This study examines the Nigerian judicial administration and the crisis of sustainable peace in Nigeria. The study, which was drawn from the 2025 Nigeria Social Cohesion Survey that established a national cohesion index of 46.8% and 79% public distrust in the judiciary, revealed that weak integrity mechanisms serve as structural factors that promote societal disintegration. The analysis is framed within the Sustainable Development Goal 16 and the theory of transitional justice and maps out the causal chain that connects constitutional vagueness, weak oversight, and weak disclosure systems with compromised judicial impartiality, public mistrust, and the use of extra-legal methods of conflict resolution. They disproportionately affect women and communities affected by conflict, further increasing their marginalisation and grievances. The Kenya's Ethics and Integrity Committee and South Africa's Office of the Chief Justice are two examples of institutions that can break these destabilizing cycles through professionalization. The study finds that specific thresholds for conflicts of interest should be codified, that a Judicial Ethics Compliance Office with electronic screening should be instituted, that gender-responsive reforms are needed, and that the "appearance of impropriety" standard should be set in the constitution. These measures would break the cycle in which the integrity of judges keeps threatening peacebuilding, rather than making accountable institutions engines for peaceful sustainable development in Africa's largest democracy.
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