The interesting case of Yinusa v. Adesubokan, reported in this issue of the Journal, provides us with an authoritative answer to a question which has long perplexed students of succession law in Nigeria: can a person whose personal law is that of Islam, by electing to make a will under the Wills Act, 1837, thereby deprive his heirs of what they would be entitled to receive were Islamic law to apply to the distribution of the estate? The answer given is that he cannot. This question, which, as is indicated in the judgment, has not been the subject of previous judicial decisions, may not be one which in recent years has aroused any very great passions. Nevertheless, it is one which some thirty years ago was argued among members of the Colonial Service—administrative officers and legal officers—with a surprising fervour and intensity.

The customary oath is woven into the fabric of African traditional life. Owing, however, to the world-wide publicity which was generated by the Mau Mau emergency in the nineteen-fifties, and the more recent publicity following allegations of oathing after the assassination of the late T. J. Mboya in Nairobi in July, 1969, oathing and Kenya have become closely associated in the public mind. The present state of the law with regard to oaths and oathing in Kenya is not entirely satisfactory, and in certain instances it must be stated that the law appears to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance.