By Ebere Agozie

The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), a civil society organisation, has reported that 30 per cent of Nigerians experience domestic violence, highlighting a significant gap in access to legal protection.

Ms Zainab Malik, Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor of the institute, made this known at a one-day conference titled `Implementing People-Centred Justice: The Nigerian Story’ in Abuja.

This finding, she said, comes from HiiL’s 2025 Justice Needs and Satisfaction (JNS) report.

The report also indicates that many Nigerians, despite facing such issues, are deterred from seeking justice through formal channels due to factors like cost, complexity, and distance. 

She said that the event was for coalition of stakeholders, from the judiciary, traditional institutions, civil society, government, and international partners, to explore data-driven pathways for making justice more accessible.

She also noted that in HiiL’s 2025 Justice Needs, Satisfaction (JNS) report, over 90 per cent of Nigerians experience at least one legal problem in a four-year period.

“Challenges such as domestic violence, land disputes, and employment conflicts continue to impact millions, many of whom lack clear pathways to resolution.

“While trust in the judiciary remains relatively high, barriers like cost, complexity, and distance drive people to informal channels, family networks, traditional leaders, and community negotiation.

“People are not asking for miracles. They’re asking for justice that works, justice that is fast, fair, effective, and affordable.

“The goal is clear: to ensure these conversations lead to tangible improvements in justice delivery,’’ she said.

Malik reaffirmed HiiL’s commitment to action, pledging to blend the insights and recommendations from the event.

Mr Adewole Adebayo, a legal practitioner, in his keynote address, challenged the audience to rethink assumptions, saying that justice is not the law.

Adebayo described justice as a pathway to tackle broader societal challenges such as poverty, corruption, and social exclusion.

“The law is merely a tool that can lead to justice or not, justice must reflect local realities, human dignity, and cultural context.

“A true just society may require better designed, not more, courtrooms’’.

Justice Olugboyega Ogunfowora of the Ogun  Judiciary, during the panel session, shared how his perspective to access to justice evolved through engagement with HiiL.

Ogunfowora said that he introduced Ibi Isadi, a justice hub embedded in health centres, reframing justice as a local, community-based service.

Magistrate Rebecca Kuwot Suku, one of the panellists, spoke about her award-winning innovation to reduce monetary disputes through basic contracts in local languages.

Suku emphasised the importance of non-digital, practical solutions and creating welcoming court environments for vulnerable populations.

From a different angle, Mr Michael Ikoku offered a deeply personal story of how his family’s experience of injustice, losing land and pensions without recourse, fuelled his determination to find community-based solutions.

Ikoku said he started with free radio-based dispute resolution programmes but is now championing the Community Justice Centre model supported by HiiL, becoming its first social impact investor in Nigeria.

Also speaking, Bashir Maidugu, a lawyer and Senior Special Assistant to the President, highlighted the need to reform legal language, increase accessibility, and ensure community-based justice complements the formal system.

He called for inclusive policies, especially for women and persons with disabilities.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that there were other panel sessions that included a tour of the People Centre Justice Booth Tour where participants engaged with the panellists.

It highlighted HiiL’s methodology, spanning data collection, innovation support, legal strategy, and guidelines development, and set the stage for collaborative breakout sessions.

The sessions brought together justices stakeholders to co-create practical recommendations around four key pillars: Guidelines, Justice Strategy, Innovation, and Data.

Rather than abstract brainstorming, participants focused on actionable priorities rooted in community needs and institutional realities.

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, had in his speech, emphasised that while the government holds constitutional responsibility for the welfare of its people, it cannot improve the justice sector in isolation.

Fagbemi was represented by Mr Fernandez Marcus-Obiene, the SSA to the President on Justice Sector Reform and ICT/Digital and Innovative Technology, Office of the Minister.

“It shows that the government alone cannot make things work. We need involvement of individuals and corporate organisations both local and international.

“One of the most significant things is implementation; let us all deliberately take action for good to improve our justice sector.

“Meaningful reform requires collective effort, from civil society organisations and traditional leaders to private sector partners and ordinary citizens, every actor has a role to play in translating policy into impact.’’ (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Sadiya Hamza

By Reporters

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s criminal justice system have advised state governors to be decisive in execution of condemned prisoners rather than continue to torture them in prison.

