It’s ambiguous to say judiciary is corrupt – Agbakoba

Lagos-based human rights lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Olisa Agbakoba, has described the assertion that the  “judiciary is corrupt” as an ambiguous statement that is not correct. Agbakoba said this while speaking at a press conference organised to discuss state of the nation in the first quarter of 2016. According to Agbakoba, […]

Lagos-based human rights lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Olisa Agbakoba, has described the assertion that the  “judiciary is corrupt” as an ambiguous statement that is not correct.
Agbakoba said this while speaking at a press conference organised to discuss state of the nation in the first quarter of 2016.
According to Agbakoba, who is also a member of the National Judicial Council (NJC), it was wrong for anyone to describe the judiciary as corrupt simply because of unethical conducts of a few lawyers and judges.
He insisted that the wrong doings of a fraction of members of bar and bench should not become a blanket statement to cast aspersion on others.
“To say the judiciary is corrupt is not correct. That’s an ambiguous statement. There are bad eggs in every profession and that does not exempt the judiciary. However, such must not be treated as all encompassing,” Agbakoba said.
The former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) also said rather than casting aspersion on the judiciary, what should be of interest to all Nigerians is why judges should beg for money to do basic things. He said it is very unfortunate that judicial funding in Nigeria is poor. He said rather than castigate judges, the welfare of judges should be improved upon.
Agbakoba also condemned the adjudication model in Nigeria, describing it as “very conservative and 200 years behind.”
“A lot of the time you will discover that the model of adjudication in Nigeria is too old. And that is one other reason why judges in this part of the world don’t control their courts. As part of reformation for the judiciary, we must start having in place specialised courts or tribunals that handle different cases other than what the regular courts do,” Agbakoba said.