Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the Electoral Bill now in process is a testament to the administration’s commitment towards improving Nigeria’s electoral process.
Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, said in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, that the vice president declared this while opening the 53rd Conference of the National Association of Law Teachers.
The conference, with the theme, “Law, Democracy and the Electoral Process”, was held at Bayero University, Kano (BUK).
He said that democracy and social justice were vital structures required for nation-building because the pursuit of justice laid at the heart of the quest for a better society.
According to him, the legal profession must maintain its integrity and ethos as it is one of the pivots civilisation rests upon.
Osinbajo said that democracy and social justice were closely linked.
“Our society must be governed by the rule of law and not the whim of man.
“As law teachers and legal practitioners, we are custodians of this truth.
” However, democracy cannot endure without social justice,” he said, noting that “the pursuit of justice lies at the heart of the quest for the good of society.
“This makes the legal profession one of the cardinal vocations upon which civilisation rests; indeed, the law is an instrument of pacific social engineering, the end of which is justice.
“When it is rooted in this postulate, it follows that the law and therefore democracy, are meant to serve beneficial social ends.
“A society in which an increasing number of people consider themselves alienated from legal institutions or perceive these legal institutions to be incapable of delivering justice for all cannot be stable and prosperous.”
The vice president said that without social justice, legal justice was ultimately unattainable. According to him, social justice also refers to the social and economic rights of the people.
He said these rights, according to the Constitution, included the right to food, shelter, employment, education and a reasonable national minimum living wage, care for the elderly, pensions, unemployment benefits and welfare for the physically challenged.
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“The degree to which citizens are in possession of their social and economic rights has a direct impact on the degree of their access to legal services and, thence, to justice.
“Our concern as teachers and practitioners of the law, therefore, must extend beyond the courtroom, beyond the precincts of our legal institutions, to the social reality in which these structures exist.
“Many of our institutions are still in their infancy, and we must carefully guide them into maturity; we recognise that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
“The Electoral Bill now in process is testament to the administration’s commitment towards improving Nigeria’s electoral process.
“The Bill itself has been the subject of robust engagement between the government and civil society.
“While some have expressed reservations about the time it is taking to enact the new law, we should remember that a truly inclusive democratic, deliberative process often takes time.
“I am confident that the legislation that emerges will be one that reflects a broad consensus between all the stakeholders,” he said.
The vice president, afterwards, paid a condolence visit to the family of the kidnapped and murdered Kano pupil, Hanifa Abubakar, at Yankaba, Dakata Junction, off Hadejia road, Kano.
Osinbajo, who was accompanied by Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, some members of the National Assembly, including Sen. Kabiru Gaya, among others, were received at the residence of the slain schoolgirl, by her father, Alhaji Abubakar Abdulsalam. During the visit, prayers were offered for the deceased.
The vice president expressed condolences on behalf of the President Muhammadu Buhari, himself to the family, especially the deceased’s mother, Murjanatu, and the father.
Responding, Abubakar expressed gratitude to the president and the vice president for the visit and the condolences to his family over the killing of his daughter.
Abubakar described Osinbajo’s visit as an honour to his entire family and prayed for God’s blessings on the president, the vice president and for peace in the country.
“I am rather speechless, I don’t have enough words to quantify my joy and gratitude over the visit of the vice president to my family to condole me.
“As I told him, it should be the other way round, the vice president is our father; we are supposed to go and pay him a visit, not him coming to us.
“However, I am grateful, I am sincerely honoured.
” The only thing I will say is to pray for him and the entire nation, that peace will reign,” he said.
