Category: Editorial

• Again, natural justice loses to technical justice

The recent discharge, on technical grounds, of Mr. Francis Atuche, former Managing Director of Bank PHB, bodes ill for the justice system and for the nation as a whole.

Mr. Atuche was facing a N25.7 billion, 27-count charge of stealing and conspiracy at the Lagos High Court. Also charged with him was his wife, Elizabeth, and Mr. Ugo Anyanwu, a former Chief Financial Officer of Bank PHB. The presiding judge, Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo, ruled that the charges brought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lacked merit.

The judge claimed that the court was bound by rulings of the Court of Appeal in similar cases involving Messrs Okey Nwosu and Erastus Akingbola, where charges brought had been struck out owing to lack of jurisdiction. The appellate court had ruled that criminal cases involving the capital market were the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.

Although the EFCC argued that it had challenged the Court of Appeal’s rulings and applied for an adjournment in Atuche’s case, Justice Lawal-Akapo pointed out that he could not go against a subsisting ruling of the appellate court, and thus dismissed the commission’s application in his ruling.

Once again, serious charges preferred against prominent Nigerian citizens have failed because of legal technicalities rather than substantive issues. The accused were not set free because they were found to be innocent of charges of stealing and conspiracy, but because the presiding judge found that his court lacked the jurisdiction to try the case. Whether or not acts of theft and conspiracy were indeed committed, is the crucial question.

It appears that the strategy of focusing upon technical rather than substantive issues has become a dominant theme in Nigeria’s judicial process. The ostensible ill-health of accused persons entitles them to extended periods abroad treating themselves while the case waits. Crimes that are supposed to be punished with incarceration now have the option of ridiculously low fines. At worst, the convicted thieves are ordered to return what they stole without spending a day in jail. Barefaced corruption and theft become the less-serious offence of contract-splitting, and consequently attract short custodial sentences. A few months of “bed-rest” in exclusive hospitals is substituted for years of imprisonment.

This sustained subversion of the legal process is a reflection of deep-rooted flaws in the country’s legal system. It exposes the suspect competence of prosecutorial agencies like the EFCC, which allow themselves to be repeatedly ambushed by clever lawyers determined to bog them down in a minefield of technicalities that take years to determine, and distract the court from focusing on the substantive issues. The judges themselves cannot be absolved of blame; far too many of them appear to be content to grant endless requests for adjournment and allow disputes over jurisdiction to drag on, instead of forcing counsel to concentrate on the case.

The tragic consequence of these shortcomings is that the courts are failing to live up to their status as the last resort of the common man. In the Atuche case, the damage done to shareholders and customers of Bank PHB was certainly not the consequence of technicalities. Savings were lost, livelihoods destroyed, and individuals ruined. Public funds that could have been put to better use were diverted towards saving the bank from collapse. Given the amount of suffering caused, the resort to legal technicalities to determine guilt or innocence is an obscenity.

The EFCC must ensure that it revives its prosecution of the individuals it has charged. The commission should speed up the resolution of its appeal against the cases of Nwosu and Akingbola; if a favourable ruling is obtained, it must take the Atuche case to the Federal High Court.

A legal system in which fine points of law have become more significant than issues of right and wrong is a disgrace to Nigeria.

•A musical brand departs

His songs reflected a strong folk element, and his technique of dramatic rendition that incorporated mimicry thrilled audiences across the country, in high and low places. A music celebrity, his better known name expressed a fitting assonantal musicality. Dan Maraya Jos, born Adamu Wayya in 1946, was renamed after losing his parents. He became “The Little Orphan of Jos”, which is what his more popular name means; it was a combination that not only described his orphanhood but also defined his origin, having been born in B’ukur, near Jos in present-day Plateau State.

Growing up in a royal setting following his adoption by a local emir after the death of his father who had been a court musician, Dan Maraya chose the musical path before his teenage years. He was inspired to make a local musical instrument called Kuntigi while on a visit to Maiduguri, and this marked the beginning of his long-lasting romance with the instrument. Described as a “small, single-stringed lute” with a body that is “usually a large, oval-shaped sardine can covered with goatskin,” the Kuntigi supplied the sounds that spiced Dan Maraya’s songs. He represented a fast-fading circle of musicians who have successfully exploited the musical resources of indigenous culture.

