Obasanjo in Yobe, hinges peace on equity
From Njadvara Musa,
Damaturu
FOR peace to reign among various ethnic and religious groups, including corporate organisations, there must be justice and equity in the country, President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared.
The President made the declaration yesterday while commissioning the Sharia Court Complex in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital.
The court complex, he said, will enhance and re-enforce, not only justice and equity, but also fairness to all the people in the state.
He, therefore, commended the Yobe State government for bringing justice to the door-step of` the common man, adding that the money expended on the court complex was well spent.
The court complex, according to him, will provide a comfortable and convenient office space for judicial officers who will serve the people in the state.
The President however, noted that for a judicial officer or judge to sit all day and listen to cases and adjudicate, he or she needed what he described as "the minimum level of comfort and convenience" to perform without fear or favour.
This, he explained, was what the state government was doing to the people. While commending the contractor for a job well done, he urged the judicial officers to consider the Sharia Court Complex as their own office building that will facilitate the dispensation of justice to the people.
This was the only way, he said, that the officers can utilise and maintain the court complex.
Obasanjo lamented the poor maintenance culture in the country, expressing fears that more buildings and other public office structures are run down, because Nigerians are yet to cultivate the culture of maintenance.
Meanwhile, he told Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim that one of the problems of maintaining public buildings and other structures was that "no provisions are made for the costs of maintenance."
Already, he disclosed that 70 per cent of the country's public buildings and structures have deteriorated due to lack of maintenance culture.
He said that the people are much more inclined to building new structures and offices rather than repairing and maintaining them.
Governor Ibrahim, in his remarks at the commissioning ceremony, said that the Sharia Court Complex had gulped N100 million from the state government.
Apart from the court complex, Ibrahim said there are three other office complexes awarded at the cost of N900 million, bringing the total costs of the new public buildings to N1 billion in the state.
The court complex, he said, has 21 offices with a chamber and a conference hall that could accommodate over 500 people.
On the dispensation of justice, he said that more Sharia courts would be set up in the state, adding that the main goal of government in building the court complex was to fully implement the Sharia legal system, which was introduced in 2000.`
