The Associate Convenor, Standing Conference for Mediation Advocates (SCMA), Barr. Valention Buoro has described the year 2015 as a year where Mediation as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) would take a major leap into the judicial process in the country.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen in Lagos, Buoro noted that with the slide in oil prices globally, there was going to be scrambling for the available resources which according to him would trigger off crisis and consequently a lot of people could be hurt.
He said that when people were hurt and they did not have money to litigate over the matter, they would indeed resort to self help adding that rather than resorting to self help, people should engage in mediation as a process to right their wrongs.
“This is a new and interesting year. 2015 is going to be a challenging year in the sense that there is drop in the oil prices. So, there is going to be scramble for the available resources and where there is scramble, there are lots of hurts”.
“And when you are hurt and you do not have money to litigate, what do you do? You seek for help. So, there will be a lot of fights to enforce rights but rather than do that, this is the year that mediation should actually boom”.
“ This should be year for alternative dispute resolution where when people begin to experience all the things that emerging poverty may throw up, they should be able to resolve them amicably by having a process such as mediation where a third party, a neutral, a mediator will be able to listen to them and be able to bring them to resolve disputes amicably”, he said.
