Accept new legal order, Centre urges Adamawa stakeholders
By Ibrahim Mohammed
The Law Hub Development and Advocacy Centre has called on Adamawa stakeholders on Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) to depart from the old legal order and get ready to accept the new order.
Mr Osita Chukwuma, the Executive Director of the law centre, made the appeal during an assessment of the implementation of Adamawa ACJL with support from MacArthur Foundation yesterday in Yola.
Chukwuma, who was represented by Mr. Joshua Dada, the centre’s Project Moderator, said “the advent of the ACJL in Adamawa has done away with the old order under the CPC and all other archaic and barbaric practices associated with it.
“Let us accept the ACJL with its innovations, let us accept the rules made pursuant to it and let us accept with open arms the changes that would begin to emerge by virtue of this ACJL and its rules”.
Chukwuma said the Law centre wants to know what aspects of the law have so far been implemented and what challenges it had experienced with its implementation.
He further said that the centre also wants to know what sections of the law were not been implemented and the challenges been experienced with implementing the said sections.
Adamawa Chief Judge, Justice Hapsat Abdulrahman, described the seminar as timely and urged the centre to extend the same gesture at local government level for magistrates and lawyers to be fully sensitised.
Abdulrahman, represented by Justice Felix Nzarga, assured that the door of the judiciary is always open for them toward successful implementation of ACJL in the state.
Mr. Afraimu Jingi, the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, said there were challenges recorded during the implementation of the ACJL in the state.
Jingi, who was represented by the Solicitor General of the State, Mr. Samuel Yaumande, appreciated the centre for the workshop and prayed for workable solutions to the problem at the end of the training.
“I hope the speakers will do justice to it, particularly Section 108, which gives the prosecutorial powers to a qualified legal practitioners.
“But if you go to Section 114, it introduced the issue of FRI which allows non-legal practitioners to prosecute, so there is a contradiction,” he said.
He urged the participants to actively participate and step down the knowledge acquired to other stakeholders.
