Yiaga Africa to offer young, PWDs candidates free legal services

Yiaga Africa says it plans to partner with the Nigerian Bar Association and Young Lawyers Forum to provide pro bono legal service to young men, women and Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) featuring in 2023 general election.

Ms. Cynthia Mbamalu, the Director of Programs at Yiaga Africa, said this in a statement at the end of the law clinic hosted by Sokoto and Lagos States.

Mbamalu said that the clinic was organized by Yiaga Africa as part of its continuous effort to ensure youths' inclusion in politics.

She said that the clinic was organised for young lawyers interested in specialising in election law to deepen the understanding of women and youth candidates on the new electoral framework.

She added that it was also to provide legal advisory services and support to female and young candidates.

"The role of lawyers is becoming crucial in the electoral process as Nigeria's electoral jurisprudence continue to evolve especially with the passage of the Electoral Act, 2022.

"The Election Law Clinic is driven by a specially designed module informed by both the challenges identified by young men and women who contested in previous elections and the trends in election litigation since the passage of the Electoral Act, 2022.

"With every new legal framework, it also opens up a conversation about the theories around implementation because there are now more issues to be contested and more issues to be tested," she said.

Mbamalu said that while there has been successful advocacy for the inclusion of young people in Nigeria's political process, there are questions about the capacity of young people to afford legal advice and representation.

She said that in engaging young people in the process, a lot of what Yiaga Africa saw as a major challenge was that a lot of them did not even understand the basic laws guiding elections.

She added that they also did not know how to challenge an injustice perpetrated against them in the process.

"If you are campaigning but you don't know the rules of the game, you are already losing because you need to know the rules of the game to understand how to contest and how to win your election," she said.

She said that this understanding may be as easy as having legal advice rather than even going to court.

A representative of the Young Lawyers Forum in Sokoto, Mr. Umar Ali, welcomed the initiative, saying it was timely, coming close to the 2023 election.

Ali said that the law clinic was also an opportunity for young lawyers to demonstrate their capacity in contributing to credible election in Nigeria.

"What the forum has been looking for always is a platform like the law clinic to have an avenue to enhance our capacity and exposure to be able to deliver," he said.