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Tag: Bar

  • Akeredolu: Bench, Bar must rebuild their reputation

    Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) served as Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president. In this interview with Legal Editor JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU, he speaks on his stewardship in the past two years, and his trip to Thailand for legalised and regulated cultivation of medical cannabis.

     

    • ’My Thailand Indian hemp cultivation trip’

    As a former NBA president, what are your thoughts on the legal profession?

    Well, as for me, we have a lot of wrong perception in the country now and I believe that it is wrong although we practitioners too have not helped ourselves. We are probably to blame for a number of those things. Perception, not only lawyers, the moment anything affects the judiciary, it affects you as lawyers.  A situation where we have the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) going through trial, there  is no way it will not rob off on the profession including the NBA. If for one reason or the other, rightly or wrongly, the NBA President is also being tried, there  is a problem. Now the issue of the NBA President, I have made efforts to look at it. And for me if you are not careful, all of us can run into that problem.

    How do you mean?

    All of us because a number of times you handle cases for governors and probably you are a lead counsel, the money paid to you is not for you alone. Never. Most times such money is not for you alone. So, if money like that is paid, if you are not careful, they will say it is being laundered through your office. We have a Bar, the President is being tried, the CJN is being tried. I pray that the NBA  president comes out of this well. If he does, then we have to come together to build the reputation of the Bar again, that is the way I see it. Apart from the President, a number of our colleagues have been tried and some convicted. Other senior lawyers are still undergoing trial with judges and so on. These are things that have given us negative perception. Something has to be done. It may not be done by Paul Usoro as NBA president. Maybe after his tenure we have a president who  gives a different image and all of us can walk in because when all these trials start, to wash yourself clean may not be very easy. We cannot condemn anybody here because anybody could have fallen victim of this.

    You have been in office for over two years. How has it been?

    Well it has been a worthwhile experience and let me say, I had time to plan to come here. I ran for the office once and got it the second time. So, I am supposed to have enough time to plan for it and I did. And coming here, I had my focus. Essentially my focus was the people. When I talk about the people, it is not necessarily my party members who have quarreled with me over time, and are still quarrelling because I just believed that look, when  you talk about people, it is the generality of people which includes my party members. Your focus cannot be your party members alone. Your focus must be the generality of the people of Ondo State. I was convinced that if you are going to make any impact, you need  to do things that will last long, that the people will be the ultimate beneficiaries of.

    So, I said well, something has to be done about infrastructure. I set at it with everything I had, and developed my own  model which is not the common or conventional one. We got contractors to work without being paid. How they accepted this I don’t know. A few of them  felt that well, we have a lot of  trust  in you, ‘why wont we do it? We know that you will pay’.   So, people started work on road construction and other areas and so on.

    They got to 30 perc ent before they were  paid a dime. That approach made whatever  work that they were doing to be of high quality. They set the standard  before they were paid. That is how we set what people came to refer to as Aketi standard for road construction.

    What about education?

    On education, for years my predecessor did not believe in the type of primary  schools  that we have, that SUBEB or UBEC at Federal level will  support. Everybody has his own style. He felt ‘why don’t I spend money to build mega schools?’ and that was good for him. But for me it wasn’t something I was going to embark on because I am learning from his experience. I could see practically what mega schools had suffered.

    What have they suffered?

    The issue of attendance is very poor and some of the facilities are wasting away. So, I felt that I would still approach the primary school education and the improvement of infrastructure through the SUBEB and UBEC  way. So I got money, we paid our counterpart fund. For about four five years we had not paid. So, we got money, paid our counterpart fund and that led us to work on primary schools from over 700 schools. We have constructed new classrooms in some of them. We have repaired so many. We have toilet facilities. We have their recreational facilities. We have solar power to provide  them light. You can see so many schools all over the state, at all the nooks and crannies of the state.

    The other approach is that I said look, our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is very poor. It was oscillating between N600 to N700 million maximum when we came in. It never exceeded N700 million and I said no, we cannot continue in that way. So we got consultants who had to come and work for us and luckily for us now we are getting about N1.5billion and still moving ahead. Luckily again for us when the Federal Board of Inland Revenue did their rating and Ondo State was rated number one in the country in terms of revenue generation, not that we are generating surplus or much but, in relation to what we used to generate and what we have now, the percentage increase in relation to what we used to have ,we are number one. It is on record and was announced, so we thank God for that.  Then  we were determined that we must industrialise the state. I travelled to China and had discussions here and there and today we decided to have the Ore Industrial Park. If you go there, about five or six  major industries are coming up. Some have even come up. We have plywood. We have MDF. We are the only one selling in this country now. We have cassava to ethanol which has been completed.