His death in his hometown on June 20 aged 69 ended a musical career that brought him recognition and honour. Among his garlands are the national decorations, Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) and Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), the United Nations Peace Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Jos. It is symbolic of his stature that his last known public performance was at the Peoples Democratic Party’s December 2014 fundraiser in Abuja toward the 2015 general elections, where he had a handshake with then President Goodluck Jonathan after his act.

It is worth noting that Dan Maraya’s celebrated musicianship did not serve only the powerful. Beyond the praise-singing aspect of his repertoire, many of his songs reflected social consciousness and passed for social commentary. For instance, his first and perhaps most famous song, Wak’ar Karen Mota (Song of the Driver’s Mate), focused on “the young men who get passengers in and out of minivan buses and do the dirty work of changing tyres, pushing broken-down vans, and the like.”

Also notable for their social content are Jawabin Aure (Discourse on Marriage), a song that “lists the problems attendant in divorce and admonishes married couples to try to patch up their differences,” and Auren Dole (Forced Marriage) which “decries the practice of families arranging marriages for their daughters rather than letting them decide on their own mates.”

It is commendable that the Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria has announced plans to establish a foundation in his memory which will cater for orphans and widows. Dan Maraya reportedly provided shelter for more than 13 orphans in his lifetime, and his philanthropy was informed by his own experience of orphanism.

There is no doubt that Dan Maraya achieved the status of a musical brand, and it is remarkable that his appeal and musical influence transcended the country’s northern region where his story began. He was a familiar performer at important events of national significance; and it is a testimony to his wide acceptance that although he sang in the Hausa language, he had many fans outside his ethnic environment. His relevance was captured in a tribute by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar who said: “Dan Maraya Jos used music to contribute to national unity, peace and stability by preaching togetherness.”

SIR: Permit  me  to  state  George  Santayana’s  words  ‘’  Those  who  do  not  remember  the past  are  condemned  to  repeat  it’’.

The  All  Progressive  Congress  APC  was  founded  on  February  6 ,  2013  from  a  merger  of ACN ,  CPC ,  ANPP ,  a  part  of  APGA  and  later the New  PDP  members  joined its  fold.

That  the  then  President  Goodluck  Jonathan  conceded  defeat  on  March  31,  the  first  time  in  Nigeria’s  political  history  an  opposition  political  party  unseated  a governing  party  in  a  general  election  is  no  longer  news. But  what  is  news  is  the  internal  wrangling  among  lawmakers  belonging  to  the victorious APC.

The candidates  sponsored  by  the  party for the leadership of the National Asembly,  Senator  Ahmed  Lawan  and  Honourable Femi  Gbajabiamila for  the  Senate  President  and  Speaker respectively  failed  to  clinch  victory following an alliance between  Senator  Bukola  Saraki  and  Honourable  Yakubu  Dogara  and members  of  the  PDP.

Now  here’s  the  big  picture. Nigerians  voted  for  change: Change  in  the  economy, an end to corruption  or  government  stealing  et  al  and  not  the  display  of ego. At a time like this,  party  men  and  women  should  exude  discipline  and respect  for  their  party  and  earnestly  support  President  Buhari  in  bringing  about  the needed  change  Nigerians  yearn  for.

To every  challenge  there’s  a  solution; the  hammer  and  anvil  approach  should  be  discarded  as  legislators  are  not  small  boys  to  roll  over  at anyone’s  whims  and  caprices  as  against  their  legitimate  ambitions. The  Senate  President  and  Speaker  should  apply  wisdom  by  prevailing  on  their  supporters to  sheath  their  swords,  concede  the  Principal  positions  to  the  party  and  show  true  sportsmanship and  respect  for party’s  leadership. This should serve  as  a  lesson  to  other  parties  that  ‘’  Humility  is  indeed  strength  ‘’

No  man  or  woman  is  bigger  than  his  or  her  political  party  on  whose  platform  they  came to limelight. Lest  we  forget,  Senator  Asiwaju  Bola  Tinubu,  President  Muhammadu  Buhari,  the various  state  governors  and  a  host  of  other  principal  actors  staked  enormous  resources, time and faced threats  to  ensure  this  party  came  to  fruition.

Martin  Luther  King  jnr  once  said  ‘’We  are  not  makers of  history;  we  are  made  by

history  ‘’. The  time  is  nigh  for  governors,  party  leaders  and  stakeholders  to  nip the wrangling  in  the  bud before  it  spirals  out  of  proportion. A  party  man  who  would  continue  to defy  his  party  would  also  defy  the  President  and  sponsor  same.

