Fawaz Adebisi

Staff members of Ikeja High Court, Lagos Judiciary have landed at the Orile Agege general hospital after men of the state Task Force mistakenly threw teargas into the judiciary staff bus conveying them.

The incident happened on on Monday at Ile-ipo after Abule-egba when the workers were onboarding the state judiciary staff bus.

According to a witness who spoke with Freedom Times, the Task Force men were controlling herders who have their cows and rams on the road.

“They wanted to clear the road, so they were throwing tear gas, so it mistakenly entered our bus, many of us are injured and in the hospital right now,” the witness said.

However, as of the time of filing this report, some of the workers have received treatment and have the discharged.

Also, the force has not made any statement yet to this regard.

In a shocking turn of an event, the public and private development centre, a non-government organisation, (NGO) has revealed that over 53,000 inmates are awaiting trials across the 253 Correctional Centres in the country.

The non-governmental organisation, who hosted over 20 civil society organisations in Yola, the state capital to discuss the way forward on the huge number of inmates awaiting trials in correctional centres, disclosed this in a statement signed by the Head of Communication and Knowledge Management, Munachi Okoro.

Okoro stated, “The growing number of pretrial detainees, many held for years without trial under dire conditions, poses significant human rights concerns, overwhelming the justice system and correctional facilities.”

The statement added that the meeting will focus on communication strategies, resource management, and collaboration problem solving techniques for pro bono legal services.

Also, speaking at the meeting with the CSOs in Yola, the programme assistant of the centre, Hauwa Yusuf, said that the reforming of the pretrial detention in Nigeria phase ll project is supported by the US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The Adamawa State Programme Officer Barr. Fatima Bello, while speaking on the overall objectives of the PPDC project, said that the project aimed at deploying over 370 law clinicians and 50 pro bono lawyers to provide legal representation to 1,750 detainees annually.

According to Bello, this will reduce the pretrial population, and it will strengthen Nigeria’s criminal justice system.

Furthermore, she added, “The project aims to support collective efforts towards achieving a reduction in awaiting trial inmates for which more than 70 per cent of those in correctional facilities across Nigeria are awaiting trial.”

However, Bello pointed out that the court administration and case management project is aimed at improving capacity to reduce the challenges in the justice sector.

“The CACM project focuses on addressing the gaps in structures for case management in the courts which are weak or absent in some cases, and for which there are no document backup systems in place,” he stated.

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Fawaz Adebisi

The Chief Imam of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon Abdulhakeem Abdulmajeed, popularly known as Hon Iyepe has said that lack of submission to Allah’s will is the reason for Nigeria’s suffering.

Hon Iyepe made this statement on Wednesday at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, MAPOLY during the Faith Assurance Gathering, FAG organized by the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, MSSN.

Speaking on the theme, Discovering My Faith, and title; My Story of Connection, Contribution and Change, he denoted that lack of submission and being obedient to the Almighty is equivalent to being ungrateful.

In his words, being ungrateful is the greatest sin to Allah (S.W.T), clarifying that ungratefulness births Shirk, associating a partner with HIM.

He said, “Nigeria is suffering today because of a sin, a sin that made Allah destroy a nation with hunger and insecurity.

“That sin is being ungrateful and without being submissive to Him, without obeying Him, we can’t appreciate Him, and that’s why you see many prostrating to stick, irons, images/portraits and many more.

“It’s only when you know there’s only one God you won’t have to bow to another god, being ungrateful leads Shirk.”

In the same vein, Hon Iyepe stressed the need to be humble.

Dwelling on the theme, he explained how human beings came from dust and would return to dust.

Urging students to thread softly, he stated, “you came from sand, build from sand, eat from sand, wear from sand, walk on sand and will return to sand.

“Everything taken from sand shall return to sand, this is Allah’s promise to sand during the first creation of Adam. So why not? We should be humble.”

He also added that Allah has cursed whoever is arrogant in the Quran.

He therefore urged Muslim students to be grateful to their Lord by being submissive totally to Him.

He also urged them to learn Arabic for easy understanding of the Quran, preach Islam and obey the words of Allah for better living in this world.