NBA Seeks More Justices for Appeal Court

Davidson Iriekpen

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Thursday called for the appointment of more justices for the Court of Appeal to ensure that serving ones do not continue to be overworked.

The NBA also advocated an amendment to the Court of Appeal Act to allow a division of the court has a minimum of six Justices at a time.

Its President, Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN), said these while speaking in Abuja at a valedictory court session held in honour of the retiring President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bukalchuwa, who turns 70 today (Friday).

Usoro hailed Justice Bulkachuwa’s contribution to the Judiciary and the effective manner she managed her court as the president.

“The NBA calls for the immediate appointment of additional Justices of the Court of Appeal, not just for the extremely busy divisions.

“To pave the way for those appointments, we call for a concomitant amendment of the provisions of the Court of Appeal Act to allow for the appointment of sufficient number of Justices that would ensure that no division of the Court of Appeal would have less than six Justices posted thereto and the particularly overworked and overloaded divisions like Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt would have no less than 10 to 15 Justices posted thereto,” Usoro said.