BY SIMON  EBEGBULEM

BENIN—THE Executive Director of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, Reverend David Ugolor, has called for a law backing the establishment of a Public Defender Unit recently announced by Edo State Government.

He also announced a yearly award of N200,000 to the best investigative journalist of the year in the state, saying the award was in recognition of the efforts of journalists in the state in the fight for justice.

It will be recalled that following what he described as illegal detention by the police over the murder of the Principal Private Secretary to Governor Adams Oshiomhole, Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde, the governor  had announced plans by the state government to set up a Public Defender Unit, with a view to providing free legal aid to victims of human rights abuses.

However, Ugolor, who was released on the orders of the High Court in Benin, after it described his detention as illegal, said, when the leadership of Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, in the state, led by Mr. Tunde Eigbiremolen, paid him a courtesy visit, that his six weeks detention in three different prisons in the country gave him the impression that the poor masses of the country might suffer more in the hands of the police if they were unable to get access to free legal aid.