President  Muhammadu  Buhari  need  the  legislature; the  legislators need  the  President. Both  need  the  party  and  Nigeria  needs  all.

• Wonder Akpeki 

Sapele,  Delta  State.

•Britain and US should not have endorsed the charade at the NASS

Barely 48 hours after Senator Bukola Saraki was elected Senate President, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr Andrew Pocock, visited him to congratulate him on his election which he reportedly described as “well deserved”. His visit to the Senate President was followed, six days later, by that of the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James F. Entwistle.

Pocock said most things expected during such visits; he spoke of his country’s readiness to support the red chamber in capacity building of the lawmakers to make their job easier. “We discussed capacity building for the Senate both in general terms and also in areas of particular interest and difficulty, complex pieces of legislation”, he told journalists after the visit. He added: “We briefly discussed some of the security inputs that we might make to help with the stabilisation of the security situation in the North East,” and that Britain would assist the country on the economic front as well as other areas where it can be of assistance.

We do not have much on record concerning the US envoy’s visit to Dr Saraki on June 18, about nine days after he assumed duties as Senate President, which, to us, is also an endorsement of his emergence as Senate President.

But we are particularly concerned about these visits, especially coming from the two countries with strong democratic traditions, given the circumstances under which Dr Saraki emerged as Senate President. There is no doubt that Dr Saraki clinched that position in the most controversial manner.

The upper legislative chamber has 109 members. Of this number, the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has 49 senators while the All Progressives Congress (APC) has the remaining 59; one of its senators-elect died last month. This leaves the APC comfortable to produce the leadership in the senate.

Unfortunately, Senator Saraki teamed up with the PDP senators and about eight from the APC to get the position at a time that about 51 other members of the APC were at the International Conference Centre in Abuja to attend a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. As part of the trade-off by Senator Saraki, Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP was elected Deputy Senate President. Not a few wondered how a man could have stabbed his own party in the back the way Senator Saraki did, just to realise his ambition.

Of course, all of these are in the public domain and ought to have served as notice to the envoys to be more circumspect in endorsing Dr Saraki’s election. We are sure none of the two envoys would have seen Senator Saraki’s election as acceptable if it had happened in their countries the way it did here on June 9. The point is, the mandate that Dr Saraki is exercising does not belong to him, it belongs to the political party under which platform he contested and won election into the Senate. And once that party takes a decision on a matter, he is duty bound to abide by that decision.

What we are saying is that nothing would have been lost if the envoys had waited for the fog over these issues to clear before visiting the winner or felicitating with him. There is no doubt that the Senate President met the legal requirement of a simple majority that he needed to occupy the position. In other words, he complied with the letter of the law but unfortunately fell short of the spirit of the law.

Without doubt, it took the APC a long time to decide on the contentious issue of who takes what position in the National Assembly after its victory at the polls; that still, should not be a justification for Senator Saraki to cede what rightly belongs to his party to another political party. Such bad faith cannot be in accord with the spirit of the law which, sometimes, is even more evocative than the letter of the law.

•Where is the $1.48bn the firm promised to refund to government?

What could be more contemptuous than for an agency of government to feel bigger than the government that created it? This question becomes pertinent in view of the conceited disposition and breaches of financial rules, regulations and lawful directives that have become symptomatic of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) over the years. This fact is better underscored by the corporation’s disobedience of presidential order issued it by former President Goodluck Jonathan to refund $1.48bn (N291.56bn) into the Federation Account.

The order was made not less than four months ago and now, about one month into the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The presidential directive was a consequence of two major events: one was an allegation by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that $49bn of the nation’s oil money was missing from the Federation Account. Two, it was the outcome of a forensic report of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), an international audit firm, commissioned by the Federal Government to look into the books of the corporation. The report, whatever its shortcomings, came up with scandalous transactions that the management of the corporation engaged in on a daily basis, thereby short-changing the nation of its hard earned oil revenue, usually paid for in dollars.

Samuel Ukura, Auditor-General of the Federation who at the period released excerpts of the report to the media was unsparing. He explained that the report was based on the NNPC costs, ownership of the NPDC revenues and Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK) subsidy. He reportedly declared that “based on the information available to the PwC, and from analysis, the firm submitted that the NNPC and NPDC should refund to the Federation Account a minimum of $1.48 billion.”

