Daily Independent (Lagos)
Tunde Opeseitan
2 July 2009
interview
Lagos — Barrister Olukayode Enitan was called to the Bar and became Solicitor and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1989. He studied law at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. In this encounter with Tunde Opeseitan, the Lagos-based legal practitioner spoke on several laws related issues. He is of the view that establishment of a special court to adjudicate on EFCC matters is not necessary. He also argued that the Federal Character Act should be expunged from the constitution. He spoke on other issues.
Except:
The chairman of the EFCC, Farida Waziri, is advocating a special court to try corrupt persons; she predicated her call on alleged delay in the judicial system. Do you think that Nigeria needs a special court to fight corruption and is the Judiciary solely responsible for the delay in the trial of corruption cases in the country?
I totally disagree with her. I, for one, have the greatest respect for the Judiciary. The men and women, who make up the Nigerian Judiciary have made and are still making great sacrifices for this nation. So for anyone to come up and say that they are delaying cases is very unfair. These are men and women work under the most difficult circumstances.
Why would many of us not go and become a judge, it is because of the hard work. A lawyer comes to court, argues his case and goes back to his office but the Judge has to listen to all kind of things; some people make sense while others say all kind of rubbish. He must hear it, he must write it down so as not to be seen or suspected of taken side. Then when he is writing his judgment, he must still re-write both the sense and the nonsense and make sense of whatever is sensible. After these, he will still have to make his findings, apply the law and come to a conclusion. Yes corruption is there and we all want to kick it out of the country but that is a wish because; we are not going to be able to rid Nigeria of corruption 100 percent.
No nation on God's earth is 100 percent free of corruption. However, all we want is for it to be reduced to a sensible level but because we want speedy trial, we cannot throw away the rule of law. Okay, let me give an instance of how these things have happened before. The court that we now know as the Federal High Court used to be a special court. It was then called Federal Revenue Court. Then gradually its jurisdiction widened and today it does every things that every other State High Court does subject only to the fact that that thing relates to the Federal Government or any of it agencies. So what am I getting at is the fact that we don't need a special court to trial EFCC cases or corruption cases. Let the case go before the Judges, each Judge will decide according to law because the rule of court are there as well as the laws. All these laws have embedded in them how things should be done. So the Judges are over worked and under paid and you want to insult them further by saying that they are delaying cases.
It is true that there are many lawyers who go to court to delay cases but there are also many lawyers who also go to court with the view of getting things done. There are sometimes legitimate challenges on criminal matters, however, the rule and principle from time immemorial is that it is better for very many guilty persons to get away than for one innocent person to be condemned. So under the excuse of speedy trial, you must not slaughter justice. We should allow things to proceed properly. If a court is not doing what it should do, the record are there and report can be made. If a particular Judge that has a case chooses not to do it and delays the case, the fact will speaks for themselves whether he likes it or not. Some years, back some Judges were dismissed. We have had special court in the past what happen to the Failed Banks Tribunals. Most of the cases they handled have not been concluded up till now. Moreover, are they going to bring those Judges that would man those courts from heaven? Are they not Judges that are already in the system? So what are we now talking about? There is no need for a special court to try corruption cases, what they should do is to appoint more Judges and build more courtrooms. The court environment should be made more comfortable for Judges and more supporting staff should be made available to them so that they can feel more relax and comfortable. It is because of the stress that they are being put through that only five years after retirement they are death.
The President has insisted that he will not reduce his Seven-point Agenda despite growing calls on him to do so; according to him all the agenda are vital to his plans for the development of the country. Will you say he is right?
That is the challenge you get when things are given to those who really are not interested in them. President Yar'Adua was not interested in becoming President. He was satisfied having been a two terms Governor of Kastina State and he was going to retire probably to the classrooms or to his farm until they went and drafted him into the presidential race. He did well in Kastina State but then is Kastina State like Lagos State for example? Is it is not. It is just like somebody having done well in primary school and you suddenly promote him to JSS two in the second school the man is going to find himself in deep water and in such deep water he is either going to sink or failing all day.
