The immediate past governor of Sokoto State, Senator Aminu Tambuwal, on Thursday, identified affordable access to justice and quick determination of cases, as means through which courts could restore hope of citizens on the judiciary.
Tambuwal, who is a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and the current Senator representing Sokoto South, spoke during the opening session of the 2023 Law Week of the Abuja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA (Unity Bar).
He argued that the law, being a tool for social engineering, ought to be interpreted and always applied to meet the tenets of justice.
According to him, “The primary function of the judiciary is to ensure justice for the people. The courts play a huge role in deciding the fate of parties in a dispute. It also punishes people for committing crimes.
“The parties in dispute, in the case of Nigeria, may be between the tiers of government, between citizens and government or between one citizen and another.
“Social conflict will escalate and where there is no hope that justice will be served by recourse to the courts, anarchy may result.
“It is only when the judiciary applies the laws and culprits are punished that the desired deterrence is realized.
“In other words, through this process, the judiciary is able to curb crimes.
“Even in the relationship between the executive and the Legislature conflicts arise and it is the place of the judiciary to resolve such disputes.
“If law is social engineering then legal professionals are social engineers most suited to resolve the socio political challenges in society.
“By their special training, knowledge, skills and professionalism, society expects no less of them.
“It must be noted that where citizen’s are financially incapacitated from approaching the courts to air their grievances, resort to self help may arise and society will relapse into anarchy,” he added.
While equally identifying insecurity as one of the socio-political challenges facing the Nigerian state, Senator Tambuwal, warned that “the creation of a pool of disgruntled citizens will further aggravate this already precarious insecurity situation.”
He said the essence of the Annual Appropriation Bills that are passed by the Legislature was ensure that there are financial provisions to deal with issues of poverty, unemployment, insecurity, governance and public institutions.
“It also seek to address the question of even development through the equitable distribution of resources and projects.
“Indeed, it was in furtherance of this objective of equity that the National Assembly introduced the idea of Constituency projects to ensure that in every annual budget, whereas major project may be limited in terms of spread, every constituency should enjoy some form of federal presence.
“Though this concept of Constituency projects has been grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted because of glitches in implementation, the spirit is most honorable and can not be faulted,” Senator Tambuwal further stated.
Meanwhile, in his welcome address, the Chairman of the Unity Bar, Mr. Afam Okeke, said the theme of the Law Week Programme was “The Crucial Role of Legal Professionals in Reforming Nigeria’s Socio-Political Economy.”
“The theme is relevant to the current realities of the country and reverberates across practice areas because as lawyers, we play crucial roles as social, political, and economic reformists,” the NBA Chairman added.
