Law School Interns Condemn Courts Closure In Rivers

Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba (left), with DIG, Logistics and Supply, Mr Mamman Tsafe, at a meeting with senior police officers in Abuja recently.

Students of the Nigerian
Law School currently doing courts and chamber attachment in Rivers State, have condemned the continuous closure of courts, describing it as counter-productive.
Speaking with The Tide in Port Harcourt recently, a student of the Nigerian Law School, Bayelsa Campus, Mr. Chinonye Okoha noted that the closure of courts in Rivers State had done a lot of havoc to interns as they did not have access to the state courts, library among other facilities in the judiciary.
According to him, “the rule of law cannot be sustained when the courts are closed. In the absence of the courts, jungle justice and the rule of self-help prevail.”
Mr. Okoha stated the closure of courts as a result of the politicisation of the position of the Chief Judge of the state had impacted heavily on the people of the state.
He said everybody was a victim of the ugly situation in the state.
“Litigants, suspects lawyers, businessmen and the entire society are victims.
He said the closure of the courts had made the police to dabble into areas that were the exclusive preserves of the courts.
He called on the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, Rivers State branch to go back to work as their industrial action had impacted heavily on the state.
Also speaking, another law school intern, Mr. Douglas Omenohia, noted that the closure of the courts was reminiscent of the period of the Dark Ages in Europe.
He said while the courts remained closed, there was an oblique reference to self-help.
Mr. Omenohia explained that the present crop of law school interns in the state had suffered setback as a result of the status quo.
He warned political gladiators in the state to allow the country’s democracy to thrive on the principles of the rule of law.
The law school student remarked that no state or country could sustain its democracy without the principle of the rule of law as interpreted by the courts.

Chidi Enyie