🗣️ Gist📍 Street Gist
🎖️CorporalThe widow I evicted and the bribe I couldn't prove
J
3 months ago
This happened in 2009, maybe 2010. I was still a young magistrate at Ikeja, handling land matters. A case came before me , two families fighting over a plot of land in Agege. The documents from the plaintiff looked solid. Title deeds, survey plan, everything in order. The defendant was a woman in her late 50s, widow, living on that land with her three children. She had no lawyer. She kept saying 'Oga, my husband bought this land in 1985, I have the receipt.' But receipt alone is not proof of ownership under the Land Use Act. I ruled in favour of the plaintiff. Gave her 90 days to vacate. Three months later, I heard she and her children were sleeping in a church compound in Mushin. Then something started bothering me. A clerk I trusted told me quietly that the plaintiff's lawyer had been seen giving envelopes to the bailiff and the court registrar's assistant. I had no proof. The judgment was already delivered. I couldn't reopen it. That case still sits in my chest. Not because I made a legal error , the law was on the plaintiff's side on paper. But because I learned that justice is not just about documents. It is about who has access to the system. The widow didn't know how to file a proper defence. She didn't know she could apply for a stay of execution. She just had a receipt and her husband's word. I have never forgotten her face. That day, I started my legal awareness clinic in church. Not because I am a saint. Because I don't want to sit on that bench again and realise too late that I helped injustice wear a legal robe.
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