What do you make of the National Judicial Council’s recall of judges accused of corrupt practices? Well, we are governed by a Constitution and under the constitution, a man is presumed innocent until he is found guilty. The National Judicial Council has the right to recall the Judges accused of corruption because the court of law has not found them guilty. If a man is not guilty, he would wear the gown of innocence. The NJC can’t hold that they are guilty. How would you rate the Federal Government in terms of putting together a compelling case against the accused judges? Federal Government doesn’t prosecute. But if it is about the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, I may have something to say. But let it be stated clearly that most of these cases in court were initiated by anti-graft agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission that have powers to prosecute; not by the federal government as such. So, I will not be part of those who will blame the federal government for the way cases are being handled. On the contrary, I will look at how all these agencies handle these matters. Briefly, criminal cases, from my experience, are very difficult areas to convict anybody. Our law is that you must prove beyond all reasonable doubts before you convict a person. There was a young man who was alleged to have killed a young girl near Manchester in England. The man pleaded his innocence throughout his trial but he was found guilty and was hanged. Eight years after, the real killer came out and said that the man was killed wrongly. Was it possible for the court to restore the man to life? That was why the English law was changed. Another point is that a good and competent lawyer does not go by facts alone. He allows the prosecution to put his case and goes to attack the case of the prosecution by picking holes in the case. Once you can pick a hole in the case, your no- case-submission would be that they have not proved the case beyond reasonable doubts. So, I will therefore not say that anti-graft agencies are not doing their best. When you have a good lawyer, you can always pick holes in prosecution cases. If lawyers are capitalising on holes in criminal cases, don’t you think it is an indication that the agencies are not manned by competent lawyers? There was a time that people thought I was a specialist in criminal cases because it was so easy for me to win cases. Let me tell you, there are cases where my clients had confessed in writing that they committed murder and I got them acquitted. The fact that you made a confessional statement doesn’t mean you are guilty in law. There are other things that lawyers and judges look at. I have acquitted many clients who have made confessional statements because of the legal requirement. That is the correct position of the law. There is what we call justice according to facts and justice according to law. The facts may be in your favour but a good lawyer will make you fail. That is justice according to law. A court will not give judgment according to facts in law but according to law. How will the continued efforts by the Federal Government to prosecute the accused judges affect the output of the judges now that they have been asked to go back to work? Once they are charged to court, certainly they cannot continue to preside. Normally, they will be on suspension pending the conclusion of trial. A mere allegation or report in the media that a judge was found with some money or whatever does not mean that he is guilty. You have to listen to his own side. You should not convict judges based on newspaper proceedings. We are doing a lot of disservice to judiciary, they are also human beings. So I don’t believe in newspaper trial. Once they are charged to court, common sense and convention demand they should step aside because people would not have confidence in them. To me, anybody charged to court even in private businesses should be suspended and probably be paid half salary. So it is improper for them to continue to sit if they are facing criminal charges elsewhere. Are you suggesting that the cases they are handling should be transferred to other judges? As long as criminal cases are hanging on their necks in the court of law, they should not handle cases. What is your reaction to the acquittal of Senate President Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal? He was charged for breaches and he pleaded innocence and he got some committed lawyers to argue his case and the court found out that he has not breached any code of conduct. To me, that is the end of the matter. They can only re-arrest him if they found new evidences relating to a fresh charge not the old charge upon which the CCT delivered its judgment. They have to justify that before the court of law; otherwise, it would amount to abuse of court process. Do you agree with most Nigerians that justice for the high and mighty bears no resemblance to the justice of the average Nigerian? This is a question I have listened to many times before. The same case if handled by an incompetent lawyer may result in failure but if handled by a competent lawyer, you get a different result. We have different classes of people in the society: the very rich, the rich and the poor. When the very rich or rich engaged the service of a competent lawyer who charges higher fees, the poor will probably go for a lawyer who is less experienced and whose fee is lower. So, to that extent, the mighty is in a position to get a favourable judgement while the poor may not. That explains that there is different in judgement for the mighty financially and the poor financially. So it is not about purchase of judgment. It isn’t. It is about the purchase of competent lawyer by the mighty. It is like a market the mighty buys the organic vegetable while the poor buys the inorganic vegetable. Law profession is a noble one. The nobility of the work can be found in the competence and non-competence of the lawyer. That is where you have the difference between someone winning and someone not wining. We have had situations where people were jailed many years for stealing phones while cases against some ex-governors and top politicians have been dragging for many years now. Do you think this has helped in building a trust in the nation’s justice system? There goes again the competence of lawyers. The governors have the money to hire competent lawyers; you know them (competent ones) yourself. You read about them in the newspapers all the time. If