By Fortune Eromosele, Abuja

Presidential aspirant under the platform of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Adewole Adebayo, has said the Nigerian legal system has been designed in a way to limit access to justice.

Adebayo stated this when a delegation of the Hague Institute for Innovation, HiiL, led by Country Representative, Ijeoma Nwafor, visited the Queen Lillian, in Abuja.

He lamented that most cases in court have to spend 15 years just to determine whether a defendant is innocent or guilty, saying that Nigeria needs help in access to justice.

“Much of the legal system is designed and defined to limit access to legal justice. Justice is an ideal. Justice is a cosmology because it is an ecosystem around everything that we do. The way we fight for our environment to be clean that is the same way we should fight for our justice system in Nigeria.

“I can tell you ladies and gentlemen of HiiL that we need help in our access to Justice. People in my society don’t have access to Justice and at a point, you will begin to lose a sense of entitlement to justice.

“Sometimes we spend 20 years in court litigation, on two paragraphs agreement we spend 15 years determining whether someone is innocent or not.

“It is not working for us, not only is it not working for us but I believe that Nigeria would be the most successful country for you in all your travels because the need for Justice in our country is our sole responsibility. Its presence will build peace and development.

“We will be on the path to development when Justice is so common and is within and around us and I hope for the time you will use us as a good example for many countries of the world,” he said.

Speaking also, Founding Director, HiiL, Dr Samuel Muller, said about 5.1 billion people in the world do not have access to justice, which he said accounts for a two-third of the world’s population, adding that about one billion people do not have a resolution for a civil administrative or criminal case.

“That’s an eighth percent of the population. When you look at our data, generally people who have justice problems only about 30 percent of them get resolution, two-thirds are still walking around with the problem.

“So there’s a whole set off people, I like to call them the 95 percent. The 95 percent doesn’t go to court, but it is still walking around in that group.

“And the last thing we found was pretty staggering. I have actually begun to make that part of a standard question. I ask when I meet Ministers of Justice in the world, who is the minister for the prevention of justice problems in your country?

“The answer I always get is nobody. We only deal with cases once they’re there. That’s what the whole system is for,” he said.