I believe that is the primary reason for the things we are seeing in respect of President Yar'Adua's performance. I think that he is a man that has an idea of what he wants to do but how to get it done is what he found difficult to come up with. Everybody in Nigeria knows what the problems are and we have different solutions to the problems. However, when you are given the opportunity then you will be confronted with way to go about solving the problems. For instance for someone like former President Obasanjo when he was there, no doubt we all have some reservation about the way he did some things, but one thing was, he seemed to have an idea of what and what he wanted to do. President Yar'Adua might have a Seven-point Agenda to accomplish in four years. I believe that it can be done but does he have the capacity to do them.
Perhaps if he had said he is going to tackle the problems of power, road and housing because any government that comes in and solves the power problems and solves it and taken care of the housing problem and also that of the roads this nation would have written his name in gold. The people are not in all honestly really asking for much from those governing them. If you meet those needs, you will discover that all other problem would be sorted out. The moment the power problem is solved most of the things we are running round the street doing would be done from our offices. Most people would be able to concentrate attention on other thing. We have been running a generating set non-stop for some time now. In fact, PHCN supply is not up to our standby. If we had power in a day maybe one hour. I quite agree with Mr. Lamido Sanusi because what he said is good wisdom. You cannot cover the entire whole angle. So he has to be focus that is basically what the CBN Governor was saying. So if all he can do is to solve the power and Niger Delta problem, then it is okay.
However, in a case that he want to do everything, he wants to do power, water, roads, he wants to do this, he wants to do that, at the end of the day if in two years, the President himself cannot tell us what he has achieved, then it is too bad. They said by the end of the year they want to generate 6,000 megawatt of electricity when smaller countries are generating more than that. In South Africa, for example, they generate what they need and another 100 percent of what they need. Why can't we allow the IPP policy to work, there are many licenses that are granted what is happening? Why have they not taken up? When President Obasanjo was there, though many of us did not appreciate what he was doing, there was a time that we didn't have the power blinking in several places. So that is my opinion on the Seven Point Agenda, the president needs to be focused.
I remember when I was in the university, there was this man that I had cause to travel with. We were in the car together and we were discussing and he said something about focus. He said that the driver should pack and we stood by the roadside. And he said that he was going to urinate all over the floor and that I should urinate on a spot. When we finished, he said what impact does the person who urinated all over the place has on the ground, nothing but the person who urinated on a spot had dug a hole on the ground. That is what happens when you are focused.
Nigeria used to be a force to be reckon with in international politics especially under former President Olusegun Obasanjo but this seem not to be the case anymore as world leaders now ignore the country. Do you think the current re-branding campaign of the Federal Government can change this?
With due respect to the proponents of the re-branding campaign of this government, I will say that re-branding Nigeria is not a function of what you do on CNN or in the papers. This is what Obasanjo did, which I believe was simply a waste of resources. I believe re-branding is what you do and not what you say. I was talking about President Obasanjo and his Heart of Africa Project. When I saw that thing on CNN, I was disappointed not only in him as the president but also in all those who were involved in that project. Nigeria can only be said to have been re-branded when we the citizens can hold our head high anywhere in the world. When our government begins to fight for us international. We need to get it right first at home before we can then get it right outside. Our leaders must awake up to their responsibilities and lead by example. The issue of corruption must be tackled with all the seriousness it deserved. It is difficult to sell a bad product; there must be something that will attract people to a product before they can buy it. In the case of Nigeria what is the selling point, what do we have that we want to show case to the rest of the world. Is it bad governance and corruption? So I believe that re-branding will not solve our problem, we must first of all change our attitude and reform our institutions.
The President has announced the terms and conditions for the unilateral amnesty he recently offered to militants in the Niger Delta, in spite of the fact that the militants have continue to blow up oil installations in the region. In you view do you think the offer of amnesty to the militants would solve the problems in the Niger-Delta?
Let me make one thing clear, those guys are neither militants in the way that we know militancy or are they people fighting for anybody's freedom; 99 present of those guys in the Niger Delta today are those I will call oil criminals. They are basically men and women that have found an opportunity in the under-development of that area to amass wealth illegally. They are busy doing illegal bunkering, illegal oil refining and sale of oil. That is what I see happening there. Yes, that area needs development and I think the simple solution is that the government must be ready to move in to that area and do interventionist programmes. Developmental programmes that touch the people, but unfortunately government intervention in that area of the country has not worked because of the greed of the leaders.
