Oyo Has No Infrastructure For Virtual Court Proceedings ― CJ, Justice Abimbola

The Chief Judge of Oyo State, Justice Munta Abimbola, says the state has no infrastructure in place for virtual court proceedings.

Abimbola disclosed this while speaking on the effect of COVID-19 on the state judiciary in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Sunday.

He spoke at the sideline of the inauguration of the Family Court in Ibadan, saying that COVID-19 pandemic has affected the conduct of court proceedings in the state.

“It is not possible to conduct virtual court proceedings in the stat because there is no infrastructure on ground that is ICT compliance.

“We don’t have any infrastructure that will make virtual court proceedings possible in the state but we make use of other procedures so as to open the court during this COVID-19,” he said.

Abimbola said that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic had compelled the court to restrict the number of people coming into the courtroom for the safety of not only the court users but to the court adjudicators.

“What we did was to leave the court open during the COVID-19 lockdown and some judges including myself were sitting and giving different time for parties to appear in court.

“Lawyers were informed to come with a very limited number of parties involved in a matter.

“This reduced the number of litigants coming into the courtroom at any point in time.

“Matters that are very urgent like motions, enforcement of fundamental human rights cases, bail of custody application were given attention during this period,” Abimbola said.