Prince Adesegun Ajibola (SAN) is a chip off the old block . His father is a well respected former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, a former panel member of the International Court of Justice, Hague. Ajibola (SAN), in this interview expresses his views on some national issues begging for resolution.
How did you get into legal practice?
The idea of going into the legal profession came from my father, Prince Bola Ajibola. I am what I am today because he molded me. Today, I speak of the legal profession as I refer to the idea of home training. Hardly could any of us avoid the impact or the idea, flavour or the taste or the smell of the legal profession in our house because my father monitored what we do. We could not help but be affected and influenced by his activities as a lawyer particularly when he became the NBA President and later the Attorney General of the Federation. So growing up, one is always influenced by what is around him. So I grew up in an environment in which the legal profession was thriving.
Did you start by reading law or your interest was in another discipline?
No, I did not start by reading law. My first love was actually music. My father was not fond of that. He really tried, dialogued, encouraged and directed me to become another thing. As I grew up, I realised if I really want to be his friend, I better find my way back into the law profession.
How has it been in the legal profession?
It has been challenging, intriguing, interesting, inspiring, rewarding and fulfilling. When I read what they are reading, when I look at it in Naira and Kobo, in terms of the working experience one has gathered, the exposure it has given me, the recognition I have and the name. When I look at all this, it is a God sent vocation for me.
What have been your dull moments in the course of practising this profession?
The profession exists as one among others in the world and as part of human endeavour, so there would be dull, be upsetting, disappointing moments. The law profession is not an exception. I dare say there are more ups and downs in law than I can imagine in any other profession but one tends to live with it and overcome one challenge and move on to the other.
Of the cases you have handled so far, which one would you say has been the most challenging?
Well, they all have their challenges. If I am to put them on a scale, it would be difficult for me to weigh because each case has its own demands and challenges. So, all cases are equally challenging either in terms of preparation for those cases, in terms of challenges in the court, in terms of enforcing the award of judgement you get from the cases in court, in terms of the challenges of the other parties and in terms of the challenges of the third party. There are so much multi-dimentional challenges that beset different cases. So, it would be unprofessional of me to portray one case as one not able to deal with. I think the beauty of the number of them, as I said earlier, is that one is able to meet those challenges and overcome them. No lawyer would tell you that they win all their cases because all the facts are not going to be in your favour. Even if they are, those who decide those matters, the judges, they don’t have the runs of the ladder of administration of justice in the country. Again, there are cases when you are on the border line. Nevertheless, you lose them and you wonder how that came to be. But then it is part of the ups and downs in the administration of justice that one has come to know over the years.
Can you recall what your first day in court was like?
Before my first day in court as a lawyer, I had the priviledge and honour of visiting a number of courts over the years either on my own out of interest or with my father on a number of occasions. I used to watch the pleadings and I took from that particularly when the Gani Fawehinmi and Akilu cases came up. I took particular interest in going to those courts regularly to watch those cases as much as I could. So in my mind, I had already began to rehearse my first day in court before I was called to the Bar. When I was called to the bar, I had to appear in one of my first cases, I found it a bit slow from the rehearse I had done at home to the reality in which I found myself as a lawyer in court for the first time. Often times, one has trepidations and anxiety of falling into errors for the first time and making nonsense of the case. At the beginning, it was a bit tricky but as time went by, one was able to take control of himself.
How would you rate governance in Nigeria?
Poor. Certainly poor and very unfortunately poor. Having said so, I would not dismiss the general efforts as if nothing had been going on at all. There have been some efforts here and there but a number of them have come a bit too late. Most of it are insufficient and inadequate to deal with and we can see this reflected in every aspect of our lives, be it in security, in power and in all kinds of infrastructure. But then, there is a bright side which keeps us going and hopeful that things can get better. But in my own assessment, having lived most part of my life in this country, particularly in Lagos as I have said, I think the act of governance has been poor and this has been proved in recent times when you look at the style of governance particularly in this environment in Lagos.
When you look at it in terms of the number of states in the south zone, one has a few reference points. But the reason why we don’t appreciate a lot of what is going on now is because things have gone so bad for too long. It has let people down and that is why there is so much apathy across the country. That apathy is an indictment on the kind of governance we’ve experienced over time.
What is your take on corruption and insecurity in the country?
I don’t think there is any country in the world where there is insecurity or corruption. I think in other clime, the credit they have been getting in that society is that they have been able to manage their own far better than we have. Look at the international transparent index, in their ratings, they said some countries are better off in their management of corruption against some other countries. This doesn’t mean that there is no iota of practice of corruption in those countries. But in this country, corruption has almost become a way of life. I must say it is a bastardisation of our own culture. Generally and internationally in this part of the world, expressing your gratitude to people in cash and kind was also the traditional way of doing things without any intention to corrupt you or induce you or to gratify you for giving them an unfair mandate.
It is that culture that we bastardise that we now turn into what we now know as this corrupt practices and we have extended it beyond the scope. It has become one of the most dangerous problems affecting the society So, that is a major problem on our hand at this point in time and all efforts to tackle it is just breeding a higher version of that corruption. You have all the indexes in place.
What is the way out of corruption?
I think it requires the collective and concerted efforts of all of us.
These agencies obviously will never, in my own views, be able to deal with the problem as dilligently as we may wish to. All we would have happening is that they would be busy and there would be more and more corrupt people being apprehended for one reason from time to time. Our courts will become congested, more people will be locked up, a lot will escape and the system will get bugged down eventually. So I think good governanace, proper reorientation or reorientation of our people will curb that and particular efforts to reduce poverty.
The new Lagos state Chief Judge passed into law the Lagos Civil Rule 2012 which is geared in a way to decongest the prisons. What is your view on this civil rule?
