C’s Provision On Donation To Candidates Breeds Corruption — Adedipe SAN

In this interview with OLADIMEJI RAMON, Chief Ifedayo Adedipe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, provides answers to some arising legal questions as political activities towards the 2019 general elections gather momentum. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party has argued that the group that bought N45m nomination and expression of interest forms for President Muhammadu Buhari to contest in next year’s presidential election violated Section 91(9) of the Electoral Act, which pegs maximum donation to any political office seeker at N1m. What is the position of the law? Under the old Electoral Act 2010 – I call it the old one because the process of amending it is still ongoing – it is expressly provided that an individual or other entity shall not donate more than N1m to any candidate – the emphasis is candidate. At the moment, you have only aspirants; the President is still an aspirant, irrespective of the hysteria over whether he will be the APC candidate or not. Until the primary is held and a candidate emerges, I will imagine that this section will not apply. I think he (Buhari) is an aspirant at the moment. So, I do not think there is anything in the Electoral Act that says an aspirant should not receive money. I suspect that the essence of the law is to delimit the amount of money that could be made available to politicians, but in reality, that is dishonest. There is absolutely no way a candidate will spend a paltry sum of N1m to get even a seat at the House of Assembly. It’s not real. From getting the endorsement of party members to obtaining forms to canvassing for votes, N1m is a drop in the ocean. It is when we live in denial like this that we make corruption a way of life. So, money will be passed under the table without accounting. When you say I should give a candidate only N1m, I’d say very well, I will give only N1m but behind I probably will add N99m for which there will be no account. So, the Act is not realistic but in specific terms at the moment, the President is not a candidate and obtaining forms for him by his admirers may not be out of place. A fellow Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, not long ago, argued that it was an illegality for political parties to sell nomination forms, based on various pronouncements of the courts. Do you confirm this? I am not aware. My understanding of political parties is that they are voluntary associations of people of a like mind, wanting to canvass for votes and if they are elected, they come into office. The question is: how will they raise money for their operations if you say they cannot sell their nomination forms? For instance, the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, at the very beginning of the revered rank, the forms were free; at the moment they are being sold because you will need money to process the entries. I do not think it will be right to say political parties should not sell nomination forms. We do know that even though parties claim to have financial members, it is doubtful whether they actually collect subscriptions from members as they are expected to do in a proper political arrangement. Political parties will register their members and the financial members of the party will, may be monthly or quarterly, contribute money into the coffers of the party, so that they will all be, in the language of Babangida, equal joiners and equal members. If we contribute equally to the coffers of the political party, then we will have equal say but when we have an individual contributing N10m and another is just given a card to be a member, it is dishonest to expect that they will have equal rights. And that is why godfathers dictate what happens in the parties. I think that part of the reforms we need in the political system is in actually monitoring financial members of the parties. But I think that political parties are at liberty to source their funds without contravening the laws. If you say they shouldn’t sell their forms, how will they print the forms? I agree that some of the amounts being charged are outrageous but it may be that they want to use that to prune down the serious contenders from the jesters.  But I expect parties to make the prices of their forms reasonable. This country cannot make progress when you have people with minds trapped in the 19th century being the driver of our national economy and national dream. Having a man who is over 70 to come and tell us how to run the economy of modern Nigeria is ridiculous; no wonder that this government has a mono agenda – fighting corruption. It is totally ridiculous and that is why we are not making progress. We need young, vibrant men and women to drive the economy of this country and the only way to do that is to allow them to participate in the political activities by opening up the democratic space, by making the amounts payable for the nomination forms reasonable. Why is there a need for a large number of lawyers in election matters? For instance, the Ekiti State Governor-elect, Dr Kayode Fayemi, hired 35 lawyers, including eight SANs, to defend his victory at the tribunal. First of all, electoral litigations are fairly deadline-inspired processes, meaning that you have to finish certain things within certain period; you have to file certain papers within certain period. What you can do as a litigant is to hire a law firm, which may have 10 to 15 lawyers. When you hire a particular lawyer, he comes in with his own people; it does not mean that you are hiring all those people or that you consult 30 lawyers and you pay all of them. If you come to my office and say Adedipe, I have this case and I need you, I may say I need the assistance of two or three other senior advocates, so that we can put heads together and constitute a team. Each SAN will bring his own support lawyers; when you add it up, you get the figure that you are mentioning. So, it is not as if the man has gone out to look for 35 lawyers. That aside, some lawyers will volunteer to participate in particular litigations out of either love or the clamour to be noticed as supporting a political party or a candidate. It is not as if 30, 60 or a number of lawyers are retained by the litigant. The minimum qualification to become Nigeria’s President is secondary school certificate; don’t you think this is due for review? It is particularly ridiculous. If I were a civil servant, having attained the age of 60, I will retire; meaning I am not considered fit, either intellectually or physically, to continue because of the stress of that office. As a judicial officer, if you attain the age of 70 at the Supreme Court level, you are bound to go even when you think you have more to offer.  