Ajibola: Attorneys-General should serve in election tribunals

Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice of the federation and of the states across the country should henceforth be allowed to sit as judges in election petitions, former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Prince Bola Ajibola said in Abuja yesterday.Prince Ajibola, who made the call while chairing the 15th Annual Daily Trust Dialogue with the themeNigeria and the challenges of 2019 said such practice will be in consonance with the laws of the country.

He said Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice should however be moved around to handle election petition cases in states other their own. He said, “The Federal Government should allow the Attorneys-General and Commissioners of Justice in all states to handle as judges the cases of election petition by moving around the states, come 2019 so that none will preside over matters in his own state and will definitely serve in another state either jointly with a panel or alone.” He said such a system will help to deepen the nation’s democracy. 

Ajibola, who is a former judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, dwelt on the legal and judicial aspects of the 2019 elections and also called for an amendment to the constitution.He said paragraph 2 of Section 150 of the constitution which states that “a person shall not be qualified to hold or perform the function of the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation unless he is qualified to practice as a legal practitioner and has been so qualified for not less than 10 years” should be amended. In its place he said, “Instead of 10 years, we now need to replace it with Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). We have so many of them now and they are competent to handle this service.”

The former Attorney General, who is also a SAN, lamented that though Section 174 (3) of the constitution states that “in exercising his powers under this section, the Attorney-General of the Federation shall have regard to the public interest, the interest of justice and the need to prevent abuse of legal process,’’ not much attention is being paid to that provision at the moment. He harped on the need for the Attorney-General of the Federation and his counterparts in the states to respect public interest.

Prince Ajibola, who is the proprietor of Crescent University, Abeokuta also commended the chairman and management of Media Trust Limited for the giant strides the company has made in recent years which led to improved visibility of the newspaper across the country. He urged the company to maintain the tempo and also sustain its efforts at nation building.