    What is the debt situation?

    We are paying debts owed by past administrations.  I said that government is a continuum. There were so many people that the government was owing and I remember somebody saying, what is this man doing, his party members have not got anything and he is busy  paying salaries and debts owed by other administrations in the state. People have worked, they were owed about seven months without pay and for me, I have settled about six months out of that and have only one month left. So, by the time we get the next Paris Club funds we will settle that.

    Is your administration debt-free?

    Since we came into office for over two years we have not owed a dime. Consistently for over two years we have not owed a month salary. We are paying those working for us. It is important for us to do that because I believe that every labourer deserves his wage.  I am not sure that an interview like this can capture all that we have achieved. When I was coming into office, I mentioned to them in Ore that the rate of accidents at that junction is high, that we’ll have a flyover over at Ore. They said every government has been saying so. But we have started. We have done the pilling, which is completed. I am sure that before the end of the year, you will see the flyover over Ore. This is part of what we are set to do. The roads in Owo are there and many places all over the state because infrastructure has been key to us.

    It is widely reported that you are calling for commercial production of Indian Hemp otherwise called cannabis. What is your reaction to this?

    I am a lawyer. I am aware of the Single United Nations Convention on Narcotics 1961. We we were part of it. My understanding of that convention is that it would discourage accumulation of cannabis by its cultivation and so on. But other countries have found ways to legalise cannabis, so many countries in Europe, because there is  what is called medical cannabis. When you discover a cannabidiol, whether it’s the STS you find, or CBD oil you find, whichever one you want to find in cannabis its use today is there for medicinal purposes. We cannot deny that fact. How can we as a country or as a state where you have potential, you have good soil and these things are growing and is known everywhere, people are in search of it – I am aware for instance that in Canada they have about one and half years shortage, they need these things. So, how do we now fold our hands and keep pursuing our people? I said we can have controlled cultivation.

    How do you control it?

    The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) will license you, take your area cover and you have their officers there to monitor so it doesn’t go into anybody’s hands. There is no way they can even take cannabis out of the country. If we have controlled cultivation then they can have facilities to extract the M Oil. Then the M Oil is packaged and sent to them for use for medical purposes. That is all about it. I said that Ondo State with our strain with the type of cannabis we have here, it has been taken out and tested and confirmed that we have the best strain in the world. They are three species here namely those that grow by river, those that grow upland and so on.

    The specie that is grown within Ogbesse here and Amowuya is the best so I believe that we can take advantage of it now before it is late.  It is believed that we have about $140billonn worth of it in the state, so why can’t we explore how to legally harness it for the benefit of the country? Even if it is S40billion we get, it is something for the country. That is why we went to Thailand to study how they do it. They are still at baby stage but they have put in laws to  allow for this cultivation. In their case, there was a time they were part of the golden triangle, growing puppies of Opium and so on. People have left it now and we can equally make people to leave illegal cultivation of Indian Hemp by bringing some sustainable development, bringing some cottage industries to them and make them part of those who work in the farm which is legalised. So, I believe that at the end of the day, it will be a win-win situation for Ondo State. We should not lose out of this big trade opportunity that is coming up when it eventually comes in the form of medical cannabis.

    Why did you go to Thailand?

    I  did  not go to Thailand to  learn  how to cultivate Indian Hemp. It is cultivated everywhere and everybody knows this. We only went there to see the pathway, to map out the pathway for legalised cultivation and export and use of cannabis here. We have our universities here and they can carry out a lot of research. A friend of mine was with me the other day and told me that he bought one Indian Hemp cannabis product from the United States of America for hair growth, his own  hair has changed. There is one for memory loss and so on.

    How do you get funds to pay salaries and still carry out infrastructural projects?

    Well we looked at what comes  to us from Abuja and from it the first line of charge is salaries, after that, whatever is left we make use of it. Whatever we get from IGR we make use of it. We cannot do more than that. There are some challenges now. We are looking at it that we may borrow some money. There  is nothing wrong with that because a number of our contractors are now  being overstretched. So, we need to give them more money. They have done substantial work that they need to be paid. The IGR may not meet it so along the line we may have to borrow. There was a time I said give us one month and let us owe you, they said no way and when I saw their reaction I said what do I do. In my first speech to them I told them that I won’t owe them salary, I am committed to it.  I am duty bound to continue that way and I will continue as much as possible to do that.

