The Deplorable State Of The Benue State Ministry Of Justice

The Ministry of Justice, Benue state has over 90 lawyers among its staff. The ministry has three area chambers or offices namely in Katsina Ala, Gboko and Otukpo local government areas. The headquarters of the ministry is situated in Makurdi.

The infrastructure decay in the ministry is alarming. Apart from that, lawyers lack adequate facilities and tools to enable them carry out their duties effectively. Lack of office stationeries and computers, photocopiers and printers is common place in the ministry, both at its head office and all the area offices.

Lawyers resort to preparing official documents on their personal computers or at business centers and print or make copies of the documents from their own salaries which unfortunately in recent times is not even been paid up to date. In the few instances where lawyers are able to print in any of the Director’s office where there is a printer, the lawyer brings the paper to be used for printing. The ministry’s library at the head office meant to aid the lawyer’s in carrying out research is dilapidated and stocked with very few old books.

At the head office, apart from the block containing the office of the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General of Benue State, the Permanent Secretary and four out of the 5 directors in the ministry, all other offices do not befit that of a lawyer or indeed any civil servant who is expected to give his best to the service. Only the aforementioned block containing the office of Commissioner, Perm. Sec. etc. has conveniences. All the other lawyers at the head office are supposed to use a public convenience or urinary which is in a terrible state of disrepair such that lawyers resort to urinating at the backyard of their offices. At the area offices they do not have a urinary or convenience.

The former Governor of the state, Torwua Suswam, during his tenure promised to renovate the head office of the ministry and even did a foundation laying ceremony and erected a blue print which was placed in the ministry for all to see. However, after the pomp and pageantry of the foundation laying ceremony, nothing was ever done!

However in recent days renovation work has started at head office if the ministry in Makurdi, it is hereby requested that the renovation work should be extended to all the area chambers of the ministry as well. Attached are some snap shots of the head office before the renovation started. Included also are photos of Gboko and Otukpo area offices, which are in dire need of renovation too.

The story above is the one storey block office reserved for top management lawyers/officers in the ministry, while the ‘rank and file’ lawyers are left with terrible infrastructure and offices.

The lack of a good working condition and lack office supplies and litigation fund makes the work of lawyers and other staff of the ministry extra difficult. To some private lawyers representing accused persons in court against ministry of justice lawyers they think the state lawyers are lazy or unserious when they come to court to ask for adjournment probably because the accused person could not be arraigned in court by prison officials who are in custody of accused persons remanded in prison or failure to serve the charge on the accused person in still in remand. In some instances these challenges and difficulties faced by state lawyers lead to their cases been struck out by the court because of lack of diligent prosecution which mostly is not the state lawyers fault but the fault of the system.

In Benue state for e.g. it is the state lawyer that ‘mobilizes’ (code word for payment or bribe made to bailiff or court clerk to do what he is paid by government to do) the court bailiff or registry staff of the ministry to serve charges on accused persons in remand at the federal prisons. It is the state lawyer that sometimes pays the police IPO; who is to testify in a case on behalf the prosecution (state). In some cases accused persons have been left off the hook when there cases were struck out because the state lawyer was unable to pay police IPO to come and testify and after numerous adjournments courts would be left with no choice than to either close the case for prosecution or strike it out the case.

Below is the Pictures