In a survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the failure to sign death warrants of condemned prisoners since the advent of civilian government in 1999, the stakeholders attributed the governors’ apathy in this regard to many factors including maintaining political correctness in order not to jeopardise their chances for re-election.

Some of the respondents, in interviews in Ogun, Oyo and Kwara States, also identified the dearth of professional hangmen or executioners for the high number of condemned persons languishing in the country’s Correctional Centres.

Mr Musibau Adetunbi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said that keeping convicted persons perpetually on death row was inhuman.

Adetunbi said that being kept on death row was mental torture for such a convict, hence it was necessary for governors to either sign their death warrants or convert it to life imprisonment.

“The moment the death sentence has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, every governor should be able to take a decision.

“Under the law, we have prerogative of mercy, which means that if you are not signing the death warrant, they can recommend to the governor to convert it to life imprisonment or outright pardon.

“Every governor should be able to take a decision on whether to sign the death warrant, pardon or convert to imprisonment, but it is unfair and inhuman to just keep people on death row,”Adetunbi said.

The lawyer said it would be improper to abolish the death sentence considering the way and manner some people commit crime in Nigeria.

He, however, suggested that the National Assembly could amend the constitution to replace death sentence to life imprisonment since the governors were unwilling to sign the death warrants.

Also, Mr Mutalubi Adebayo Ojo, a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Oyo State, argued that it would not be in the best interest of Nigeria to abolish the death sentence considering the various happenings in the society.

Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said that the death sentence was no longer applicable in some parts of the world and this may be why governors in Nigeria were not signing death warrants anymore.

“The only governor who I can remember signed one in the current democratic dispensation was Adams Oshiomole, when he was the governor of Edo.

“That action sparked a huge criticism from Nigerians, who condemned the pronouncement.

“In deciding whether the death sentence should be abolished or not, there must be stakeholders’ dialogue on weighing our options, that is, the advantage or disadvantage therein.

“On this issue, we don’t have to look at whether it is still fashionable at the world stage or not.

“Our decision on it must be based on what we face as a nation.

“For me, the death sentence should not be abolished based on our peculiar circumstance, there is crime everywhere and it must be dealt with,” he said.

However, Prof. Oludayo Tade, President, Nigeria Society for Criminology (NSC), attributed some governors refusal to sign death warrants to their belief in the sanctity of life and contention that every individual should be allowed to live out their natural lifespan.

“Once a dangerous offender has been removed from society through incarceration, some governors feel it is unnecessary and even excessive to proceed with execution,” he said.

Tade said that it was important to allow the legal process to be fully exhausted before any death warrant was signed.

“A death sentence may begin at the High Court, but could be overturned at the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, hence signing a death warrant prematurely, before all legal avenues have been exhausted, could amount to justice denied,” the don said.

On the deterrent effect of capital punishment, Tade recalled the military era when public executions were common.

“If we flash back to the military era, executions at places like Polo Ground or Bar Beach were openly displayed. Yet, in our democratic system, it has become more complex,” he said.

The criminologist further listed some factors that could act as constraints to a governor’s signing of death warrants such as the calibre of the convict, their social connections, and the lack of trained executioners.

“Depending on the crime committed, there are those who believe anyone can show signs of positive change after going through the correctional process.

“Such individuals may even be granted pardon eventually,” he noted.

According to him, the issue is not the ineffectiveness of the law itself, but rather the lack of enforcement and human commitment to drive the process.

“The law will not enforce itself. If those responsible for its implementation are not committed, it becomes ineffective.

“The problem is not about reviewing or abolishing the law, but about understanding why we have capital punishment and on the offences to which it should applied,” Tade said.

He also drew attention to perceived injustices within the justice system, particularly in corruption cases.

“People have argued: why not introduce capital punishment for those who have corruptly enriched themselves with the collective wealth of the nation?

“For example, someone who embezzles pension funds and deprives thousands of retirees of their livelihood can cause as much harm as a violent criminal.

“Yet, such individuals often get away with paying a small percentage of what they stole through plea bargains and even receive pardons,” he noted.

Also, a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Kwara State, Mr Salman Jawondo (SAN), has attributed the high number of condemned prisoners on death row to the scarcity of hangmen.

The former commissioner explained that nobody wants to be a hangman anymore in Nigeria.

Besides, Jawondo said that the legal process has made provision that anybody that is condemned to death has automatic right of Appeal up to the Supreme Courts.

