Power failure: Ikeja High Court conducts proceedings with torchlight

Majority of judges in Ikeja division of the Lagos State High Court, yesterday, conducted their proceedings in darkness due to persistent power outage.
As early as 9.00 a.m, lawyers and litigants, who prepared to conduct their cases, were disappointed as several of the judges, particularly those in the new big building, could not sit. Vanguard observed that the persistent power outage in the court in the past one week got to its peak, because the courts could not initially sit until about 11 am when one of the power generating sets for the building was switched on. Thirty minutes after the power was brought back, the generating set went off, prompting some of the judges to stall their proceedings. Judges who were conducting their cases, however, opted to continue proceedings with torchlights to conclude their cases. Vanguard observed that one of the judges, Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo, continued proceedings with a torchlight to avoid disruption. Lawyers who were in the court were not left out as they were forced to use lights from their phones since the courtroom was in darkness. Justice Onigbanjo, however, rose about 10 minutes after he was unable to continue with the proceedings. At Justice Kudirat Jose’s court, where the bail application for Lagos lawyer, Mr Fred Ajudua, was billed to be heard, the judge conducted part of her court proceedings in darkness for about five minutes before stepping out of the bench to her chambers, while all cases before her were adjourned. At press time, all the courtrooms were still in darkness. Efforts to get reactions from the High Court Chief Registrar proved abortive as our correspondent was told she was busy. A senior official of the court who refused to be named told our correspondent that the court premises had since been cut off from power supply. The official said the court took the decision following huge bills for the court even when there was no electricity supply for weeks. The official also said the two generating sets in the court had been faulty in the past one month.