The Honourable Attorney–General and Commissioner for Justice Delta State, Mr Ekemejero Ohwovoriole SAN, in this interview with journalists in his office in Asaba, Delta State, spoke extensively on the series of training programmes embarked upon by the Ministry of Justice, Delta State for its workforce.
He revealed that arising from the work plans submitted by all departments in the Ministry at the start of the year, he approved a training programme for the entire year to cater to both legal and non-legal staff. The programme would also extend to all the zonal offices of the Ministry. He stated that other ministries, departments, and agencies whose functions impact the matters handled by the Ministry defends in court will also be involved in the training programme. Likewise, other critical stakeholders in the Criminal Justice System will also be trained.
The Honourable Attorney–General stated that regular capacity building for staff will ensure the state receives optimal benefit from its workforce.
He spoke on this and other salient issues. Here are excerpts from the interview. Happy reading.
Q. Sir, The Ministry of Justice Asaba has mapped out a series of training programmes for staff in this year 2025. Please kindly explain the reasons for this beautiful idea?
A. The Ministry of Justice is undertaking a training programme for all departments in the Ministry with the aim of keeping the staff abreast with the latest developments in their areas of specialisation so that they are not left behind. What we are doing is in keeping with His Excellency’s M.O.R. E Agenda. Whatever your ideas are, without the personnel to carry out these decisions, of course, you are likely to encounter difficulties in the implementation of your ideas. We have therefore decided to implement training programmes for all the departments in the Ministry of Justice to bring the staff up to date with current developments in all the areas they need to operate.
Q. This training programme, sir, does it include non-legal staff of the Ministry, or is it designed for only the legal staff?
A. The training programme covers all departments and staff in the Ministry and includes lawyers and non-lawyers. There are many things that we do here. Without the non-lawyers, you can not achieve them. For example, after drafting court processes, you have to file the processes in the court registry and effect service on the parties in the case before you can make use of the document during court proceedings. So you can see that in order to be effective, the lawyers can not work in isolation.
You are aware that everybody is going digital, and the Ministry of Justice is going digital, too. The digitisation process is being implemented in phases, and we have started with the office of the DPP. We are doing so much there to digitise their operations. So it is imperative that the staff are trained to keep up with the innovations there. Computer training is so important and our goal is to achieve computer proficiency for all the staff in that department by the end of the second quarter this year.
The training programme of the Ministry will cut across not just departments but also across all the Zonal Offices of the Ministry in the State. We have eleven Zonal Offices across the State. The training has been deliberately designed to cover all the departments and zonal offices. If you have training in one department, and other departments are not trained, of what use will it be to the Ministry? In the end, you will find out that you lose all that you set out to achieve if you are not careful.
Q. Sir, apart from the training programme for the year 2025, do you have other incentives for the staff in the months ahead?
A. The state government has many programmes in place already to motivate the staff of MDAs in the state. All we are doing here is to ensure that we implement these programmes that are contained in our Ministry’s budget and work plan. You are aware that the Ministry of Justice has a work plan. At the beginning of the year, every department in this ministry was required to produce a work plan that fits into our overall work plan, and the welfare of staff was well catered for in the work plan. The welfare of staff is paramount in the scheme of things because without a good welfare strategy in place, your staff may lose the motivation required.
One of the objectives that I had when I resumed office was to ensure that no staff claim should remain unpaid. I am happy to report that as of today, nobody in the Ministry of Justice can say their claims are not paid on time. To me, that is a good way to encourage the staff to carry out their duties effectively. We pay their claims on time, we organise trainings and also pay for their training even outside the State. By doing the foregoing, we ensure that the staff in the Ministry of Justice are well motivated.