    About the time they made demand for the payment of the one month arrears which Mimiko was owing them, a union leader said I know how much  that came and how much that has been spent, there is no money,  it is not possible, so let us not stress it. Most of them work in government and they know when money comes in so if I had spent it anyhow, they would have revolted.

     What is your reaction to the seeming crises within  the state chapter of the APC? Is it true that you did not work for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election?

    Well for me our party has had its own problems which started from the last party primaries in the state. Whether we want to take it or we want to pretend, we must own up to the fact that we had that crises and there must be a way to solve it. And I believe that the way to solve it is not all these talks about suspension or no suspension. That is not the right approach.

     What do you consider to be the right approach?

    The right approach is for leaders to sit down and look at it holistically. I failed to communicate with you, or if I  reacted in a way  you did not like or did not react at all, let us see, bury the hatches and move forward as one family because we are all in the same party. For me when they talk about suspension – initially it was querry and as speak with you today, I have not seen the query.

    The next one was suspension and as I speak to you today, there is no letter of suspension, so I want to believe that maybe it was discussed, maybe the chairman and other people feel that one way or the other we must get this matter solved rather than pursuing this line of action. But I believe  that the way things are right now it is something we can still discuss and  resolve. It is  something we can sit down and talk over. I belong to the APC, I don’t belong to any other political party.

    As for working for the President, anybody can sit down in Abuja and say oh, he didn’t work for the President. But I worked for the President. I was in his campaign strategy committee of 16 and I will make bold to say that it was only two of us from the Southwest who were meeting every two weeks in Abuja. I was living in Ibadan, I was not a governor then. I went round with him before he won primaries as the Presidential candidate of the party.

    So, I have paid my  dues. I supported the President and the President reciprocated in  that when a little crises was about to start about my primaries, it was the same President who said look, I watched the  programme on telly and this primary  for  me looks free. I am not going to be part of anybody to say go and do other things. He didn’t say more than that. All he said was look Mr. Chairman of the party, that was speaking to Mr. Odigie Oyegun,  do what is right. I watched it,  it was free and fair, so he reciprocated and when a lot of pressure was mounted on him not to even attend our rally, he came and for me that was more than enough solidarity.

    So, if someone did that for me, can I then ever work against him? Who then did I work for? Is it somebody that never approached me, never spoke to me? How could I have worked for anyone else? His other opponent was Atiku Abubakar. We never met; we never spoke. How is it possible for me to work for any other person other than President Buhari? It is not possible. So, I worked for him very well. We might have lost the election here; there are reasons why we lost elections on the Presidential ticket here and it is so clear.

    How so?

    It is not easy for him to win because Akure has the population. All that happened was that Akure felt that look, oh their son Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) who had wanted to be the governor of the state is working with Atiku now, and if Atiku wins Eyitayo Jegede may become the Attorney-General of the Federation that was the rumour going on then and if he becomes the Attorney-General, he could always come back to contest as  the state governor. Akure people went all out to support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Everybody was surprised but that was what happened.

     What of your support for other party members?

    When they claimed that I did not support Senator Ajayi  Borofice, but Borofice won, is it not enough? Every other person they claimed that I did not support won election. Tell me what else they wanted me to do.  We supported Alashe Adura from Akure with everything we had, Alashe Adura lost. He is there. Go and ask him. It was the Akure factor. Ok tell me, is it because my party chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomohole and Governor Godwin Obaseki did not support President Buhari in Edo State and that is why the President lost in Edo? No. You see, anybody can lose election anywhere. Buhari did not lose election here because I did not support him. I supported him and wouldn’t have supported anyone else other than Buhari. I supported President Buhari with all my strength. I wouldn’t have supported any other person.

  • Akeredolu: Bench, Bar must rebuild their reputation

    Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) served as Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president. In this interview with Legal Editor JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU, he gives account of his stewardship in the past two years, and calls for legalised and regulated cultivation of medical cannabis.

    • ’My Thailand Indian hemp trip’

    As a former NBA president, what are your thoughts on the legal profession?

