Lagos State Attorney- General and Commissioner for Justice, Adeniji Kazeem has engaged selected journalists on some pressing matters affecting justice delivery system in the state.

Kazeem who was tackled on some issues ranging from detention of underage, tenancy law, street trading, default in payment of tax and host of other issues, said the government is willing and ready to improve on what it has achieved over the years to make the state habitable for all and sundry.

The Tenancy Law of Lagos State 2011 has come under some criticisms. Don’t you think the law, which some people believe is in favour of the tenants, is due for review, considering some new developments? The Tenancy Law came into force on August 24, 2011.

I wrote to the Lagos State Law Reform Commission, the agency charged with reforming our laws, last year. I directed that they conduct an overhaul of that law, because we felt that as things develop, laws must develop alongside.

Last year also, there was a stakeholders’ meeting where different people gave inputs on the proposed law.

The next stage is for the draft law to be presented. It will come to my office, we will take it to the state executive council, if it is approved, it will go the state House of Assembly, where, I’m sure, a thorough job will be done on the process and I can assure you that barring any eventualities, we shall get a new law this year. Street trading is another headache being tackled by the state.

The government’s reforms in that area have been criticized. What is the state doing to tame this menace? There is a law on street trading and yes, street trading is still a major issue. It has to do with children who are supposed to be in school. We want to address unemployment and other general social issues.

You understand that last year or the year before, Governor Ambode was worried about the environment and street robberies, because reports available to us showed that a lot of the street robberies take place in traffic by those hawking. I am not saying all hawkers are criminals, but a significant percentage of crimes occur from there; while you are in traffic.

So, government decided to take a very strong stance on it, picking up a lot of these people. Again, you could see the outcry and being a responsive government, we tried to slow down and said look, some of these issues are not entirely criminal; they are also social issues.

We need to try and address these issues, such as markets where these people are going to sell their wares, and so on and so forth. So, we are trying to take a holistic view of the issues and provide a solution.

Some people have said that in other countries, there are ways that the street furniture architecture is designed to accommodate people that sell on the street, so as not to completely send them away. These are issues that a growing and overpopulated city will face. This job is a 24-hour one, the governor never rests. I guess that it is just the challenge of governing an important state like this.