The Governor of Enugu State Barrister Sullivan Iheanachor Chime unveiled the ‘Witness Attendance to Court Enhancement’ posters at the opening ceremony of a Consultative Forum on Enhancing Witness Attendance to Court in Enugu State held on Monday 18^th February, 2013. The posters produced by Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Welfare Action PRAWA under the fifth component of ‘Speeding-Up Criminal Justice in Enugu State Project’. The project piloted in Enugu State and supported by Justice for All Programme J4A of DFID identified six action areas  among which is enhancing witness attendance to court kicked off in 2011.

The Governor was represented at the occasion by the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice Enugu State, Barrister Ikechukwu Anthony Ani. The unveiling of the posters was one of the activities slated for the opening ceremony of the event.

Declaring the forum open and unveiling the seven sets of posters created in English, Igbo and Pidgin English languages, on behalf of Enugu State Governor, the Attorney General explained the rationales for creating the posters saying they are child of necessity. “Evidences are the blood of prosecution and prosecutors get credible evidences from witnesses. Therefore it is emphasizing the obvious to say that witnesses are very important in every court trial” the Attorney-General said.

The increasing needs of citizens to survive and frequent mobility of people due to labor, economic and other

reasons have brought about rapid movements of persons in the country. Some of these persons, Barrister Ani said are witnesses in court trials. The transfer of police witnesses without monetary provisions for them to transport themselves to courts in their earlier stations and insecurity of victims of special cases like kidnapping and armed robbery are some of the reasons the Ministry of Justice has discovered  to have made witnesses to stop attending courts. ‘The Ministry of Justice cannot provide needed security to all the witnesses, hence the need for the entire security and justice sector to work together” he said.

The Attorney General called for institutionalized systems to be put in place to combat the dearth of witnesses in the courts especially in criminal cases. He hailed the messages on the posters as very strong positive contributions to the campaigns to bring back witnesses to courts.

The posters in their messages urge the people to report to the nearest police station or courts if they receive threats to their lives for appearing as witnesses in courts cases. The Attorney General said that most of the witnesses do not know that it amounts to contempt of court, for anyone to threaten the life of any witness in a court trial. On the message that reads: “Support Rape Victims to Speak Out” the Attorney General said that it’s disheartening that most rape victims are either too scared to come out to give evidences in court or are afraid of societal stigmatization, thereby making the criminals to go without punishment. He urged the participants of the forum to spread the massage by placing the posters in places the general public can see them.