Lagos — One of the greatest tragedies to befall the nation in recent times was the sad transition of the human rights icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN. But the late social crusader mentored many young Nigerian lawyers who today are taking after him in the fight for a just and equitable society. JUDE IGBANOI spoke with one in the army of Fawehinmi's protégées. Festus Egwarewa Adeniyi Keyamo cut his legal teeth in Gani Fawehinmi's Chambers after his call to Bar in 1993.

Keyamo has fought and lost a few legal battles including his quest to unravel the killers of Chief Bola Ige SAN, but the many public interest cases he has won stand him out as a social crusader in the mould of Gani. His recent victory in court in the sensational corruption case against the former Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Chief Olabode George, prompted this late night chat at his expansive Lagos offices last week

As lead prosecution counsel in Chief Olabode George's trial for corruption, would you say the judgment by Justice Oyewole is appropriate in the circumstance?

Yes, of course! If you consider that this is the first full trial of public officers for corruption by the EFCC, then you will realise that this judgment needed to set the right precedent for others to follow. This is the type of conviction that the EFCC and the public have craved for many years now, that is trial and conviction of public officers based on the merit of the case. It is the first of its kind. There was no plea bargain in this case; there was no clandestine arrangement of any sort. We went the whole hog, called ten witnesses and closed our case. They also called their witness and closed their case. We all addressed the court. And the court considered the case on the merits.

Let me salute the courage, the sagacity and the erudition of Justice Oyewole. He is such a thorough judge. Any judgment, negative or positive that you get from Justice Oyewole, you as the litigant or lawyer, must go home knowing full well that justice has been done according to the conscience of Oyewole and not due to any influence. As a human being, he may make a mistake as to facts or as to law, but he will never pander to any of the competing interests in a case. As a judge, you must ask yourself, can those who appear before you say the same of you?

I have decided to make this eulogy in this interview to encourage other judges on the bench to do what is right at all times so that lawyers, the public and their colleagues can give them such testimonials. I am not saying this because I won my case. I have lost cases before Justice Oyewole but I went home satisfied that he acted according to his conscience. In cases where I have disagreed with him on facts or law, I have gone on appeal. So the judgment, I can boldly say, is appropriate in the circumstances.

Remember Oyewole said when public officers abuse public office, the psyche of the society is assaulted. That judgment has resounded beyond the four walls of that courtroom and even beyond the shores of this country. The judgment sends a strong message to the country and to society in general. The message it sends to public officers is that one day, just one day, you may be called to account for your deeds in office. Every payment voucher, every contract awarded and every policy must be thoroughly scrutinised before a decision is made, because public office is a position of trust. The desperation and struggle we see everyday by people who want to occupy public office is simply because there is so much to steal in public office. If we can remove that attraction in public office by sending the bad guys to jail, then the journey to re-orientation of public office holders would have just begun.

But the biggest message of all by this judgment is that no one is above the law.

Many are of the view that two and a half years jail term are like a slight tap on the knuckles. Do you share this view?

I do not share this view. In jurisprudence, the concept of punishment is not to make you suffer physically but to correct your mental make-up and to just be enough to serve as a deterrent to you and to others who may be planning to behave like the convict. Even if the sentence has been for just six months, for such highly-placed public officers the damage it does to their psyche is enough to beat them back to track for life. The stigma it brings along with it is profound and complete.

It is so difficult for any ex-convict to bounce back to normal life, no matter the hype. For instance, I laugh each time I see an ex-convicts like Alameiseigha attempting to repackage himself before Nigerians instead of keeping quiet and eating whatever is left of his loot.

But I can understand the feelings of Nigerians. They have been so traumatised by the poverty in the land occasioned by the kleptomania of those in public office that they just wish everyone in public office dead. If they have their way, the masses will just start shooting all those in public office. But Nigerians must realise and be consoled by the fact that the isolation a public officer suffers from society after conviction is worse than locking him in prison for life.

While many lawyers and the human rights community are hailing the Justice Oyewole judgment, the PDP leadership is of the view that it was too harsh. Do you read any political motives to this trial in any shape and form?

I have said it before that it is a futile attempt to package the trial like a political trial. It will not fly. Not with a judge like Justice Oyewole. It is sad that the PDP, a ruling party, can descend so low as to be issuing statements on behalf of ex-convicts, instead of the party to hide its head in shame that one of their own can even be found guilty at all for corrupt practices! It gives you an insight into the type of people who are issuing such statements. While we may have great men and women within the PDP, such statements by their leadership belittle their stature. I think the PDP should not have dabbled into this matter. It is not a PDP affair. It is a judicial affair.

