Nigerian Law Reform Commission recently had a workshop on the Labour Act, what is the outcome of the workshop?
After the workshop, we had an in-house look of some of the positions that were reached at the conference. We finally came up with the draft of the law. By the law establishing the Commission, whatever proposal we have, we submit it to the Attorney-General of the Federation and our report is ready. The challenge we have has to do with funding. When we complete a draft, we have to submit to some stakeholders, including some faculties of law, who have to look at it for the purpose of teaching. We also give other private lawyers to see the issues.
What have you been doing in the last one year in terms of your function?
We had workshops last year, between November and December and our reports are ready. Reform projects are capital projects. We have to consult experts to look at what we have done. We need to send them to experts and invite stakeholders to look at the proposal which would now form the basis of the workshop we would have.
How far has the law been able to protect the rights of women and children, particularly in the Northern part of the country?
We have just one Constitution in Nigeria which binds the North and the South, East and West. The Constitution provides rights for Nigerians. So these rights adequately protect Nigerians and non-Nigerians in Nigeria. We don’t have separate law that protects women in the North and a law that protects women in the South and children. You know we have the Child Right Act which provides for the right of children. Now we have a federal legislation but it operates in the FCT. That law makes allowance for states that may want to domesticate it. Some states have done so, some have not and the reason is simple. The definition of who is a child ranges from one community to the other and the Child Right Act provides for age 18 but some states have now tried to reduce it to 16.
It appears that women’s right are more protected in the South, than in the North.
There are cultural differences and some of these cultural differences cannot be reduced into law. If you reduce them into law, you would create more problems. So you have the basic law and your culture refines the issues.
If you look at the Electoral Act, it did not provide for either women in the South to participate in politics or women in the North. The Electoral Act provides for Nigerians to participate in politics-man, woman, young or old. But in the North, some will bring religion. For instance, if you have women in politics and the local man who is the voter says, I would not vote a woman because I don’t want a woman to be my leader, you can’t regulate this situation using law. You do that by public enlightenment and make people value some of these things.
Is it right to target a particular law at a particular set of people?
It’s not always right to make legislations and target certain people. The law should target acts, not people. When I say acts, I mean actions or omissions. The law should target acts because you could discover there are indigenes of Ekiti who could also be rearing cattle. When the law targets people, it looks like there’s something. The law should target actions or omissions so that anybody who engages in that action should be caught up by the law.
What is your reaction to the cattle grazing law in Ekiti State?
I have not really read it and I would not want to comment on that for the time being.
To what extent have you been able to meet the mandate of the commission?
Our mandate is essentially to reform laws of the federation. We are part of the executive arm, which means we are to reform laws that the executive would want reformed. The executive is represented, when it comes to law making, by AGF because he is the custodian of the law? So traditionally, it is the AGF who should refer laws to the NLRC for reform because it is the executive that implements the law. The executive, in course of implementing the law, sees some challenges. The NLRC reforms laws on behalf of the executive and sends to legislature for enactment.
Is the NLRC a rubber stamp of the executive?
Not a rubber stamp, we do assignment for the executive. We also come up with proposals for reform of the law.
What is hindering the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)?
There are so many laws in the petroleum industry. By my last count, the laws and regulations that we have in the petroleum industry are over 62. The idea behind the PIB was to bring in all these laws together into a single document so that anybody who is going to petroleum industry will have an idea about the laws regulating the industry. When the idea of PIB came up, one of the challenges we had was that some industry interests object to the idea of bringing companies existing individually under an umbrella. We discovered that the fight against this single document became enormous. The recent thinking has been that instead of having a single document, let’s split into two, three components and that is why there has been a call to have about two, three, four or five. Recently the Senate spokesman said that on their return, they would visit the PIB because they have been having a lot of challenges in the area dealing with host communities. Therefore there will be host community component, and other components. Then you would be able to have their passage with ease. If we really want to trash out the PIB, the first thing to start with is the host community issues. Lord Denis will say, you can’t put something on nothing and expect it to stand.
