Barely two weeks after the death of Honourable Justice Auwal Ibrahim, Presiding Judge of the National Industrial Court, Port Harcourt, NIC has lost another Judge. Justice Lawal Mani, Presiding Judge of its Kaduna Division.
Justice Lawal died at the age of 63 after a protracted illness. According to report, Justice Lawal handled the case challenging Governor Nasir El-Rufai over the sack of 21,780 teachers. He was also handling the case of illegal impeachment of the Chairman, Kaduna State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Chairman, Garba Muhammad against the union and three others.
Justice Mani was born on 1st July, 1955 at Bungudu in Bungudu LGA of Zamfara State to the family of Mani Mohammed.
He attended Bungudu Town Primary School from 1961 to 1967 for FSLC and Government Secondary School, Gusau from 1968 to 1972 for WASC.
He was admitted into Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1974 and graduated with B.Sc Political Science in 1977. He obtained LL.B from the same institution in 1991 and was called to Bar in 1992.
He bagged his LL.M from his Alma Mater in the year 2000. Justice Mani performed his NYSC primary assignment at Governor Office, Ilorin in 1977/78 service year. He started his working career as Administrative Officer II in 1979 with the University of Sokoto.
He joined Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank (NACB), Kaduna as Deputy Manager Administration and in 1981 was its Zonal Legal Officer in 1994.
Between 1995 and 2001, he worked with Kaduna Textiles Limited as Personnel/Admin Manager. He joined the Federal Judicial Service Commission, Abuja in 2001 and has been its Director of Administration till his appointment as a Judge of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria.
He has attended courses related to his field of work in the United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore and USA. He is a member of several professional bodies.
Before his transfer to Kaduna in 2017, he was the presiding justice at the Kano division of the NICN.
He has since been buried in Kaduna according to Islamic rites. President of the NICN Justice Babatunde Adeniran Adejumo who was among the early mourners at the residence of the late judge described late Justice Mani as a humble, honest and diligent judge and prayed to Allah to grant him Aljanna Firdausi, his family, the NICN and Nigerians, the fortitude to bear the loss.
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