    Well, as for me, we have a lot of wrong perception in the country now and I believe that it is wrong although we practitioners too have not helped ourselves. We are probably to blame for a number of those things. Perception, not only lawyers, the moment anything affects the judiciary, it affects you as lawyers.  A situation where we have the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) going through trial, there  is no way it will not rob off on the profession including the NBA. If for one reason or the other, rightly or wrongly, the NBA President is also being tried, there  is a problem. Now the issue of the NBA President, I have made efforts to look at it. And for me if you are not careful, all of us can run into that problem.

    How do you mean?

    All of us because a number of times you handle cases for governors and probably you are a lead counsel, the money paid to you is not for you alone. Never. Most times such money is not for you alone. So, if money like that is paid, if you are not careful, they will say it is being laundered through your office. We have a Bar, the President is being tried, the CJN is being tried. I pray that the NBA  president comes out of this well. If he does, then we have to come together to build the reputation of the Bar again, that is the way I see it. Apart from the President, a number of our colleagues have been tried and some convicted. Other senior lawyers are still undergoing trial with judges and so on. These are things that have given us negative perception. Something has to be done. It may not be done by Paul Usoro as NBA president. Maybe after his tenure we have a president who  gives a different image and all of us can walk in because when all these trials start, to wash yourself clean may not be very easy. We cannot condemn anybody here because anybody could have fallen victim of this.

    You have been in office for over two years. How has it been?

    Well it has been a worthwhile experience and let me say, I had time to plan to come here. I ran for the office once and got it the second time. So, I am supposed to have enough time to plan for it and I did. And coming here, I had my focus. Essentially my focus was the people. When I talk about the people, it is not necessarily my party members who have quarreled with me over time, and are still quarrelling because I just believed that look, when  you talk about people, it is the generality of people which includes my party members. Your focus cannot be your party members alone. Your focus must be the generality of the people of Ondo State. I was convinced that if you are going to make any impact, you need  to do things that will last long, that the people will be the ultimate beneficiaries of.

    So, I said well, something has to be done about infrastructure. I set at it with everything I had, and developed my own  model which is not the common or conventional one. We got contractors to work without being paid. How they accepted this I don’t know. A few of them  felt that well, we have a lot of  trust  in you, ‘why wont we do it? We know that you will pay’.   So, people started work on road construction and other areas and so on.

    They got to 30 perc ent before they were  paid a dime. That approach made whatever  work that they were doing to be of high quality. They set the standard  before they were paid. That is how we set what people came to refer to as Aketi standard for road construction.

    What about education?

    On education, for years my predecessor did not believe in the type of primary  schools  that we have, that SUBEB or UBEC at Federal level will  support. Everybody has his own style. He felt ‘why don’t I spend money to build mega schools?’ and that was good for him. But for me it wasn’t something I was going to embark on because I am learning from his experience. I could see practically what mega schools had suffered.

    What have they suffered?

    The issue of attendance is very poor and some of the facilities are wasting away. So, I felt that I would still approach the primary school education and the improvement of infrastructure through the SUBEB and UBEC  way. So I got money, we paid our counterpart fund. For about four five years we had not paid. So, we got money, paid our counterpart fund and that led us to work on primary schools from over 700 schools. We have constructed new classrooms in some of them. We have repaired so many. We have toilet facilities. We have their recreational facilities. We have solar power to provide  them light. You can see so many schools all over the state, at all the nooks and crannies of the state.

    The other approach is that I said look, our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is very poor. It was oscillating between N600 to N700 million maximum when we came in. It never exceeded N700 million and I said no, we cannot continue in that way. So we got consultants who had to come and work for us and luckily for us now we are getting about N1.5billion and still moving ahead. Luckily again for us when the Federal Board of Inland Revenue did their rating and Ondo State was rated number one in the country in terms of revenue generation, not that we are generating surplus or much but, in relation to what we used to generate and what we have now, the percentage increase in relation to what we used to have ,we are number one. It is on record and was announced, so we thank God for that.  Then  we were determined that we must industrialise the state. I travelled to China and had discussions here and there and today we decided to have the Ore Industrial Park. If you go there, about five or six  major industries are coming up. Some have even come up. We have plywood. We have MDF. We are the only one selling in this country now. We have cassava to ethanol which has been completed.

    What is the debt situation?

    We are paying debts owed by past administrations.  I said that government is a continuum. There were so many people that the government was owing and I remember somebody saying, what is this man doing, his party members have not got anything and he is busy  paying salaries and debts owed by other administrations in the state. People have worked, they were owed about seven months without pay and for me, I have settled about six months out of that and have only one month left. So, by the time we get the next Paris Club funds we will settle that.

