SpringAid International Development (SAID Nigeria) has been engaged in legal empowerment aid since inception 2009. There are many other on-going litigation issues instituted for the benefits of poor and marginalized people. SAID Nigeria employs Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) in its engagement with the communities and partners. Human Rights component of SAID Nigeria’s program focus include empowering its poor and marginalized communities and beneficiaries to beware of their rights and assist them to claim their rights and have access to justice.
SAID Nigeria has severally achieved legal empowerment for the people we serve. Example was a case we assisted a widow to recover her husband’s property in Abuja sometimes in 2014. The widow lost the husband about 2 years before the incident and they had 4 children all females. The husband has a property made up of 6 blocks of 2 bedroom flat at the Kubwa axis of Abuja. Upon his death, the younger brothers besieged the property, claiming it on the basis that their brother has no male child to inherit the property. Their deceased brother’s wife and children were living on this property and they deceived them by renting another apartment for them under the guise that they were renovating the said property. They sent all the tenants away and locked the property, denying their brother’s widow and children access thereto. We intervened, went to court with all the necessary documents to proof ownership and got judgement for the poor woman and her children. We also maintained criminal action through the police which led to conviction and imprisonment of the two arrow heads for 6 months at Kuje prison.
The effort captured the value of SAID Nigeria in that we saved a poor widow through our legal representation that would have cost her millions of naira which she could not afford. We have succeeded in seeking for the release of many who are arbitrarily remanded in prisons for years awaiting trials as well as seek for the release of those unlawfully detained in police cells/custody.
Barr Francis A. Igiriogu