He cited the recent case of AbdulRahman Bello who was found guilty of killing a final year student of the Kwara State College of Education, llorin, Hafsat, saying that the governor will not sign any death warrant while an appeal is pending.

He also cited the case of Bello vs Oyo State Government, where the condemned convict was executed and the family sued the governor.

According to him, Oyo State was asked to pay restitution to the family of Bello, because it had irreversibly truncated his right of appeal.

“So no governor will sign a death warrant immediately somebody is condemned because by the provision of the Constitution, a person condemned has a right to appeal within three months.

“The correctional system in Nigeria is not for vengeance. The target of the correctional provision is for reformation.

“It is not to take revenge, but to make people know that there are consequences for their actions,” he said.

Jawondo explained further that the system allows for a condemned convict to remain in prison subject to good behaviour.

“After some time, his sentence may be committed to life imprisonment.

“It is considered that instead of wasting life, ‘blood upon blood’, it is better to reform the individual.

“So if you spend some years in the Correctional Service and you are recommended for good behaviour, the death sentence can be reduced to life improvement,” he said.

Similarly, Prof. Abideen Olaiya, a lecturer at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, said majority of the governors in Nigeria fail to sign the death warrant because they were not fully prepared for governance.

Olaiya said that one of the major duties of governors was justice and maintenance of law and order, noting that most governors only focused on resource distribution and revenue generation.

The don said that the only way to establish justice in any community was to completely remove from the society whoever commits a violent crime as attested to by the Quran, Bible and local beliefs.

“Whoever is involved in any violent crime to the extent of killing a human being without any just cause should be killed,” he said.

Olaiya berated governors for not signing the death warrants on their desks and blamed this for the rise in violent crimes in Nigeria.

He said that abolishing or repealing the law on the death sentence would encourage and worsen criminality in Nigeria.

“We must put pressure on the governors rather than looking at the direction of repealing the death sentence,” he said. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Bayo Sekoni

By Edith Nwapi

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Taipei Trade Office in Nigeria have empowered 11 victims of human rights violations with cash.

The programme was organised by NHRC in collaboration with the Taipei Trade Office in Nigeria in Abuja.

Speaking, the Executive Secretary of NHRC, Dr Tony Ojukwu, SAN, stated that the commission’s mandate included social justice, inclusion and empowerment.

He said that the programme goes beyond donating material resources to those survivors of human rights violations, but to demonstrate that beyond legal service the commission could support those affected.

“A core part of this mandate includes providing assistance to victims of human rights violations including through legal support, psychological services and where possible empowerment initiatives such as this.

“It is our belief that justice does not end at acknowledgement it must be accompanied by restoration, dignity and opportunity.

“Your pain is acknowledged, your courage is celebrated, and your future holds promise.

“The programme is a steppingstone not the destination. You have shown strength in adversity and today we honour that strength by standing beside you, offering our hands in support,’’ he said.

Similarly, the Chief of Taiwanese Mission to Nigeria, Andy Yih-Ping Liu, who also serves as the Representative of the Taipei Trade Office in Nigeria, expressed joy for the collaboration.

He said although, there is no diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and Nigeria, there is an initiative to help in many areas.

He said economically and socially, Taiwan has been regarded as one of the most successful developing nations.

“We can help not just for economic development, but also for women empowerment, youth development, agricultural development and also for natural disaster prevention and early warning systems.

He said that Taiwan is a small Island probably seven times larger than Lagos.

Liu was proud to say that the illiteracy in Taiwan is less than 2 per cent with 98 per cent of the citizens literate.

“So, we have no Nigerian resources at all, you have everything that we don’t have.

“We have earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes in China. But not in here, probably you have rain and flood.

“But in Taiwan, we have much more of the suffering from the natural disaster than in Nigeria.

“How can we evolve into the best technology in the world? How can we hold ourselves to the quality of the technology? We are slowly accelerating the flow into education,” he said.

In their goodwill messages, the Founder of Thelma Lion Foundation, Dr Ifeoma Agu and Dorothy Njamanze of Dorothy Njamanze Foundation, expressed their joy and commended the two groups for their interest in assisting human rights abuse survivors.

Agu supported the programme with N100,000 token.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of certificates and cash award to the beneficiaries.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that nine persons received N100,000 each while two received N50,000 each, making it a total of N1million. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Edited by Francis Onyeukwu