A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Murtala Abdulrasheed, has raised alarm over the poor state of a Calabar High Court, venue of a scheduled sitting of the Cross River State Election Petitions Tribunal.
Abdulrasheed made this known during the inaugural sitting of the second panel of judges that will hear some cases arising from the national and state assembly elections in the state capital.
The lawyer said the venue was not conducive for the crucial task at hand, describing it as a dangerous health hazard for members of the bar.
In his words, “No matter the capacity you may have, if the environment is not enabling, your productivity will be affected. I have observed and I have been privileged to attend Inaugural sittings in other places, my Lord, this court, thus venue is not conducive for the arduous task you have come here to do. All we have here are broken chairs and ceiling. The fans are not working and the environment is overgrown with weeds. This can be a flourishing ground for dangerous reptiles.
“If we have two cases today in this venue, it will constitute a dangerous health hazard for us. This venue will adversely affect the dispensation of justice because the judges are also human beings. They need a conducive environment to dispense justice to all manner of people.
“The tribunal must be made conducive for lawyers and judges to come and practice their trade.
“My appeal on behalf of the inner bar is that the observation be escalated to the constituting authority so we can have a better venue that will be enabling for us to carry out our assignment”, the senior advocate said. Responding, the Chairman of the panel, Justice M.A. Sambo said the observation was good, but the assignment must be carried out to save time.
He said, “This assignment must be done, whether there is a venue or no venue. We are all aware there is nothing like extension. This experience is nothing to us as we have worked in various jurisdictions. Some of them are either better or worse than this. It is a good observation and we are grateful for your comment, we will do our best in trying to see that our welfare is secured.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the inaugural sitting of Panel 2, the Cross River State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Alphonsus Eba, confirmed that the place is not conducive.
He said he had spoken to the Chief Judge of the state and the Commissioner for Environment about the issue and would report same to the outgoing Governor Ben Ayade.
Eba promised that something will be done to improve the facilities at the court premises and the environment.
About three panels will handle 29 petitions that arose from the recent general election in Cross River.
The first and second panels will handle 13 cases each from the national and state houses of assembly elections, while a third panel will handle the three petitions that arose from the Governorship Election in the state.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