    Is your administration debt-free?

    Since we came into office for over two years we have not owed a dime. Consistently for over two years we have not owed a month salary. We are paying those working for us. It is important for us to do that because I believe that every labourer deserves his wage.  I am not sure that an interview like this can capture all that we have achieved. When I was coming into office, I mentioned to them in Ore that the rate of accidents at that junction is high, that we’ll have a flyover over at Ore. They said every government has been saying so. But we have started. We have done the pilling, which is completed. I am sure that before the end of the year, you will see the flyover over Ore. This is part of what we are set to do. The roads in Owo are there and many places all over the state because infrastructure has been key to us.

    It is widely reported that you are calling for commercial production of Indian Hemp otherwise called cannabis. What is your reaction to this?

    I am a lawyer. I am aware of the Single United Nations Convention on Narcotics 1961. We we were part of it. My understanding of that convention is that it would discourage accumulation of cannabis by its cultivation and so on. But other countries have found ways to legalise cannabis, so many countries in Europe, because there is  what is called medical cannabis. When you discover a cannabidiol, whether it’s the STS you find, or CBD oil you find, whichever one you want to find in cannabis its use today is there for medicinal purposes. We cannot deny that fact. How can we as a country or as a state where you have potential, you have good soil and these things are growing and is known everywhere, people are in search of it – I am aware for instance that in Canada they have about one and half years shortage, they need these things. So, how do we now fold our hands and keep pursuing our people? I said we can have controlled cultivation.

    How do you control it?

    The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) will license you, take your area cover and you have their officers there to monitor so it doesn’t go into anybody’s hands. There is no way they can even take cannabis out of the country. If we have controlled cultivation then they can have facilities to extract the M Oil. Then the M Oil is packaged and sent to them for use for medical purposes. That is all about it. I said that Ondo State with our strain with the type of cannabis we have here, it has been taken out and tested and confirmed that we have the best strain in the world. They are three species here namely those that grow by river, those that grow upland and so on.

    The specie that is grown within Ogbesse here and Amowuya is the best so I believe that we can take advantage of it now before it is late.  It is believed that we have about $140billonn worth of it in the state, so why can’t we explore how to legally harness it for the benefit of the country? Even if it is S40billion we get, it is something for the country. That is why we went to Thailand to study how they do it. They are still at baby stage but they have put in laws to  allow for this cultivation. In their case, there was a time they were part of the golden triangle, growing puppies of Opium and so on. People have left it now and we can equally make people to leave illegal cultivation of Indian Hemp by bringing some sustainable development, bringing some cottage industries to them and make them part of those who work in the farm which is legalised. So, I believe that at the end of the day, it will be a win-win situation for Ondo State. We should not lose out of this big trade opportunity that is coming up when it eventually comes in the form of medical cannabis.

    Why did you go to Thailand?

    I  did  not go to Thailand to  learn  how to cultivate Indian Hemp. It is cultivated everywhere and everybody knows this. We only went there to see the pathway, to map out the pathway for legalised cultivation and export and use of cannabis here. We have our universities here and they can carry out a lot of research. A friend of mine was with me the other day and told me that he bought one Indian Hemp cannabis product from the United States of America for hair growth, his own  hair has changed. There is one for memory loss and so on.

    How do you get funds to pay salaries and still carry out infrastructural projects?

    Well we looked at what comes  to us from Abuja and from it the first line of charge is salaries, after that, whatever is left we make use of it. Whatever we get from IGR we make use of it. We cannot do more than that. There are some challenges now. We are looking at it that we may borrow some money. There  is nothing wrong with that because a number of our contractors are now  being overstretched. So, we need to give them more money. They have done substantial work that they need to be paid. The IGR may not meet it so along the line we may have to borrow. There was a time I said give us one month and let us owe you, they said no way and when I saw their reaction I said what do I do. In my first speech to them I told them that I won’t owe them salary, I am committed to it.  I am duty bound to continue that way and I will continue as much as possible to do that.

    About the time they made demand for the payment of the one month arrears which Mimiko was owing them, a union leader said I know how much  that came and how much that has been spent, there is no money,  it is not possible, so let us not stress it. Most of them work in government and they know when money comes in so if I had spent it anyhow, they would have revolted.

     What is your reaction to the seeming crises within  the state chapter of the APC? Is it true that you did not work for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election?

