To Recognize or Not? Good Faith Under Nigerian Law of Contract

Unlike jurisdictions such as Canada and the United Kingdom, Nigerian courts have not engaged with the doctrine of good faith. Similarly, there is a dearth of academic scholarship that examines this aspect of the Nigerian law of contract. In this paper, I examine how the Nigerian courts have operationalized the common law of good faith in the performance of contracts. Rather than suggest that good faith as “an organizing principle” has an internally consistent meaning by which we can transplant the doctrine from one jurisdiction to another, or even apply the so-called duty of honest performance as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Canada. I contend that there is an inherent value for the Nigerian courts to carry on with the piecemeal/traditional approach in the application of the doctrine of good faith.