The Lagos State House of Assembly and the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission have made moves to “establish an agency to protect victims who have suffered any injury, harm or disability, whether physical, mental or emotional.”
According to a statement, this was disclosed during a public hearing on ‘A Bill for a Law to Provide for the Rights and Entitlement of Victims and Protection of Witnesses and for Other Connected Purposes’.
The Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Public Petitions, Victor Akande, in his remarks, said the House was passionate about the welfare of the citizenry as part of its priority and the quest to create a system that catered for the victims of crimes and protected witnesses.
The Deputy Speaker, Wasi Eshinlokun-Sanni, who presided over the hearing on behalf of the Speaker, Dr Mudashiru Obasa, stated that the bill sought to traverse the state to the comity of nations with indefectible criminal systems, pointing a clear nexus between the criminal system of a state, crime rate and security of lives and properties.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, was said to have appealed to the House to devise a means of publishing the bill on social media for easy access, property under investigation which takes forever to be released to the owner after providing proof of evidence.
In response to the concerns raised on some clauses in the bill, Eshinlokun-Sanni assured the stakeholders and the public that the bill would include the aggregate of the submissions of stakeholders.
