By Obidike Jerry
The Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators recently organised its Annual General Meeting in Asaba, Delta State.
Also called the ADR Conference, the event featured the admission of new members to a roundtable chamber as peacemakers or chartered mediators and conciliators.
This event came on the heels of the call to bar of new lawyers and further validated a hybrid of litigation and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism (arbitration, mediation and conciliation) in justice delivery.
The new trend, Daily Sun learnt, is called multi-door courthouse. It was first introduced in 1976 by Prof. Frank E.A. Sander at Harvard Law School, United States, as a solution to the problems associated with justice delivery, where people could access alternative ways of resolving disputes.
It was, however, introduced in Nigeria in 2002 when Lagos State established the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC), the first court-connected ADR centre in Africa.
The Federal Capital Territory followed with the establishment of the Abuja Multi-Door Courthouse in 2003. To date, more than 15 other states, including Delta, have established multi-door courthouse justice system.
In his opening remarks, chairman on the occasion and a former military administrator of old Rivers State, Chief Alfred Diete Spiff, said ADR was the in-thing today. This he renamed “appropriate dispute resolution.”
Diete-Spiff, who is the Amanyanabo of Brass Kingdom, said he has made it a point of duty to attend every annual conference of the institute.
Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Festus Agas. He spoke glowingly about the alternative dispute resolution platform and why his government was deploying a lot of resources in training of personnel and setting up of the multi-door courthouse that adopted the entire ADR spectrum in settling disputes. This, he said, was to expedite justice delivery by cutting down delays and the high cost. He thanked the institute for assisting on training of the personnel and setting up the multi-door courthouse in Delta State.
In his welcome address, the outgoing president of the institute, Mr. Louis Brown Ogbeifun, said the theme of the conference, “The Role of Mediators in a Period of Change and National Recession,” was carefully chosen to address the current realities of Nigeria’s political economy.
He regretted that it had become a regular occurrence to see Nigerians resort to self-help in the form of violence, sabotage and militancy apparently because of the people’s loss of faith in the country.
He noted that ADR, especially mediation in Nigeria, had had a tortuous journey mainly due to some contending factors.
He said: “We are aware that the development and effective usage of mediation as an ADR tool has been slowed down because several practitioners still believe that mediation is a process that would seriously undermine their livelihoods, plough backs and therefore, an ‘Alarming Drop in Revenue (ADR)’.
“As mediators, we see it differently because the man or woman in the street who is confronted with very serious conflict, or a worker who has been dismissed and stripped of their salary, would be only interested in the quickest access to justice at the lowest cost, which mediation, fortunately, offers.
“Some practitioners have also argued that mediation has come to supplant litigation and, therefore, would pose a serious threat to effective justice delivery. We also have a different view about this because, in truth, no matter the profuse use of mediation, there are cases that must necessarily be resolved using litigation.
“As mediators, we understand their fears. We should empathise with all the proponents. Their fears stem from the fear of the unknown, which is usually the force behind the argument for the status quo. It is for us to work hard to win them over because the taste of the pudding is in the eating.
“In this light, I urge all of us to begin to engage the elitist and non-elitist associations as a way of making men and women fishers in the seas of mediation. Our sound belief in mediation as a very effective tool for resolving conflicts is premised on its appropriate use. As a process, parties have a say in delivering justice to themselves in their own disputes, at their own pace, in a voluntary manner and, at the end, commit to the outcomes of their own resolutions without coercion.”
A new president, Mr. Emeka Obegolu, was elected to pilot the affairs of the institute for the next two years.
In his inaugural address, Obegolu thanked his predecessors for growing membership to 5,000 and acknowledged that the job ahead was still enormous.
“The responsibility of serving the professional interest of over 5,000 trained mediators and conciliators, while at the same time intervening with critical stakeholders in upholding the principles of peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial relationships through professional mediation is tough. But I promise to work to realise more milestones in my tenure,” he said, while calling for support from all members in building peace in all the strata of the society.
A total of 650 people were admitted as members, among them 20 justices who were made fellows and full members, respectively. They included Justices B.A. Adejumo, O.O. Olopade, Roli Hariman, Flora Ngozi Azinge, Nduka Obi, and Cletus Emefoniye, among others.