Why govt plans to relocate NBA House from High Court premises – Kwara AG

Attorney-General and Kwara State Commissioner for Justice, Barrister Salman Jawondo graduated from the University of Lagos in 1989 and proceeded to the Law school before he was subsequently called to the Nigerian bar in 1990. He had his compulsory NYSC programme in Rivers State between 1991-2 and practised with Ismail Sadiq and Alhaji Salman Alarape (SAN) upon his return to Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. In 2005, Jawondo established his law firm, Salman Jawondo & Co. In this telephone interview with ACTING EDITOR, MUMINI ABDULKAREEM, he speaks on the planned relocation of the Ilorin NBA House among other sundry issues. Excerpts:
Some lawyers have complained that the location of the NBA House inside the high court complex is improper. What is your take on this?
In the first instance, there is nothing abnormal about having the NBA House within the court premises. One of the functions of the NBA House is to serve as quick reference centre so that you have a place where you can resort to, which explains why the library centre is there for research proposes among other things. There is also the business centre which lawyers can make use of while their case is yet to commence for example. So, it should not be part of the judiciary. But to have a bigger bar house that will have some other facilities like lawn tennis, bar and restaurant like we have in other jurisdictions like Port Harcourt, the NBA and the government will work on that. However, there is nothing abnormal about the bar centre located in the premises of the high court complex.
There is this complain that lawyers especially executives of the NBA could not access the complex during the lockdown which would not have been so if it was located outside the high court.
You are not supposed to have your properties there as a lawyer because that is supposed to be the NBA secretariat. The only thing that the lawyers can complain of not having access to is either the library or the business centre. But the lockdown affected everybody and so I wouldn’t know what the complaints are all about because even some of the offices of private lawyers where not opened until the lockdown was relaxed.
Are there any concrete plans towards the relocation of the NBA House away from the High Court Premises?
There are plans to have a bigger NBA House that will even serve as a revenue generating venture for the Ilorin bar. Although the plan has been on, I want to believe that this government will do something about it at least in finding a place for the NBA and there is already a paper work done on it that the NBA will work with a developer to develop in line with the NBA plans which will first be leased out for some period and then returned. That is if the NBA cannot on its own raise the money to build it. But it has not come to fruition. With the present executive and the ministry, we will try to see how we can go about it and make it one of those things to be delivered by the present government to NBA.
The last time, your office said the stand alone office for the Ministry of Justice will soon commence and that progress has been made on it. What is still delaying the commencement of the edifice by the government since it’s already included in the budget?
The project is one of those things we met and we think it will come to fruition as one of the legacy projects that the current administration is trying to deliver. Today, what we have now is that we have been able to identify a land that will be sufficient for the edifice besides the NUJ building along Offa road. If not for the Covid-19 pandemic, something would have started this year but because of the contagion, all capital projects including the building of the Ministry of Justice had to be suspended. By the grace of God next year, the project is now on the proposed budget estimates and as soon as the budget is passed, something will start.