He noted that the change was prompted by time limits that were placed on election petitions and asked that such time limits be extended to criminal and civil cases in court.
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the slow pace of court trials in Nigeria was one of the areas that must be urgently reformed for the sustenance of law and order.
Speaking at the 60th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, Buhari, who recalled how it took so long for the courts to decide and eventually dismiss the election petitions he filed to challenge his losses in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 presidential polls, declared that the Nigerian justice system needed urgent reform.
The President, who was represented by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, at the conference, said the situation changed when his own victory after the 2019 election was challenged and took just over six months to conclude.
He noted that the change was prompted by time limits that were placed on election petitions and asked that such time limits be extended to criminal and civil cases in court.
He said, “At the end, I lost all three cases. I wondered then, why it needed to take so long to arrive at a verdict and if I had won the case, someone who did not legitimately win the election would have been in office all that time.
“In 2019, I was no longer a petitioner. I had now become a respondent in the case of Atiku and Buhari and the whole process took barely six months; just over six months. What was the difference? The law had changed since my own in 2003, 2007 and 2011.
“You had now introduced time limits for election petitions. Everything must be done within a six to eight-month period.
“My question then is why can’t we have a time limit for criminal cases? Why can’t we have a rule that will say a criminal trial all the way to the Supreme Court must not exceed 12 months? And why can’t we do the same for civil cases? Even if we say that civil cases must not go beyond between 12 and 15 months. I think that for me is stepping forward.”
Buhari also criticised the spate of conflicting court orders by judges, saying at least eight conflicting court orders were made by different judges within six weeks during the recent leadership crisis that rocked the All Progressives Congress.