Legal Aid Council to establish 774 legal Aid centers in all LGA’s in Nigeria
By Punarimam Fehintola
The Legal Aid Council has said it will establish 774 legal centers across all the local government areas of Nigeria to provide free access to legal aid to indigent in the society.
The Director General Aliyu Bagudu Abubakar said no one deserve to go to prison without getting an opportunity to a lawyer that will come to their defense.” People will always have conflict with the law but investigation should be done before arrest in so many cases the reverse is the case”.
The DG of the Legal Aid Council Aliyu Bagudu Abubakar disclosed this during an interview with daily dispatch news papers in Abuja.
He further stated that 80% of people in LGA’s are illiterate or semi illiterate who don’t know their rights “ they don’t know anything about the law until they have conflict with the law ,they don’t realize what the law says ,they don’t know tgat they access free legal service”.
Abubakar also added that Nigerians should realize that they can relay on legal aid council especially as the law stipulates that no Nigerian should be held for certain number of hours without taking to court “no government agency even the DSS has the right to keep you in custody except what you did borders on national security even to that extent they’re suppose to charge you to court”.
The DG further stated that 70% of Nigerians in prison have no business being there “ for these people to be in prison without trial means that one government agency is not doing something right . There is no bigger tragedy in life than a person taking to prison. For your right to be infringed or trampled upon and you’re incarcerated is not suppose to be’.
Abubakar while speaking assured Nigerians that the legal Aid council will continue to give its best but also urged federal government to increase its funding and ensure the budgetary allocation comes early so that the council can met its mandates of providing free legal service to the Nigerian people.