It's one of the few instances that the nation is witnessing the successful conclusion of such a high profile case. What may have aided the speedy conclusion of such a case in less than one year?

Speedy trials are always as a result of the co-operation of all those involved in the administration of justice. The lawyers on both sides and most especially the judge who must be willing to work extra hours to quickly dispense justice. In this case, credit must go to my learned seniors on the opposite side who showed great maturity as leaders of the bar and as officers of the court to dispense with frivolous applications and went straight to trial. The judge was always willing to accommodate us. For us, the prosecution, we gathered our witnesses promptly, did not seek unnecessary adjournments and proved our case beyond reasonable doubt.

Would you be surprised if the judgment is over-turned on appeal? The defendants are said to have already filed notices of appeal.

I am not the appellate court, so I cannot pre-empt them. But if you have the benefit of reading the judgment, you will see how thorough, how methodical, how detailed Oyewole was. He marshaled the facts with uncanny astuteness and that is why to overturn those findings of facts at the appellate court will take something near a miracle. Generally, appellate courts are very reluctant to interfere with findings of facts of a lower court, especially when those findings are based on legally admissible evidence, except they are extremely perverse. This would be so even if the appellate court, given those facts, would have reached a different conclusion. So long as there is some basis for those findings by the lower court, the appellate court will respect it. I have not been served any process of appeal, but if and when I do receive it, I will respond appropriately.

You prosecuted on behalf of the EFCC. A few Ribadu critics wonder why he arrested and started so many cases against allegedly corrupt public officer, but could not pursue such cases to logical conclusions, leaving room for insinuations that the EFCC was set up to hound those who were not in the good books of former President Obasanjo. Is there any truth in this assumption?

Well, even though I tried my best, all credit must go to Mrs. Farida Waziri who dug up and dusted this file from where it had been abandoned by the previous leadership of the EFCC led by Ribadu and decided that the case should be charged to court. I want you to remember very well that after much pressure from the press at that time, Ribadu said they did not find any merit in the case, hence they could not charge anybody to court. I have been shouting myself hoarse since that Ribadu shielded Obasanjo's cronies like Bode George, Andy Uba and others and some few did not know what I was saying. Imagine Ribadu disqualifying Ngige from public office and clearing Andy Uba to run for Governor, despite the fact that Andy Uba's properties had just been seized at that time by a court in America for smuggling dollars into America. The whole of the anti-corruption battle under Obasanjo's regime was only against those who disagreed with Obasanjo and he found a ready tool in Ribadu.

But Mrs. Waziri, who I have come to know to have a sharp eye for details, believed in the merit of the case and found the courage to charge such a highly-placed PDP stalwart to court. I remember she was under tremendous pressure not to do so, especially the day Bode George was arrested, but she stuck to her guns. It goes to show that we can achieve a lot in the anti-corruption battle if we can finally insulate the anti-corruption bodies from political control. Credit must also go to the hardworking Investigating Police Offices of the Commission who gave us support during the trial and the very committed legal department of the EFCC headed by my very good friend, Hassan. I cannot also forget my personal staff in both Lagos and Abuja offices comprising my junior lawyers and secretaries, some of whom stay up with me till after midnight when I am working on such cases.

Anyway, back to the issue of how the case went in court. I remember when Bode George was suing newspapers and magazines for libel over this issue, the EFCC then under its leadership said they did not believe in the guilt of Bode George because he was just the Chairman of a Board who could not be held responsible for the acts of corruption in the Nigerian Ports Authority. But like I argued in my final written address, Section 7 of the Criminal Code provides, among other things that if you fail or omit to do an act for the purpose of enabling or aiding another person to commit the offence, then you are as guilty as the person who committed the offence. I reminded the court that the whole purpose of making the Board of the NPA led by Bode George, the final approving authority for all contracts is to put the Board in a position to check cases of fraud that the officers of the NPA would want to perpetrate in the award of contracts. If, as the approving authority, you fail or omit to check that fraud, then you are as guilty as anyone else.

The defence, marshaled by five very intelligent Senior Advocates for whom I have the greatest respect, argued strenuously that all Bode George and other Board members did, was just to approve contracts as submitted to it by the management, so they could not be held responsible. But I countered by saying Management, by the same stretch of logic can say it is what the Price Intelligence Unit presented to it that it forwarded to the Board. The Price Intelligence Unit can also say it is the way it obtained the proposal for the contract from the market that it forwarded to Management. And so on and so forth. At the end of the day, those who have statutory duties to perform in the award of contracts would escape liability and make nonsense of the law because of some warped logic.

Justice Oyewole, in his judgment, agreed with me on the import of Section 7 and travelled to America to import the doctrine of, I think, Corporate Criminal Responsibility for the acts of the officers of a corporate body like the Nigeria Ports Authority. So on the whole, it was a landmark judgment.