you go back to 80s and as recent as 10 years ago, you will see that I was hired virtually from all parts of the country. Flying from Calabar to Jos, Maiduguri, Yola because they were aware of my competence. So if the governors hired competent lawyers, they get results. There is nothing wrong in that. What is your reaction to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s decision to reopen an investigation on the Chairman of the CCT? Nothing stops them from investigating him. Nothing. That is proper. Don’t you think it is a case of witchunt because he failed to convict the senate president? There will be many schools of thought about that. If the matter had been investigated in the past, there is no point reinvestigating him. If you were leading the prosecution side in the case against Saraki, what would you do differently? That will depend on the facts in the matter. I’m not in possession of the facts in the matter, so I can’t speak on that. Why is it that, contrary to what obtains in more developed democracies, Nigerian politicians fail to resign when they are caught up in one scandal or the other? There are many things peculiar to this country. In civilised countries, a person will resign as soon as such allegation is made against him. It is not that area alone that we have our peculiar factor. Recently I delivered a lecture at the Obafemi Awolowo University and pointed out some factors which include the failure of a rich man to support the university. Failure of the alumni to support their universities, whereas in other countries, the money realised from the yearly donation by alumni and public spirited individuals is more than two-third of the money spent yearly by those universities. So it is a peculiar factor. Is this appropriate? I’m an advocate of change of attitude by Nigerians in many areas, not only in universities affairs but also public service. It is wrong for one to be accused and yet remain in power. You don’t have to wait. Given the public outcry against Dino Melaye, particularly in his constituency, do you think it’s time for the senator to resign? He was duly elected by the people and there is provision in the law. If the people are not satisfied, they can recall him. It is for his constituency to decide whether to recall him or not. How would you rate President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war? I think every Nigerian knows what we are going through in the hands of corruption. He is doing his very best. The day we go back to what Nigeria was like when I was young in the 50s, that day Nigeria will be a great country. That was a time that when going to school we were able to buy fruits from the shelves in the absence of the owner. We will put money there and take our balance, yet nobody was stealing. Corruption started gradually and crept into the system. There was a time people thought charging five per cent was corruption. I defended a minister in 1967 after the coup and the man was acquitted. Today, corruption has assumed a huge proportion that drastic measure ought to be adopted by any serious government. To that extent the government is doing the right thing to stamp it out. But let me warn that arresting people is not the answer, imprison one is not the answer. The answer is to go back to elementary and secondary schools as well as tertiary institutions and change the mind of the youths. The only change that can bring permanent change about corruption is to change the minds of the youths. Because the government wiped out the teaching of religion from schools, we are now the victims of all sorts of crimes. Let us return teaching of morals to school. It is very important. That is what we are trying to do in my universities here. Buhari will not attain his lofty aims of fighting corruption by jailing people. Let us go back to the basis. Let the schools and religious centres do more; let the government functionaries change their attitude. Do you agree with Prof Itse Sagay that the Attorney General of the Federation has not been serious about the anti-corruption war? I do not know what Sagay means by that. The AGF is just one person; he has other people working in the ministry. How can you hold him responsible for the inefficiency of others? How can you hold him responsible for the lapses that took place in courts by the EFCC? How can you hold him responsible for the accused getting competent lawyers who picked holes in the case of the prosecution? I don’t think the minister can be held responsible for that. Let me tell you, I do not know of any case you can bring against anybody that I as a lawyer cannot win for them. My records are there. What are your thoughts on the way President Buhari’s health is being handled? Buhari is a human being. He is reportedly sick, anybody can be sick. He is entitled to seek quality treatment and quality doctors, and he is entitled to keep to himself the ailment which he is treating. Under our constitution he has fundamental human rights to privacy and there is nothing under our constitution which says he must disclose to public what disease he is suffering from. That he is a president does not mean he must disclose what is personal to him. His health is a personal matter and not a public matter. That is under our constitution. With Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, coming out boldly to say Buhari is on life-support, do you not think he should step down? Under the constitution, the president is entitled to remain in office whether he is ill or not. What our constitution says is that he remains the president until he dies. He has not been pronounced dead. Whether one likes it or not, that is the position of our constitution. It is left to him to resign if he feels he cannot continue as the president. So it is a matter for him. It is a subjective tense. He cannot be dictated to by anybody. Also the law allows somebody else to act for him when he is ill. And somebody who exercises all the powers of the president is acting for him today. Section 135 says that ‘subject to the provision of this constitution, a person shall hold the office of the president until he dies whilst holding such office or resigns. He shall hold the office until his resignation takes effect.’ He has not resigned. There may be loopholes but that is the position of the constitution. Maybe nobody anticipated a president may be ill for many years or for many months. The constitution has even taken care of that fear because we can have the vice president acting. So he remains the president. In the days of late president Umaru Yar’Adua, there were calls that the Nigerian Medical Association should raise a panel to ascertain his true state of health. Relating that to the case at present, do you think that is a proper thing to do? It is improper to set up an inquiry to look into his health because he is a mortal and can fall sick. The country does not lose anything because the constitution says the vice president can act as president. Who knows whether or not he would recover fully? Only God knows. A doctor may even say a man has one month to live and the person would live many years thereafter. You can’t tell. What is your view about restructuring? People are agitating for the restructuring of this country. I have been an unrepentant supporter and crusader for restructuring of the country because what we have is called federal government but it is indeed a unitary government where states only go for begging of money at the end of every month and no development of any kind is taking place. Left to me and referring to 2014 National Conference where restructuring was suggested, I will suggest a Sovereign National Conference. Whatever the result is turned over to a national referendum and the outcome of the national referendum shall be the people’s constitution without any resort to any assembly for amendment because as long as we still have this national assembly there, they can never restructure this country in a way that will be detrimental to the money they are earning. The 2014 conference says they should not earn salaries anymore they should be earning allowances. What have they done to it? Of course it will not be in their own interest to wipe off salary for allowances, so, they ignored it. The proper thing for us to do is let the Federal Government set in motion the necessary machinery for the restructuring of this country and the result must be out before the next election. In a way, I’m saying there should be no election until we have a new constitution under the Sovereign National Conference. There is urgent need by Buhari government because of the agitation in the country including former military president Ibrahim Babangida. who was one of the men who imposed this constitution on us, who in his wisdom has now changed gear and say let us restructure the country. Recently I appealed to him to call on other military rulers like former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Abubakar Abdul-Salam, Yakubu Gowon and others to join the crusade for restructuring. Considering that previous conferences ended up being a jamboree, because their reports were never implemented. Don’t you think the SNC will not end up a jamboree? It will not because this time it will be subjected to a referendum. Whatever the outcome is shall be the people’s constitution. That is what is happening all over the world and Nigeria should not be an exception. Whatever the outcome is shall be the constitution. That was what happened in 1976 in America and recently in other countries. Now that the constitution does not make a provision for referendum, what do you think? The constitution is the handiwork of the military. We are talking of the people’s constitution. People are superior to any National or State Assembly. If this government has the will to tell the people about the need for a sovereign national conference, members of the state and national assembly would be bound by it. Does the National Assembly have the constitutional powers to adjust the national budget in view of the current controversy between it and Minister of Works, Housing and Power, Tunde Fashola? Certainly not. Under the separation of powers, it is the executive that has the power to think about revenue generation, the amount they want to spend out of it and how to spend it. No where under the constitution is it provided that National Assembly who is to make law shall now engage in budget making. Where does the National Assembly now come in the budget making? It is merely to approve and look at the illegality of it. Look at what they have prepared and see whether it is in line with the law. Nothing more. What if it is not in line with the law? If it is not in line with the law, they send it back to the executive. If after three months it becomes the law. Does that mean the president can ignore the National Assembly? Yes! Does that mean the National Assembly does not have the power to overrule the president? Yes, they don’t have the powers to overrule the president. A Senior Special Adviser to the president said that Buhari would seek re-election in 2019 amidst his health status which is generating debate. Do you think this is a good idea? That is very easy. It is the party that elected him that reserves the right to decide whether they will field him or not. Even if the president says he wants to contest and the party does not want him, he cannot impose himself on the party. In the end, it is the party that decides. How would you rate Acting President Yemi Osinabjo’s performance? Excellent! What is your advice for the president? My advice is that the president should listen to the agitation of Nigerians and immediately organise a sovereign national conference and thereby put an end to agitation from different parts of the country. By doing so, he would earn for himself the credit of one who helps the country to become a nation and not a country of nations or tribes which was the wish of the founding fathers, who met in London between 1950 and 1956 and fashioned a truly federal constitution for the country, which unfortunately was outlawed by the military. You are an elder statesman but people would want to know. Are you a politician? If you are, do you belong to any political party? I’m not a politician. I have never picked the membership card of any political party and have never contested in any election. When Obasanjo as the Head of State wanted to constitute a National Conference based on zero party system, my people in Ado Ekiti approached me in Ibadan and elected me on no party basis to go to the constituent assembly for them. But I’m a political animal. Plato said ‘every citizen who wants to know how he is governed is apolitical animal. If you do not want to know how a government performs, you are an animal and should leave in the forest.’ I live among the people and should know how I’m governed. This is why regularly; I air my views on issues about how I should be governed.]]>
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