President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday proposed that the trial of criminal cases from the high court to the Supreme Court should be completed within a year.
He also wants civil cases to end within 15 months.
Buhari who was represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo made his suggestion known at the 60th Annual General Conference (AGC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), with the theme: ‘Stepping Forward.’
The President said: “In 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 petitioner; I became a respondent in the case of Atiku(Abubakar) vs Buhari and the whole process took just over six months.
“What was the difference? The law had changed since my own in 2003, 2007 and 2011. Time limits for election petitions had been introduced. Now, 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?
“Why can’t we do the same for civil cases? Can’t we say that civil cases must not go beyond between 12 and 15 months? I think that for me will be stepping forward.”
