Unknown to several Nigerians, the Legal Aid Council was established by the federal government to give ordinary Nigerians access to justice. The new director-general of the council, Mrs Joy Bob-Manuel, spoke with AHURAKA ISAH on the aims and objectives of the council, its achievements so far and what it is set to achieve with time.
The Legal Aid Council began as Association of Public Defenders and metamorphosised in the LAC Act 1976 which was repealed and instead replaced with LAC Act 2011; to what extent has the new law differed from the previous one?
I am very happy that you mentioned the history of the Legal Aid Council (LAC) . The main personality was the late Chief Chimezie Ikeazor (SAN), and we are using this forum to say that the council has lost a great soul that lived in an environment where he saw that the legal aid scheme was working and articulated and imported the idea to Nigeria. He worked all his life for the poor. So, we use this opportunity to say that Chief Ikeazor should rest in peace and all he stood for, that the legal aid scheme in Nigeria would never be forgotten and anybody who comes to the council aid must continue with these ideals.
??? Yes, the first Act was in 1976, when the founder and his friends convinced the then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo,? by degrees, brought the Legal Aid Scheme to be run by a vehicle called the Legal Aid Council. And, of course, during the military era, it went through two amendments, and finally, in 2011, an Act was signed by President Goodluck Jonathan. The LAC 2001 Act repealed the 1976 LAC Act.
??? And now, we have a more transformational Act in the sense that it has increased our scope. Before, it used to be more of criminal mandate, but it now covers more indigent persons. When you talk of ‘awaiting trial’,? ‘armed robbery’, they are more of capital offences. Why you have a lot of awaiting trial cases is that nobody was ready to represent them. And it has been thought wise that since our mandate is also to represent, they should include the armed robbery. This is the criminal part of that Act.
And if you look at provisions of the Act, it has also increased our civil scope. So, we have a work to do even in civil jurisdiction. Don’t forget that now a new trend in civilization is to solve problems by alternative dispute resolution (ADR). So, we are re-inventing ourselves, training ourselves to be better and be able to mediate or resolve problems, thereby reducing numbers that go to court.
?And then, if you use the other international trend, called ‘para-legal’,? you can actually mediate in criminal matters. It is a concept which a novelty in Nigeria that will come to be soon. But for now, the Act is transformational and it is going to put us where we should be. It is a better Act than what it used to be.
?LAC still seems like an elitist concept yet to be known or appreciated outside this hall; what are doing to make its services available in the hinterlands?
? This is another area I pause and ponder on since I assumed this position in the council. I have pondered on the mentality and attitude of Nigerians. This is because the legal aid has its statistics and, of course, we have a lot of cases, both criminal and civil, that we have handled. And you wonder why that those who have benefitted from us refuse to be our agents; they don’t tell their experiences with us to others. I think it is part of Nigerian attitude.
? ?Looking seriously at it, nobody wants to advertise that he was once charged for criminal act or that he is standing trial for a criminal offence. You can hear in an office, ‘Please madam, can I take permission to go to the hospital or take my child for immunisation?’ But you can never hear, “Please madam, can I take permission to visit my relatives in the prison or police? So we have a socio-cultural problem of hiding facts about criminality or police cases. It is like a shame for a family to say its child has been arrested. So they tend to hide, and everything is shrouded in secrecy. But we have decided to overcome that challenge, and have continued to carry out enlightenment campaigns. And part of it is that we are appealing to the media to help us to tell people not to be afraid. They should know it is their right. Once a complainant reports to them of his or arrest; or in the course of reporting events? concerning the police, they are carried away and put in the police cell, somebody in their family should quickly run to legal aid office. We have the offices in 36 states in very prominent places, such as federal, state secretariats or in the judiciary; because we hardly rent buildings, except in the new states that may not have secretariats. We have had a nationwide campaign recently and we even got a lot of new cases. In fact, we had two big action cases involving more than 4,000 people. So it is innovative that we involve media attention in awareness creation, to tell? people that in truth there are lawyers that handle cases free of charge.
???? This is the federal government’s responsibility to its citizens. It is like the free health scheme for pregnant women, children and aged people. Nigeria is proposing education at certain levels to be rendered free. It is the same that the nation is undertaking, by giving access to justice free of charge for those who cannot afford to pay lawyers. That is what we are trying to tell people; that it is their right to access justice whether they have money or not. That is what legal aid is about. Federal government is telling? the people: ‘do not worry if you do not have money for a lawyer; go to the lawyers on our pay-roll free of charge.’
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Even the media has its limitations: there is no electricity to operate television and transistor radios in several communities, while newspapers are not sold in all the local government headquarters in Nigeria; how else do you intend to break this communication barrier?
This is why we are trying to adopt the concept of para-legal services in the Legal Aid Council. The new Act, as I had earlier said, is transformational. It has a third layer besides criminal and civil jurisdictions. We now have a right to discharge community legal service. What this means is that we are to send para-legal (personnel) into villages to tell people of their rights.
?? Every organisation, like the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), FIDA and Global Association for Female Attorneys (GAFA), has that as part of their curriculum: to tell people their rights.