    Well for me our party has had its own problems which started from the last party primaries in the state. Whether we want to take it or we want to pretend, we must own up to the fact that we had that crises and there must be a way to solve it. And I believe that the way to solve it is not all these talks about suspension or no suspension. That is not the right approach.

     What do you consider to be the right approach?

    The right approach is for leaders to sit down and look at it holistically. I failed to communicate with you, or if I  reacted in a way  you did not like or did not react at all, let us see, bury the hatches and move forward as one family because we are all in the same party. For me when they talk about suspension – initially it was querry and as speak with you today, I have not seen the query.

    The next one was suspension and as I speak to you today, there is no letter of suspension, so I want to believe that maybe it was discussed, maybe the chairman and other people feel that one way or the other we must get this matter solved rather than pursuing this line of action. But I believe  that the way things are right now it is something we can still discuss and  resolve. It is  something we can sit down and talk over. I belong to the APC, I don’t belong to any other political party.

    As for working for the President, anybody can sit down in Abuja and say oh, he didn’t work for the President. But I worked for the President. I was in his campaign strategy committee of 16 and I will make bold to say that it was only two of us from the Southwest who were meeting every two weeks in Abuja. I was living in Ibadan, I was not a governor then. I went round with him before he won primaries as the Presidential candidate of the party.

    So, I have paid my  dues. I supported the President and the President reciprocated in  that when a little crises was about to start about my primaries, it was the same President who said look, I watched the  programme on telly and this primary  for  me looks free. I am not going to be part of anybody to say go and do other things. He didn’t say more than that. All he said was look Mr. Chairman of the party, that was speaking to Mr. Odigie Oyegun,  do what is right. I watched it,  it was free and fair, so he reciprocated and when a lot of pressure was mounted on him not to even attend our rally, he came and for me that was more than enough solidarity.

    So, if someone did that for me, can I then ever work against him? Who then did I work for? Is it somebody that never approached me, never spoke to me? How could I have worked for anyone else? His other opponent was Atiku Abubakar. We never met; we never spoke. How is it possible for me to work for any other person other than President Buhari? It is not possible. So, I worked for him very well. We might have lost the election here; there are reasons why we lost elections on the Presidential ticket here and it is so clear.

    How so?

    It is not easy for him to win because Akure has the population. All that happened was that Akure felt that look, oh their son Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) who had wanted to be the governor of the state is working with Atiku now, and if Atiku wins Eyitayo Jegede may become the Attorney-General of the Federation that was the rumour going on then and if he becomes the Attorney-General, he could always come back to contest as  the state governor. Akure people went all out to support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Everybody was surprised but that was what happened.

     What of your support for other party members?

    When they claimed that I did not support Senator Ajayi  Borofice, but Borofice won, is it not enough? Every other person they claimed that I did not support won election. Tell me what else they wanted me to do.  We supported Alashe Adura from Akure with everything we had, Alashe Adura lost. He is there. Go and ask him. It was the Akure factor. Ok tell me, is it because my party chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomohole and Governor Godwin Obaseki did not support President Buhari in Edo State and that is why the President lost in Edo? No. You see, anybody can lose election anywhere. Buhari did not lose election here because I did not support him. I supported him and wouldn’t have supported anyone else other than Buhari. I supported President Buhari with all my strength. I wouldn’t have supported any other person.

     

     

  • Don’t bar

    •Beats organisation has some uses for news reporters

    The desire to associate and to keep together with one’s kind has been a constant in human organisation. So, journalists have exhibited these human traits, especially in beat associations. Such associations bring together journalists who cover the same area of society and human experience. So, we have political reporters associations as we have financial reporters associations.

    It is hard to stop such associations, even if we do so formally. That is the conundrum that will face the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) as it has decided to place a formal ban on all such beat associations. Ordinarily, it can be seen as tour de force for principle in journalism.

    As a principle, there is nothing wrong with beat reporters coalescing to share notes and advance the cause of the profession. An association of sports reporters can work to organise training for their kinds, share ideas on how sports reporting can better enhance sports coverage and mass enjoyment.

    In the United States, the sports writers often determine the players of the year among other awards for the major sports in the country, be they football, soccer, baseball or basketball.

    But the reporters do not engage in what many have turned such cherish organisations to on our shores. Here, such associations have for years become platforms for self-enrichment and professional compromise. Even fellow journalists vie for the high posts in such organisations because of the expectation that it will redound in hefty and feathery nests.