Q. Sir, this training programme when is the commencement date and the period it will cover?
A. We have commenced the training since January 2025. It is not a matter of training programme coming up next week, or in April. It is a continuation of the training programme we have embarked upon at the beginning of the year. Already, we have had training at the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, Abuja, for our key staff in the department of legal drafting. We have had training for staff in the Civil Litigation department in the area of pleadings. For next week’s training, we are going outside the Ministry to cover staff of the Ministry of Lands and Surveys. We work closely with that Ministry in the areas of land acquisition and payment of compensation. If you get it right, you avoid so much cost in terms of litigation that could arise. So we are training not just persons within the Ministry of Justice but also those of other Ministries that work closely with us. That is to show you that the training really is not just meant for any single individual. It is a holistic thing. The government is really interested in having all its workforce up-to-date because no single department is independent of the other. For example, the non-legal administrative staff that are coming for the trainings must be up to date on modern trends of record keeping in the digital environment we find ourselves.
Q. Do you have a word for the Governor who has made all the good things happening here possible?
A. We owe His Excellency a well of gratitude for his support and the clear vision he gave us to achieve our purpose in the Ministry of Justice. All that we are doing is simply implementation of His Excellency’s policies encapsulated in the M.O.R.E agenda of his administration. In the Ministry of Justice, we have a single purpose, and that purpose is to ensure that there is a robust legal framework to support the Governor’s M.O. R. E Agenda. As you know, once you have the rule of law in place, and there is prosperity and peace. The Governor’s MORE Agenda is very clear. Without having a robust Ministry of Justice that is up to date and motivated, then of course, we may encounter difficulties in our bid to deliver the services required.
Therefore, all that we are doing here is in accordance with the governor’s mandate. The robust legal framework we are to provide generally covers two broad areas. These are the civil and criminal aspects of the law. In the criminal aspect, we have a Criminal Justice Law 2022 that is adjudged as one of the finest pieces of legislation in the country, and we are doing so much in its implementation. Our efforts in this regard are recognised nationwide. As you are aware, currently, Delta State is number one in the country in implementing the provisions of the criminal justice law. We are ensuring that effective and speedy dispensation of justice in criminal matter is the norm. We have also put in place a system where we work closely with law enforcement agencies. While we recognise that we do not investigate matters, we have, however, assisted the security agencies by providing them with tools to carry out investigations that comply with the requirements of the criminal justice law. If you have a situation, for example, where a suspect allegedly confesses to the commission of an offence. That in itself is not enough to say that the court will accept the confessional statement willy nilly. There is a crucial question to be asked. Was the confessional statement obtained in accordance with the requirements of the law? Seeing that it is the duty of law enforcement to obtain confessional statements within the confines of the law, we also assist the police with training. Last year, we conducted a training for about one hundred and twenty police officers and just last week, we supplied the police with a large numbers of Compact Disks/ Flash Drives to enable them to have records of the confessional statements they have obtained. In February, we were at the police Command Headquarters to commission the renovated and modernized interrogation room. That again was one of our initiatives, though it was funded by the State Security Trust Fund.
Q. What is your goal in the Ministry of Justice, sir?
A. My goal in the Ministry of Justice is to make it a professionally better place with a workforce that is well trained and motivated. I say one simple thing to civil servants, and that is the fact that you are a civil servant does not make you any less in your occupation than those who are in private practice. You must aim to be good, if not better than your contemporaries in private practice. For example, lawyers in the Ministry of Justice deal with tax matters that could have significant impact on the state’s finances. In that regard, it is so clear to see that you must have well trained tax lawyers in the Ministry who are able to compete favourably with their colleagues in private practice. Actually what we do in the Ministry of Justice as far as I am concerned, is as big as what any other chambers in the country is doing because the volume of transactional documents that we have to prepare and monitor is as large as that which any chambers in the country is doing. If you have staff who are not competing with their peers in private practice, then of course, the State may not get the best from them. One of my main objectives and hope is that I leave the Ministry of Justice with the staff who are better than their peers in private practice in all spheres of legal practice, be it commercial, be it in the area of criminal justice or civil justice practice. That is one of my main objectives.
