The Nigerian Law Reform Commission (NLRC) yesterday in Abuja brainstormed over the Public Officers Protection Act which forbids the filing of cases against public officers and institutions after three months from when the cause of the action arose.
Acting Chairman of the commission, Mr Kefas Magaji made the remarks at a workshop on the reform on the Public Officers Protection Act in Abuja yesterday.
He said that the law made for the British colonialists and had no justification in a democratic society stressing the law was almost as old as Nigeria.
According to him, by September 21, 2016 the Act will be exactly 100 years since its enactment.
Magaji said that the law which was an offshoot of the Public Authorities Protection Act of 1893 which applied to Nigeria as a statute of general application until its enactment in 1916, no longer existed in England from where it was adapted.
He said: “The commission strongly believes that there is no justification for continuing application of this law in a democratic dispensation as such has made a proposal in this reform exercise for the repeal of the Act.”
He noted that the social, political, educational and economic environment under which the law was ýmade in 1916, were quite different from the position in Nigeria today.
Also, a justice of the Court of Appeal, Abubakar Datti Yahaya who represented the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwaý said the time had come to take a serious look not only at the Public Officers Protection Act but also at other laws that were no longer useful to Nigerians.
Former Chairman of the commission, Professor Oserheimen Osunbor also supported the removal of the law from Nigeria’s statute books.
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