?So, we developed the concept of para-legal (though the NBA feels that the lawyers in Nigeria are enough and asked us to play down on para-legal). But when you now talk of law, it is a bit elitist and it is even very difficult to draft lawyers to carry out advocacy duties the villages. But it is easier to ask para-legal (operatives) to go into villages to hold meetings with the village heads and their people.
? The World Bank is using legal aid in Kaduna to do community legal service, and it is fast succeeding. In the last one year, all district heads of three senatorial districts have attended some workshops and were able to understand the concept of mediation.
?? So, if we replicate what we did in Kaduna State, more people will know their rights. For instance, in that Kaduna workshop, a cattle breeding Fulani man got up and said he was happy that there were alternative ways to resolve issues, because when the grazing right conflicts with farming right, instead of them to resolve the matter, they instead fight. They asked us to introduce ADR to them, because everytime as the Fulani man carries his cow for grazing, he infringes on the right of the farmer – aall the farmers’ crops perish, and then instead of sitting down to resolve it, they take to daggers and guns. These are the problems we are trying to sort out over mass media limitation in our communities. So, with para-legal, we can get this right in different languages spoken to people to say ‘don’t be afraid of lawyers’, and that they should tell their family to look for legal aid lawyers to represent them in times of trouble. It is a service that the federal government owes you by providing free lawyers for your need.
?? In this wise, we on our own, with the help of the House of Representatives, the Senate and Ministry of Justice, had resolved that while opening in 36 states, we should also open an office in every local government. And we have succeeded in opening in 12 states now. But as long as my term lasts, I will make sure the 36 states offices are opened.
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The National Assembly has equally added to your numerous responsibilities the task of decongesting the nation’s prisons; how are you preparing to take up this challenge?
Yes, they have at different occasions said it. But I will let the public know that, ordinarily, that is what we do. When we go and represent, especially for those in awaiting trial list in the prison, we end up decongesting the prison by the time we get him out of the prison. That is our job and we have statistics to show.
? We and the prison service are in tandem;? we agree easily on some thorny issues. If you go to the prison today and ask them to tell the best stakeholders they have, they will tell you it is Legal Aid Council. We work with them, and they are the only ones who tell relatives of awaiting trial persons to see the legal aid lawyers. They sometimes call our state coordinators and tell them about inmates that need their services, and they send us monthly return. It is part of their mandate to give us monthly return.
?? The National Assembly needs not say it; we know that that is our main responsibility. We shall continue to do so until regulations are made. The National Assembly is yet to transmit that in writing yet, but we will continue to try our best to reduce those on awaiting trial.
? Even the chief judges of states will confirm to you that they take advice from us before paying visits to prisons. Due to our regular visits to the prisons, we know the legal status of the prisoners. We go from time to time on visits help to recommend? those to be discharged amongst awaiting trial lists. We tell the chief judges those who have over-stayed in prisons without requisite cause for it. We on our own do deliver them on bail. If awaiting trial has been granted bail and can’t pay, we can help for such amounts like N5,000, N10,000 and so on. As little as N3,000 can keep an awaiting trial? person for five years. So we go round and also ensure the chief judges heed our advice.
?? We are more or less like an unsung hero; there are a lot we do which people do not really know. It is usually reported in dailies that the chief judge of one state or the other released 500, 600 or even 800 prisoners. Yet, it does not deplete the number of prisoners. That is one of the great issues that give us concern. The more the number of prisoners that are released, the more the number swells up. If their number was 1,000 by the time CJ released 500, by the time you go back in the next six months, the number will still remain 1,000. It is strange. So we have discovered that those on awaiting trial do find their way back. I think that next prison Act must contain a programme of prison reformation so that prisoners are made to acquire skills during their jail terms. This is because when they come out, their families do not want to see them; neither do they get job to do. As a result of free food served in prison, they feel like committing same offence to get back there. This is not helping us in the justice sector.
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Besides normal prison custody, there are several detention centres such as the police cells, army guardrooms, State Security Service (SSS) darkrooms, SARS detention camps, customs and immigration detention rooms? and even traffic wardens and road safety rest rooms; how do you serve these inmates?
Yes, in the LAC Act, specifically section 19, we are also empowered to visit detention centres. The various establishments also have their Acts with certain powers attached to respective Acts. But what are mostly contradictory are certain sections of the constitution which require amendments with time. But we go from time to time to make sure such people are detained in line with the Human Rights charter. Even though they are accused of one crime or the other, that does not strip them of their fundamental human rights.
?? Of course, the law with which these organisations were established also asked to have detention centres for respective categories of offences. But virtually, all are supposed to interrogate people in their custody within 48 hours – which is usually more observed in the breach rather than in compliance. But we can only supervise their human right violation.
?? In furtherance to this, that is why we now develop police duty solicitors’ scheme. The five year review report was handed over recently to LAC. The essence of this scheme is to check the level of treatment meted to anybody that is invited to police stations. Our lawyers act as duty solicitors, and their duties at the police station is to provide the services of a lawyer – whatever service a lawyer is supposed to render – to a suspect that is brought for detention. And through this means, we have been able to ensure that there is less detention of suspects in the police stations covered by this scheme.