The idea of the alternative dispute resolution(ADR) process has been in the offing for quite some time, even long before the High Court 2004 Civil Rules was incorporated into the agenda and a number of private businesses now insert arbitrary clauses into their agreement and opt out of the general processes of taking them to court for donkey years. At the end of it, there might not even be any favourable adjudication because of the congestion and all the red tapes and bureacracy that comes with the problems that judiciary has. And because of the need to fast track commercial transactions and settle disputes which regulary arises, people found out that to file applications in particular, has alternative means of doing so.
Basically, my understanding is that it would decongest the volume of cases in the judiciary. I welcome the idea and I think the development posed to 2004 Rules in the new rules is that it has now given our judges the power to determine which cases qualified for speedy hearing over and above the desire of the parties.
Is there any aspect of the new Lagos Civil Rule you don’t agree with?
There is an aspect of the new rule which compels the parties to go for arbitration whether they like it or not and accept the outcome of that process as final determinant of their dispute. Where I quarrel with this process is that before now, arbitration was a matter of choice, a matter of option which the parties themselves agreed to go to. When you now make it a compulsory process, you are now bringing it closer to litigation kind of process where once you sue a party, whether he wants to go to court or not, he has been compelled by law to attend to that matter. If he doesn’t, he would suffer the consequences of his refusal. My fear is that we would take the same attitude in litigation to the arbitration and eventually, we would now suffer the same problem that we are trying to avoid and run away from. Again, the issue of access to court is a conditional matter. Section 6(c) of the constitution deals with our right to access our courts. I don’t think any rule or any legislation can impede the constitutional right of any party to go to court and have his matter dealt with. There is no arbitral process in the constitution. No part of our constitution says that a party must go the ADR. It does not debar either. But there is a room for a choice as to what process you want to adopt as disputant.
The killings in Port Harcourt of the four students has brought about again the agitation for state Police. Will you support the creation of state Police?
This is the first time I have heard this kind of outcry against such a system in a long time. When that started to happen, all of us turned a blind eye to it because it was safe to assume that anybody who was so accused deserve that kind of punishment because of the rate of armed robbery and insecurity in the country. But I think that we have allowed a very bad idea to cultivate for too long and it is now coming near and that is why we now feel we should do something about it and the sooner we do something very serious about it, I think all of us are in trouble. No sane society would ever allow such jungle, devilish thing to happen in its confines. It should never have been allowed to start, it should never have been allowed to continue to this very bad point of which we are talking about.
It is unfortunate that this heinous event has to happen before we woke up to realise that we are playing with fire. However I am not too sure that state police is the answer to that event. For you to have a Police Force in place, it would require equipment, it would require training, it would require a lot of infrastructure and all kind of things you can imagine, to put these together to make it a fighting force.. How much does a state have to do this in a country where some states have not even pay August salary. Where is the money going to come from? Where is the state going to find the resources, the time, the industry as it were, to set up an effective police force? A lot of these states are not viable and are you going to create a state police out of a state that is not viable? They will only end up creating a force which is also not viable. I think we should start by trying to improve on what we have on ground and then set a standard by which any state which is interested in doing so can do so.
The Justice Isa Ayo Salami issue appears an unending one. How do you think the NJC should go about the matter so that it could be resolved once and for all?
I am aware some aspects of the issue are still pending in the court and for that reason, I may want to blow a weak trumpet about that matter because it is a very sensitive and controversial matter. I noticed the efforts of the NJC to take a position on the matter and the difficulties that it is having. I think it is not going to be easy in addressing the matter headlong. I think there is a need for all that are directly concerned about the matter- the Federal Government, the NJC, Justice Isa Ayo Salami himself and anybody who is directly concerned, or interested in the matter to sit down in one room, perhaps at a table and address the issue once and for all because it looks like it is going to be a long drawn costly enterprise, the end of which nobody can predict. Unfortunately, if we are not careful, it may establish a precedence that is dangerous for the development of the judiciary itself. This is the first time in my own knowledge that we are having such a problem in our hand and it is proper for us to get it right now so that such a thing does not repeat itself in the future so that we don’t have a business of which may be bad example for other things that may come in the future.
Giving the provision of the constitution that the President doesn’t have the power to appoint and fire judges,that it is vested in the NJC, what do you think this crisis portends for the future of the judiciary?
When you have a constitutional problem or a question on the constitution and people are taking different views as to what it should be and how it should be applied, the forum which the constitution itself has given the mandate of determining that question, primarily is the court of law. That is where Justice Salami has taken his matter to. That has not been completely resolved. Perhaps we require a final pronouncement by our courts, as far as they can go, to give us direction in the matter once and for all and allow the rule of law to prevail in the matter at that point and then we abide by it. So, until we have a definitive position from our courts on the issue, I think we would continue to have all these discordant views, arguments, what should we do and what should we not do and what have you.
On the issue of corruption, the EFCC said it discovered fat deposits in the bank account of some judges. How do you think the matter should be handled to ensure that it is not swept under the carpet?
As you know, in our principle and of judges in this country, everybody is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I read that report in the paper and as far as I am concerned, it remains an allegation and it remains to be proven and established. And I am not aware of any judge who has been arrested since that report came out or any judge, retired or serving, who had been arraigned before the court of law. Really, it does not help the judiciary, it does not help the courts to make such pronouncements and then leave it at that. This is a very serious allegation and it goes to the root of the confidence people must have in the judiciary. If the reputation and the image of the judiciary is tarnished by a report of an agency of that level of responsibility, then you can imagine what we have in our hands. I would have liked that as a follow up to that announcement, certain steps are taken to put their money where their mouth is because It is dangerous to say so and leave it like that and everybody would have the feeling that the judiciary is corrupt.
