A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Adetokunbo Kayode, has advocated for the domestication of the arbitration process in Nigeria due to the cost involved in doing it overseas.
Kayode, SAN, said this during an interview at Sunrise Daily program at Channels Television.
He said, “we must reorientate ourselves about the understanding of arbitration and the implication, and as I said also, seek to domesticate it because most of the government-related arbitration are done either in Paris or in London or somewhere else;”
He mentioned some of the challenges of doing arbitration outside the country to include financial cost and difficulty in obtaining visa among others. He, therefore, advised that arbitration should rather be carried out in Nigeria
“it costs money. You need to get a visa for instance to go to London. What if you couldn’t get it? And it costs money to move up and down. Why not do it in Abuja or do it Lagos which will be easier for us.
“And I do not think based on the doctrine of Party equality, if you are really the key person like in P&ID case, there is no reason why this Arbitration should not have been in Abuja.
“But if we continue to put it in London then you know that it costs money to go there. And sometimes you don’t get visa as a said. If you don’t get money then you don’t move on with the case.” Kayode said
The learned silk added that there is now virtual arbitration which can also be taken advantage of.
“But there is a reprieve because now we are doing virtual arbitration so you could actually sit down here and do your arbitration online whether the arbitration is based in London,” He said