Traditionally the Attorney-General is the right person to grant a fiat to private individual lawyers to prosecute, but in this case it appears as if it was the EFCC that brought you in. How did you get the fiat to prosecute?

This is the mistake many lawyers make. In fact in one case when the Police gave me power to prosecute, some lawyers raised objection and I laughed. And a magistrate was misled to believe them. Anyway that will be corrected on appeal. But in as much as the Attorney-General can delegate his powers to prosecute, any other body saddled with such responsibility can also delegate such a power without reference to the Attorney-General of the Federation. In the Supreme Court case of EBE v COMMISSIONER OF POLICE reported in part 1076 of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports, it was held that the Police can delegate its powers to prosecute to private lawyers. In this case, the EFCC appointed me, as a private legal practitioner, to help prosecute some of their cases and they are very well competent to do so. In any case, authorities abound to the effect that no one on earth can challenge the appearance of a lawyer in a case except the person or body who appointed him to conduct that case, so I don't think we have a problem here.

What other important cases have you handled because many some of your critics don't know your other professional side apart from the public battles you do?

You see, even amongst my colleagues, for no reason, they are very few who hate me so passionately they cannot stand my sight. I don't know them and I owe them no apology for the way I carry on with my battles and practice, but I believe that people only throw stones at a tree that bears fruits. The other day, I met a colleague for the first time and after seeing me on a few more occasions, he started singing and confessing that he had a negative impression about me all because he was told by another person who was in turn told another person that I was this or that. But he was taken aback when he came close to me.

There are two completely different sides to my personality that some people don't know except those who work closely with me. After all the battles I do publicly, I bend down to work like the very professional and conservative lawyer. I can lock myself up for one week writing a brief. For instance, my final written address on Bode George and others took me days in my private study in Abuja when I did not go out at all. I hate to do this because of professional decency, but since you have asked, go to the law reports and see important cases I handled like UWAZURIKE & ORS v FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA; GEORGE UDEOZOR v F.R.N; UZOKA v THE STATE; FASAKIN v FASAKIN; FOLUKE MUDASHIRU v ABDULLAHI & ORS; BIMPT v LINPAK; DOKUBO v F.R.N and HELEN UKPABIO v NATIONAL FILMS AND VIDEO CENSORS BOARD. These are in addition to the very high-profile murder case in Kano that lasted nearly five years that I just won. That is the case of THE STATE v MOHAMMED BABA (ALIAS KNIGHT) & ORS. I just finished arguing, at the Supreme Court, the epochal case of BALONWU & ORS. v GOVERNOR, ANAMBRA STATE. Don't forget also that I was part of the team that represented Atiku in ATIKU v YAR'ADUA up to the Supreme Court and many others too numerous to mention, not to talk of the thousands my offices in Lagos and Abuja are handling. But I am only reacting to your question. It is not my habit to list my numerous cases openly.

You have also been pursuing another corruption case against members of the House of Reps. Progress on that seems to have stalled as it appears that the report of EFCC investigation on it is gathering dust. What is the status of that case?

Some ignoramuses who are so angry with me over my recent bombshell regarding the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, recently went to town castigating me that they have not seen the outcome of certain issues like that of the House of Representatives which I raised recently. They have gone so personal as to abuse me and cast aspersions on me. But when people abuse me, I read them like beautiful poems because people only throw stones at a tree that bears fruits. I am totally unfazed by all that.

Funny enough, all the space in those papers that were used to attack me are even too much to just publish the correct certificates of Alhaji Dikko. For those who castigate me that they have not seen the final result of some of my battles, it is like castigating Gani Fawehinmi that they never saw the outcome of his battle to expose the killers of Dele Giwa. These are people who don't understand the struggle.

The fight we are engaged in is a fight against principalities and demons in public office. They do anything to crush you and to suppress such reports. The reaction and desperation with which those you accuse fight back to divert attention from the issues is enough pronouncement of guilt in the eyes of the public. And such cases are never closed. That is why we always say "the struggle continues".

For instance, I understand the report of the investigation into the 407 car scam by the House of Representatives has been sent to appropriate quarters for approval. They have sent all kinds of emissaries to those quarters to bury the report. It is for you, the press, to insist on the outcome of such investigation. I have contributed my quota. They have also launched an assault against me, calling me all kinds of names, including sending a petition to the police to investigate me as to how I got the documents that I used to confront them. They even denied their own documents which is no different from the so-called correct ones that they produced before the Police. They have also been harassing the Police by secretly summoning the Police to their Committees to ask the Police what they are doing about me. They want to see to it that I be charged to court at all cost to divert attention from the issues at stake. But I am ready for them because my life has revolved around such battles, in and out of courts.

