Intelligence

Nigeria's cosmetic surgery industry is rapidly expanding, yet practitioners operate under a regulatory framework that imposes no minimum specialist qualifications beyond basic medical registration. This article examines the legal risks facing both medical practitioners and patients, comparing Nigeria's approach with the UK, Canada, and the United States to reveal critical gaps in consent requirements, liability standards, and practitioner certification that leave Nigerian patients uniquely vulnerable.

An individual or entity that desires, intends, or is actively negotiating to buy a parcel of land in the Federal Capital Territory (“FCT”) must apply great care and show diligence in every stage of the transaction.

Nigeria's upstream regulator has issued a critical enforcement circular targeting holders of Petroleum Prospecting Licences awarded in three recent licensing rounds. The circular activates drill-or-drop provisions under the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, creating immediate compliance obligations and potential forfeiture consequences for licensees who have not met their minimum work programme commitments.

A piece of land can look like an excellent investment and still be legally unsuitable for the project you have in mind. In Nigeria, a buyer may discover after payment that the property is affected by government acquisition, a reservation, a proposed infrastructure corridor, competing claims or restrictions on its use. This is why checking the title alone is not enough. Before buying land in Nigeria, investors should establish who has the legal interest in the property, whether that interest can be transferred, whether the land is affected by government acquisition and whether it can legally be used for the proposed development.

The Supreme Court of Nigeria has ruled that judgment debtors cannot file motions to set aside garnishee orders nisi, declaring such applications unknown to Nigerian law. This decision in Vitachem (Nig.) Ltd. v. DSM Sinochem Pharm. I.P. Ltd. fundamentally reshapes enforcement practice by clarifying that the only lawful response to a garnishee order nisi is a counter-affidavit to show cause, not a freestanding motion to set aside.

When a patient discovers years after surgery that medical negligence caused their injury, can they still bring a claim? This article examines Nigeria's limitation laws for medical negligence cases, exploring the critical gap between when harm occurs and when patients reasonably discover its cause, and whether current legal frameworks adequately protect those with latent injuries.