference, case preparation while authenticating every citation and litigation text that is referred to.
This would require what is called Human in the Loop or Human on the Loop (HITL or HOTL) as the case may be.
We would need to work with experts in the fields of technology and governance and non-governmental levels.
We would need the Bar and the Bench, the law schools and universities, and the Body of Benchers involved.
Perhaps we would need to change how judges even write their judgments to promote more exactitude and reduce prolixity and dicta, because as we have seen, AI does not have common sense and is not trained to understand “obiter dicta” and “ratio decidendi.”
Editors who are involved in publishing law reports must also raise their game to ensure that the editor’s notes do not supplant the decisions of the courts.
Now that we know all these, perhaps the only question left to answer about safeguarding the legacy of law reporting and embracing the future in a technological era is this:
Who should act?
The answer is not far-fetched. If Gani was alive he would undoubtedly act, and since the Nigerian Law Publications Ltd and NLWR are his surviving legacies, they have the corporate identity to act.
But I recall that Gani did not act alone; my Lord Mohammed Bello CJN at the time worked hand in glove with Gani.
I think history and opportunity also beckon now my Lord the CJN, Hon Justice Kekere-Ekun.
The power and duty, conferred and imposed respectively by Section 236 of the 1999 constitution (as amended up to 2023) by which the Chief Justice can make rules for the Supreme Court, and the responsibility of the National Judicial Council to: “… deal with all other matters, relating to broad issues of policy and administration,” makes my Lord the CJN the most appropriate person and office to lead this undertaking.
Other institutions such as the ministries of Justice, the Law Reform Commission, the Nigerian Bar Association, the Ministry of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, to mention a few also have roles to play in the process.
Thank you all for listening.
Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN CON.