Institutions were set up in the past to develop the area and people from the Niger Delta manned these institutions. How come all those fund has not been seen in the environment. So the government must be ready to go in with developmental programmes that will impact on the lives of the people of the region. They must find the right people that can deliver and give them the work and they should be mobilize to do it. When everything that these jokers say they are fighting for is there then the people would rise up against them. So government must be sincere. Well amnesty is good if those guys are agitating for the betterment of the people. However, government must be forthright in coming out with workable condition and the people also must be ready to be seen in the light of what they want to be seen and not in the light of what they truly are. The oil majors the OIC they also need to relax a little and at the end of the day it will be for the good of everybody. They said that they are fighting for a higher derivation formula I have nothing against them having it. It is just like in Lagos State for instance if you are doing derivation formula whether it is for oil or VAT or any other kind of income the same principle should be applied. If you are giving them 13 percent derivation there is nothing stopping any other state from getting the same percentage from what ever income the government get from it boundary. So what is good for one person is good for the other. The same way they nationalized oil that you cannot just go and exploit they should also nationalized other minerals too. Today if you say you want to mine any of the solid minerals you will be given the license readily.
One major fallout of the crisis in the Niger Delta is the problem of kidnapping, in fact, the crime has spread all over the country, recently the Vice President said that the Federal Government is set to send a bill to the National Assembly for a law against the crime. Sir, don't we have laws in our books that can effectively take care of this problem?
We have existing laws in regard to kidnapping. However, maybe what they are trying to say is that the penalties are not sufficient to serve as deterrent to those involved in the crime. As I said earlier, those guys involved in kidnapping are criminal who have nothing to do with any economic or socio-economic agenda rather it has to do with a selfish interest. If it is because of the problem in the Niger Delta, how then can you explain the kidnapping that happen in Kaduna, Lagos and Imo states? The IGP recently said that kidnapping is all over the eastern part of the country and the question is whether that is because of oil too? So its need to be dealt with and dealt with fast. Because very soon we nobody will be safe, they only have to think that there is some money that they can get from you. They forget that very many of us go to somewhere to lease a car or get mortgage to buy a house. So based on that if they want to impose stronger penalty I have nothing against it or else none of us would be safe.
Sir, is the issue of the federal character policy still relevant to our present day realities considering the recent appointment of the Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, who is from the same state with the current Minister of Finance as well as that of the National Planning Ministry?
The greatest disservice that is being done and has been done and I pray that it would be stopped is the issue of Federal Character. Some people said that Nigeria is a geographical expression; that there are no people called Nigerian. The reason is that Nigerians everyday are being made to owe allegiance to their villages than to Nigeria. You want to fill a form they will ask for your name, surname, address, marital status, state of origin, local government of origin, tribe, religion in a nation that we say we are one. Until we remove those things, we cannot have a united nation. Let start with that I know that it is not going to remove the problems over night. We should forget about state of origin, let us ask where is you state of residence? Where are you living? We have seen two children of the same father being Governor in different states that is in the United States of America. Hillary Clinton did not live in New York until when she wanted to be a Senator. She knew that if you wanted to be a Senator in New York you only have to live there for one year. Obama did not come from Chicago but from Ohio where his grandparents came from, in fact his father was an immigrant and less than 50 years of his birth he is the President of America. So let us do away with the federal character and instead promote merit.
Who, in your view, should appoint the INEC Chairman, is it the President or the National Judicial Council (NJC)?
The man that appoints the INEC Chairman is not the important thing but who is the man being appointed that is the most important thing. If NJC appoints him and he gets there but he is a man that has no spine, has no integrity, has no morals and has no substance to himself, he will be worse than the present man there now. If he is a man of integrity and a man of a sound moral back bone and he know that no matter what happens he is not serving the person who appoint him but the Nigeria people. And he knows that it is his duties to ensure that elections are free and fair and that it is the people that truly win election that were returned. If the President appoints him he will still get there and do what he should do. Once he is appointed and he knows that they cannot just remove him anyhow, he would work for the interest of the nation.
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