BY FRANCIS IWUCHUKWU
As a result of an almost eight-hour power outage, activities at the Federal High Court (FHC) sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos State, Nigeria, were on Wednesday crippled.
It was observed that the Lagos FHC was in a state of darkness from about 8am, and that the court’s authorities could not help the situation on the reason that the two generators which supply backup electricity were faulty and undergoing repairs.
An official of the court who does not want to be mentioned explained that efforts were on to get both generators working.
The commencement/resumption of proceedings at the court could not proceed as a result of the outage which left lawyers, litigants and court officials frustrated.
In fact, one of the lawyers affected is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Folabi Kuti.
According to the SAN, “We attended court with the settled expectation of having our matter heard. We got there at about 8am-8:30am and noticed that there was no electricity.
“We made enquiries if at some point the generators would come on, and we were assured that the two generators that power the entire Federal High Court premises were under repairs or being serviced and that hopefully by 9am or thereabouts they would be able to restore power.
“But we stayed there till about 10:30am and when it looked like that was not going to happen, that’s when I had to leave for another matter elsewhere and had my colleagues stay back.
“The report I got from him about two hours later was that there was still no light.”
The senior lawyer described the situation as worrisome. He said: “It is worrisome and this is one of the things that slow down the already slow pace of justice delivery in our clime.
“Clearly, there cannot be any activity; judges cannot sit when the room is not illuminated and there is no fan or air conditioner, there is also the discomfort that the situation would bring on the lawyers and others within the courtroom.
“So, it’s quite worrisome and brings to the fore again the issue of judicial financial autonomy.
“Its just sad that this could happen at the Federal High Court. We hope that some day, pretty soon, all of this would be a thing of the past.”
As of 3:50pm, the power was yet to be restored.
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