Surprisingly, months after and, despite the intervention of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), the body responsible for sharing of revenues amongst the nation’s component units, over the delay by the NNPC to remit to the government the said sum, nothing concrete has been done. We are compelled to ask: why has NNPC not complied with this presidential directive? Is the corporation going to pay interest on this huge amount illegally kept in its custody? For how long has this corporation been perpetuating this kind of illegality? What is still keeping security agencies in the country from interceding in this fraud and also bringing those involved before the law? It is high time the administration of President Buhari seized the moment to duly cut the NNPC to size.

Notwithstanding the financial recklessness of some state governors that put most states in dire financial crisis, we still believe that the delay by NNPC in refunding the money into the Federation Account has eroded the revenue base of most states across the country. Perhaps if it had been done appropriately as directed, the crisis of salary arrears in the states may have been mitigated.

We call on the President Buhari administration to revisit the PwC forensic audit report so as to have a firsthand insight into the odious maladministration going on under the guise of managing the NNPC and its subsidiaries. Except the authorities do something now, the graft and impunity going on in the corporation would continue.

This impunity by the NNPC must stop forthwith.

•Let our lawmakers shed weight considerably. What they earn is indefensible 

In these austere times, the management of the National Assembly will pay a whopping N9bn as allowances to the recently inaugurated lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives. Going by the package released for the political office holders by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the Senate President will earn N5.5 million yearly; his deputy, N5.1 million while other senators earn N5 million. In the House of Representatives, the Speaker earns N4.3 million; his deputy, N4.2 million while other members earn N4 million annually.

They also collect, upfront, 300 percent of their salaries as housing allowance, 300 percent as vehicle allowance and 250 percent as furniture allowance. Thus, a senator would collect N 6m as accommodation allowance, another N6m as vehicle allowance and N4.5m as furniture allowance. As if these are not enough, the legislators would be paid N506,000 as wardrobe allowance. All of these would be paid into the legislators’ bank accounts this week.

Yet, it has not always been like this. In the First Republic, our lawmakers did the job part-time. If we say it was not costly because we ran a parliamentary system of government then, the Second Republic was another example. It has turned out that what we saw as corruption in the Second Republic was a child’s play compared with what obtain in our legislative chambers these days in the name of salaries and allowances. Indeed, there was never a time when our lawmakers’ pay has become as contentious as it is now, apparently because the present legislators have decided to corner more than the owner could ignore. And it started very early in the day in 1999, when the then National Assembly members awarded themselves about N5m each as furniture allowance.

Yet, if we consider job evaluation and performance, the legislators are by far overpaid. Apart from the official emoluments, they arrange for themselves foreign trips which are nothing but jamborees solely for the collection of estacode. Even some of them do go about their businesses when they should be at their chambers making laws.

They claim that their salaries are official, but their pay packet is overloaded with sundry allowances! And there are more avenues for cornering extra monies, like overnight functions, committee assignments, the fraudulent constituency allowance and other spurious claims that we do not know about. This is not to talk of fat severance allowances given to some legislators upfront, just after four or more years, while civil servants who had put in 35 years of service do not get their gratuities many years after retirement.

Our legislators’ allowances are outrageous and out of tune with the country’s economic realities. Law making is not designed for milking a country dry. After all, there are lawmakers in other parts of the world like the UK and USA where lawmakers travel by rail or bus and live in moderate apartments. It is even obscene that our legislators will be earning this much in a country where people who work for eight hours a day and five or six days in a week earn N18,000 as minimum wage. Even then, about 18 states of the federation have not been able to pay their workers’ salaries for more than six months! The point is, wages and allowances should be a function of responsibility and economic realities.

Nigerians must rise against these extravagant pay that our legislators collect. We expected Labour to have  voiced opposition to this a long time ago; however that it is doing so now, when workers in about 18 states of the federation have not been paid salaries, in some cases for six months, is nonetheless welcome. The colossal wastage of public funds by only 469 out of 160 million Nigerians must stop forthwith. Those who are supposed to be the people’s representatives should not live like oil sheikhs in a country where majority of the people live on less than $2 a day.

‘It is even obscene that our legislators will be earning this much in a country where people who work for eight hours a day and five or six days in a week earn N18,000 as minimum wage. Even then, about 18 states of the federation have not been able to pay their workers’ salaries for more than six months!’