*Accuses Politicians Of Undermining Electoral Laws
*Also Blames Delay In Trial Of Law Enforcement Cases In Court
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The Senior Partner of Law Forte and former General Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN has opined that the problem of Nigeria is not absence of laws, but fidelity to those laws
Osigwe said it during an interview with the SUN Newspaper when asked as to whether the amendment of the Electoral Act will prevent rigging and other forms of electoral malpractice. He accused politicians of undermining electoral laws
He said, “I have always maintained that our problems are not the absence of good laws. It is the absence of fidelity to the provisions of these laws by those who are ministers of these laws, by those who are players, those who interpret these laws and those who, one way or the other, are affected by these laws
“Our electoral system has not failed to produce results generally accepted by the people, not because our laws are inadequate, but simply because we have a penchant to always undermine these laws. When the laws says a person who scored the highest number of votes at the party primary should be declared winner, our political parties device ways of undermining these laws.
“It has never been the absence of good laws but our good faith and fidelity to these laws. To what extent are we ready to abide by these laws? Some of these laws we have in Nigeria were wholesale importation of laws which have been used by countries in the Western world to achieve great results, but when we bring them here, they fail to work. And we keep focusing on electoral matters as if they are the cure all for nation building. They are not. We did not make laws to make our economy vibrant. We keep amending the constitution either to abridge time to appeal and so forth and our courts are being burdened with electoral matters.”
He expressed concern however that there are no investor friendly laws in Nigeria. He said the laws that will attract direct foreign investment and laws for the ease of doing business find it difficult to scale through in the legislature.
According to him, the legislature is always serious only when a law deals with election since their personal interest is involved.
“We did not make those laws that will make Nigeria great and attractive to foreign investors. We did not make laws that will attract direct foreign investment, those laws for the ease of doing business find it difficult to scale through in the legislature. Those laws that will make Nigeria a good place for people to come and live and develop, advance and achieve her full potential are not given priority.
“But when it comes to election, because the legislatures are involved, because they have these battles with their state governors and other politicians, we keep amending our laws to dwell on election issues, and not about due process of law, not about ensuring that Chapter two of the constitution, for instance, is made more enforceable to better the lives of the people.” he said
Osigwe, SAN therefore insisted that laws are not the problem in Nigeria, implementation and respect for those laws are the issues. Another issue, according to him, is the frustration of cases in court which end up taking 15 to 20 years in court.
“So, laws are not our problem, it is our ability as citizens, as residents in Nigeria, to respect these laws, not to subvert the electoral process, not to commit financial and economic crimes, not if you are in an executive position, you embark on executive recklessness. These are some of the problems, not the law.
“Even when the laws are there, we have a problem of implementing them. You go to court to enforce them, you are frustrated, cases take 15 to 20 years from the high court to the Supreme Court. It doesn’t happen in advanced countries and that explains why arbitration matters and commercial disputes are taken away from Nigeria because more and more countries are expressing lack of confidence in our judicial system.”
Furthermore, the learned silk objected to the idea of creating special courts as a panacea for delay in dispensing cases in court. He rather advocated for increasing the capacity of our courts to deal with cases before them.
He said, “I never agreed with the creation of special courts. To me, it doesn’t make any economic sense. We have a way of asking for special courts. The Federal High Court started as federal revenue courts. From being a special court to deal with the revenue of the Federal Government, it has become a multi-jurisdictional court, having exclusive jurisdiction to entertain matters as contained in section 251 of the constitution.
“We have clamoured for the setting up of the National Industrial Court, to deal with labour matters, for how long? A labour court is supposed to be a simple court where an employee can go to ventilate his or her grievance, with or without a lawyer. But it has also become so formalised like the state high court and the federal high court, and you now start to ask, what is the need for it? The same problem they had when the state and federal high courts started having when they were handling labour matters, has now crept in, where you have too many formalities and the cases are not moving at the expected speed.
“Creating special courts like corruption courts will end up creating super judges. Judges who think that because they are asked to man special courts, to deal with corruption matters, they are above board like Julius Caesar’s wife. All we need is to increase the capacity of our courts to deal with cases before them. We do not need to have special courts to deal with corruption otherwise, tomorrow, we will ask for political courts to deal with political matters.
“We must make our current courts more effective. We must appoint the right calibre of people to man our courts. There should be no interference in the ability of judicial officers to discharge their duties. And more importantly, the prosecutorial agencies must do special investigations and cases that do not deserve to go to court should not be taken to court.”
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