The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata, has called for the independence of the judiciary and appealed to the National Judicial Council to rid the judiciary of corruption.
He said this on Monday at the Supreme Court on the occasion of the New Legal Yead Ceremony reiterating that welfare of the judicial officers should be looked into and adequate funding provided to help them conduct its business.
Olumide also charged the NJC not to relent on its effort to tackle corruption and rid the judiciary of it and also ‘urged them to lend their voice to the need to expand and diversify areas of the profession and to encourage and support young lawyers to foray into varied practice areas.’
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‘Today, I addressed the Supreme Court on behalf of the @NigBarAssoc on the occasion of the New Legal Year Ceremony where I joined Their Lordships to celebrate the 72 eminent practitioners and academics who were conferred with the distinguished rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria. I used the occasion to re-emphasise the need for independence of the judiciary; improved welfare of our judicial officers; provision of adequate funding that the judiciary requires to conduct its business; enabling the courts to freely decide cases without external influence; and ensuring that orders and judgments of our courts are respected by all persons.
I also called on the NJC not to relent in its efforts to rid our bench of corruption and to continually tackle the issue of the discipline of judicial officers and be more firm in dealing with the perennial problem of delay in the determination of cases in Nigeria. For the new Silks, I urged them to lend their voice to the need to expand and diversify areas of the profession and to encourage and support young lawyers to foray into varied practice areas; to make more deliberate efforts towards mentoring others in the profession, and to set the standard and lead by example in the area of remuneration of our lawyers.’
