As part of efforts to ensure that those that manhandled LEADERSHIP photo Journalist Mr. Benedict Uwalaka are brought to book, the Lagos state governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has directed the salaried lawyers working in the Lagos Office of Public Defender (OPD) to take up the case in the court against the culprits.
LEADERSHIP SUNDAY gathered that the governor who was horrified by the attack on the photo? who? was??????? Journalist while covering the release of corpses of those that lost their lives in the ill-fated Dana air crash at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH )? directed the state’s Attorney General Mr. Ade Ipaye to ensure that justice is done.
When LEADERSHIP SUNDAY sought clarifications from the office at the weekend on their next line of action, a top solicitor told our correspondent that, ”the governor is worried by the development and wants this office established 11 years ago to provide access to justice for indigent and disadvantaged residents of Lagos state to take up the case against those that attacked the journalist.
He added that ,“ We want to get across to the victim, pay him a visit, get his own part of the story and we will take up the case from there”.
The governor who had openly condemned the attack on the journalist said such attempts on people’s lives should no longer be treated with kid gloves, saying that the state government will bring the culprits to book.?
Fashola assured that whatever the case may be the state government will conduct investigation and bring those people to justice.??
According to him,“It goes back to all I have been saying about law and order. Those are the small crimes. Those are the broken windows, if we do not punish these kind of behaviour very severely it will lead to bigger crimes.?
“ When you begin to assault somebody in daylight, you can imagine the kind of thing it will get up to without supervision.
If you have no value for human lives even in the open when everybody is seeing you, now where is our love for one another?”
He maintained that those involved deserve punishment, added that when it is not punished it would escalate to big crimes.
It would be recalled that the Office of the Public Defender was created in the year 2000 by the then Executive Governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to render free legal services to the less- privileged in the society regardless of their status, cultural or political affiliation and also to those whose fundamental human rights are being trampled upon.