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The general objective of this paper is to study the language of nation-building in Nigeria by making a systematic exposition. Language is perceived in the work as a means of communicating meaning, conveying emotional conditions, viewpoints and philosophies. Nation-building is underscored in the work as the framing or shaping of a national identity through the instrumentality of state power, aimed at unifying the people within the state and thereby engendering political, economic and socio-cultural sustainability and stability of the state. The problem of the study centers on a supposition that in multiethnic and multilingual Nigeria, the citizens invariably hear and understand what the others are saying in the exact language of delivering such communication. Hence, nation-building is on course in the Nigerian nation. Findings of the study however point towards the contrary dimensions of these suppositions, revealing that the assumed language of nation-building in the country has been the language of war, bitterness, animosity, recrimination and vendetta, as principally propagated by the political elite. The work recommends the inauguration of a national language policy in the country within an overall framework of a generic nation-building agenda.

The French judge and political philosopher, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, otherwise, simply known as Montesquieu, propounded the theory of separation of powers, currently implemented in many democracies across the world. Implicit in the terminology of separation of powers, is the desire for a seamless democracy or the type of democracy with minimal national bitterness. None of the three arms of government was ever envisaged to be a possible source of discontent in democracy. What then is to be done when one of these tripartite coequals (specifically the judiciary) becomes the source of discontent in an assumed democratic polity? This paper interrogates the embedded issues. KEYWORDS: judiciary, judicial discontents, democracy, democratic regimes, Nigeria&nbsp