SDGs office donates operational buses to NBA

The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals has donated two operational buses to the Nigerian Bar Association.
Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs, presented the buses to Abubakar Mahmoud, the President of NBA on Wednesday in Abuja.
Orelope-Adefulire said the provision of the buses was in fulfillment of part of the MoU signed between the OSSAP-SDGs and the NBA to facilitate access to justice among vulnerable groups.
She said the MoU was signed on October 19, 2017 to enhance the realisation of goal 16 of the SDGs, adding that the buses were part of the commitment of the OSSAP-SDGs.
According to her, the objective of the collaboration as contained in the MoU is to reduce the spate of conflict and violence in our society.
She said the idea was to facilitate capacity building among stakeholders and to encourage the establishment of mediation and conciliation centre at the various levels of the society.
She said: “Owing to OSSAP-SDGs commitment towards the accomplishment of the said objectives, I pledged to provide two buses to facilitate and promote access to justice by indigent and vulnerable groups in Nigeria.
“We are passionately resolved and committed to seeing that there is equal access to justice, particularly among the poor and the vulnerable in our society.
“It is in fulfillment of this mission that OSSAP-SDGs is giving its full support to the NBA to render Pro bono service nationwide and with this, we may arraign justice for all.”
In his remark, Mahmoud commended the OSSAP-SDGs for providing the busses and pledged that the buses would be judiciously utilised.
He said the financial and logistics support as well as the provision of the buses would improve the association’s access to all the communities targeted in the programme.
The NBA president said the area of focus in the collaboration was to offer Pro bono or free legal services to victim of various conflicts and human right abuses across the country.