These are people who don't understand the tenets of democracy; that people must ask questions and they must take it in their stride. Just imagine people who are suspects before one law-enforcement agency running to another agency to report the same issue! It is sad! So please you the press, ask those in authority why they are not releasing the reports of such investigations, even the one concerning the Nigerian Communications Commission over the sale of one frequency. Ask those in authority what they are also doing to investigate the Comptroller General of Customs over his alleged forged certificates. If we don't join hands together and you help bury the story, we shall all be worse off for it.

The amnesty programme of the Federal Government on the Niger/Delta crisis seems to have been well received, at least there is now a cessation of hostilities in the region. The major worry for some is the rejection of the Aaron Team by the Federal Government. You are from the region, what likely implications could this have on the uneasy calm in the region?

What we have now in the region is the peace of the graveyard, where so many unresolved issues have been temporarily buried, waiting to be resurrected. The issue of militancy in the region is like having a fly on your scrotum - if you hit it hard, you injure yourself. If you approach it with kid gloves, you cannot end the problem. I think the amnesty was ill-conceived, ill-designed and ill-executed. The government has not told us all the truth about the package and I think very soon the bubble will burst. In any case, when you say you are granting amnesty, what offence are you pardoning? Because if you are pardoning those who have kidnapped, who have robbed and who have maimed people, then you are in bed with criminals. You can as well go to Sokoto or Yola prisons and release all the suspects awaiting trial. Because those who have accepted amnesty have tacitly accepted that they are criminals. But my client and friend, Asari Dokubo has said he rejected the amnesty because he has not done anything wrong. The right to self determination is recognised and approved by the United Nations. That is why the world supported the Palestinian Liberation Army, the Irish Republican Army and other such bodies fighting for self determination. These bodies are not different from MASSOB led by my brother and friend Chief Ralph Uwazurike campaigning for self determination of the Igbo people. It is a tactical blunder for the Federal Government to have rejected the Aaron Team. It is better to keep talking to these groups than to engage them in hostilities.

The situation in Anambra State on the candidacy of Professor Soludo as the PDP gubernatorial candidate has created contention within the party. Some have gone to court for an injunction to stop Soludo. INEC has just issued a release barring Soludo from participating in the electoral process in the meantime. What does this portend for democracy and for that state which has of recent been associated with political violence?

Look, my brother, whatever they do, the judiciary must not drag itself into the issue. The judiciary must be kept sacred at all times. These injunctions and counter-injunctions are a complete abuse of judicial process and forum-shopping. The lawyers who aid this should be sanctioned. Judges must not also play into the hands of politicians. If an injunction has been obtained against you, the right thing to do is to seek to set it aside and not go to get a counter-injunction in another court. That will be bringing the judiciary to ridicule and when the judiciary ridicules itself, litigants and politicians will lose faith in the court and they will take their battle to the streets and unleash violence. Therefore what these orders and counter-orders portend for a state like Anambra state is a prescription for anarchy.

One current national issue that has elicited debate is the Bill by some National Assembly members seeking immunity for law makers. The Bill has just passed the second reading. Is this desirable in a democratic setting like ours where corruption and many other vices thrive in political circles?

This is an act total irresponsibility on their part. You see, I think the law makers have not seen the wrath of the people of this country. They have not correctly gauged public opinion if not they would not have embarked on this kind of daredevilry. At a time when the world is moving towards openness and accountability in public office, this Bill moves us back towards the stone-age. I am prepared to lead a protest march to the National Assembly to make our feelings known to them until they do the needful and abandon that project.

The current Chairman of the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, recently advocated that all intending public office holders be subjected to psychiatrist tests. Do you support such a recommendation?

When someone says you should be subjected to psychiatrist test, it does not mean the person is saying you are mad. This is the context in which I understand the statement by Mrs. Farida Waziri. She is only saying that someone whose only goal is to steal and to steal without knowing what to do with the money must have something wrong with his psychology. That person must be tested to see the soundness of his mind. Without being necessarily mad, that person has a mental disease that needs attention or treatment. I therefore support her call wholly and entirely.

The Federal Government has finally announced plans to increase the pump price of petroleum products from N65 to N104. In your opinion what are the likely effects of this on the masses and the economy in the prevailing circumstance?

This cycle of price increases will not stop until something decisive is done about production and distribution of the product and until all our refineries begin to work at, at least, ninety percent of their installed capacity. Petroleum products drive the economy. If you increase it, there would be a corollary increase in the prices of other products in the economy. And if this comes without a corresponding increase in wages, then the masses will suffer. I am completely opposed to increase in the pump price of petroleum products.