The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Lafia branch, said it would provide free legal services to the less-privileged prison inmates in Nasarawa State.
Mr Mudi Dikko, the association’s branch chairman, said this on Wednesday while addressing his members as part of activities to mark its 2016 Law Week in Lafia.
He said the association had also visited Lafia Prison and assigned 51 counsel to inmates who did not have money to hire the services of lawyers.
He said the step was necessitated by their desire to help in the quick dispensation of justice and to facilitate prisons’ decongestion in the state.
“When we visited Lafia Prison, we discovered that so many inmates did not have money to hire the services of lawyers, thereby, delaying the cause of justice in respect to their cases,” he said.
Dikko said the annual programme was to provide opportunities for members of the bar, bench and other judicial stakeholders to evaluate the happenings of the year.
“What we are doing on this occasion is to bring all stakeholders together to look at the challenges affecting the judicial system and proffer workable solutions to them,” he said.
He said that the judicial arm of government in the state was in control of its recurrent expenditure, but appealed to the state government for full financial autonomy.
The NBA chairman said the branch would not support any judge or lawyer involved in corruption and urged those with corrupt tendencies to desist.
Speaking, Shehu Usman, the Nasarawa State Commissioner for Justice, commended the bar for organising the programme adding that “it will help in improving the justice system in the state.’’
He said the state government would increase the budgetary allocation of the judiciary and build a befitting judicial complex in 2017.