But curiously, you now have a situation where such people retire and suddenly find the energy to run a country. The other day they said the President walked 800 metres and a song and a dance were made out of it – ridiculous. I believe, first of all, the minimum qualification to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, if we want to be modern, should be nothing less than a university degree and any candidate for that office should not be more than 60 years old. We saw (Barack) Obama in his 40s, (Bill) Clinton in his 40s, George Bush, early 50s, by the time they left that office, they aged. It appears to me that the enormity of that office is weighing down on Mr (Donald) Trump that is becoming irascible. So, a situation where what you are going to sell to us is that a President walks 800m is ridiculous. It is either we want to be competitive and be in the league of the modern nations or be left behind. Giving us school cert as the basis really is regrettable. We need to get serious about governance in this country. I don’t care too much who becomes the President if he has modern ideas because when you look at the countries of the world, African countries are at the lowest level. When you look at the countries in Africa, Nigeria is a joke, in spite of our population. We must be modern, we must reform ourselves and one of the best ways to do this is to put in our best hands in everything we do. If we don’t do so, we will have nobody but ourselves to blame. Four hundred thousand years ago, the European powers came here with force to capture and enslave us; nowadays, we walk with our two sturdy legs across murderous deserts and inclement oceans to go to Europe to do menial jobs because our own environment is not conducive. We need to do things properly and we must start with how we elect our leaders. INEC has registered over 90 political parties seeking to participate in next year’s election; don’t you think the conditions for registering a political party should be stricter? I believe that we do not need more than five political parties. First, it will make it easier for INEC to conduct elections and monitor the process. Secondly, the nuisance tendencies in election will be removed. Why should we have all the wife and husband political parties? Some we don’t even know their names. We don’t need it. Politics should not be the only job in town. We have more challenging issues ahead of us as a country. Our population is ballooning; we are approaching 200 million, we don’t have infrastructures, no good roads, no airport that is of world-class standard, then we will always have kidnappers, armed robbers, 419 amongst us. Our country is in an emergency, don’t let anybody deceive us.  What I will counsel this government or the one coming after is to look for the best hands in each department across the country; you will find them. When you go for the World Cup, you don’t go with your weakest team because you like the faces; you just have to get the best if you want to win. Was the EFCC right to freeze the bank accounts of Benue and Akwa Ibom states over alleged corruption? Absolutely not. The EFCC is a creation of statute and the statute spelt out its jurisdictions and powers. I do not think that the EFCC is with power to investigate and freeze state accounts. Do you know the implication? They can’t pay salaries, they can’t pay pensions, they can’t run services and you are saying that money that was appropriated by the state legislature is proceeds of crime or used for crime! Whichever way we look at it, that cannot be done but there is so much abuse being perpetrated by the EFCC and they believe that they are above the law. It is an irony because the EFCC’s motto is: Nobody is above the law. They should desist from being partisan. We need to build our nation and the starting point is to build institutions. Not institutions that are personalised. Good and admirable as the idea of fighting corruption is, certain things worry me. You have the acting chairman of the EFCC, whose position has not been confirmed and the government says irrespective of the law, the man remains. That is wrong because the Act that sets up the commission says whoever is going to be the chairman must be approved by the Senate. The ingenious argument is that the EFCC is an extra-administerial body, but that is not correct. The EFCC is a statutory body. So, those canvassing the argument are being disingenuous. What does it cost the President to interface with the Senate and have the man confirmed; if he insists it must be him? When you stick to a particular person his loyalty to you will be so total that he no longer believes in the institution; he believes in you. That is not what we want; we want an EFCC that is up and doing; that is not partisan. The other time, the acting chairman of the EFCC appeared on television wearing a badge of the President, your loyalty is to the President. It should be to the nation. Contrast this with the FBI Director, James Comey, whom President Trump wanted to pledge allegiance to him and he refused and he was fired and he said, ‘so be it, my allegiance is to my nation, not to you’; that’s the way it should be. Or you have the police that keep going after the perceived political opponents of the President, even when nobody sent them. We saw the drama at the Senate. They don’t inspire confidence in our institutions. We need institutions that will say first and foremost our allegiance is to the nation. That is what we want. Nobody is saying if anyone has committed an offence don’t go after them. We’ve had cases where the EFCC goes after state governments. The EFCC is without jurisdiction to go after any state government. Culled from Punch]]>