    That was the reason the NPO decided to bar them. One of the shoddy examples was the recent string of awards by reporters in the National Assembly to some lawmakers. The perception is that the awards are made for filthy lucre. How could they be giving awards and get paid for it? That is the issue that the public and others who are concerned about professional integrity have raised about these beat reporters.

    If reporters see their beats as opportunity to bring their kinds under one umbrella to promote stellar journalism, it would raise little eyebrows as we see in the advanced countries.

    There are two issues involved here. One, reporters are using these platforms because of the shoddy remunerations they get for work of great mental and physical stress. Reporters are not well-paid and, to add to this, some organisations are having backlogs of salaries. Many of the reporters love their jobs, but they have to fend for themselves and families. Their take-home pay can hardly cover their needs. They have had to resort to “extras” to keep up. That does not justify what they do, but explains it. For journalists to take their eyes off such compromises, the employers ought to pay attention to their remunerations.

    Two, some of the companies they work for do same in the yearly awards lined up at the end of every years to top politicians, political office holders and business elite. The awards do not come free and they help boost the coffers of the newspapers. The bosses are not showing good examples to their subordinate staff when they are guilty of what they condemn.

    What we need, therefore, is not outright ban. We need to calibrate a set of rules for these journalists to organise these beats. For instance, any sort of awards should be forbidden. It is not the job of journalists to pour accolades on those they cover. They are to report those they cover, when they do well and when they do ill. Awards only show a one-sided vista, and it shows deference rather than scrutiny, which is the hallmark of great journalism. Outright ban will push them underground, and make them difficult to monitor.

  • Body of senior advocates want Bar, Bench to confess their sins

    A senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Gbenga Awomolo  has called on the Bar and the Bench to humble themselves.

    Awomolo spoke on behalf of the  body of the senior advocates of Nigeria at the 2016/2017 new legal year in Abuja on Tuesday.

    According to him, this is not the time for blame games but a time for humble reflection.

    “This is the time to humble ourselves and confess our sins and turn to the Lord for forgiveness.

    “This is the time to plead with those senior advocates who claimed that they know those who are corrupt.

    “They should name them, our judges should play above ‘god ‘ in their decisions for allegations of corruption are so severe,

    “How can we clear the bar and the bench from this mess that  have brought  it so low before the eyes of the public.

    Earlier, Mr Abubakar Malami,(SAN), the Attorney General of the Federation, promised that the executive would bring to the courts cases of cogent nature and of substance.

    He said every citizen in the FCT should be given court services irrespective of religion or tribe and that the judiciary should place value in the discharge of their duties.

    Also, FCT Chief Judge, Justice Ishaq Bello, admitted that the judiciary was going through a trying time and they FCT judiciary was trying to be seen as an exemplary one.

    “These are indeed trying times for the judiciary of this country. I am bold to say that the judiciary is determined to eradicate corruption within its fold and it seeks the support of relevant agencies,

    “However this should be within legal limits and in line with laid down rules and procedure “he said (NAN)

  • ‘Ilojo Bar must be restored’

    ‘Ilojo Bar must be restored’

    On the eve of the Eld-El-Kabir holiday on September 11, a developer pulled down the 190-year-old national monument, Ilojo Bar, at the Tinubu Square, Lagos. Director-General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Yusuf Abdallah Usman, recalls the commission’s long battle to preserve the monument.

    Ilojo Bar (formerly known as Casa De Fernendez or Angel House) was built 190 years ago and, in all these years, it stood as the best example of Brazilian style architecture introduced by Africans who regained their freedom from their “Portuguese masters” in Brazil. Its historical, social and architectural values have been well acclaimed, thus, prompting the Federal Government to give it special protection status as a National Monument through Gazette 25 Vol. 43 of April 5, 1956.

    Since then, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments has been maintaining, promoting and preserving the monument with members of the Olaiya Family, Lagos State government and other stake holders both local and international.

    The threat to this historic building has been unfolding for sometime due to rising commercial interest in view of its strategic location. In October, last year, a member of the family wrote to the Commission saying that one of them was trying to engage a private developer to demolish the monument and clear the place for commercial development.

    In response to this, a meeting was called with the family members led by Mr. Daniel Adewale Olaiya on January 19, 2016. The meeting discussed the issues around the monument, including its legal status, how the structure is put to use and the grievances of the family members. It was finally agreed that the statues quo of the monument should remain while they submit their complains through appropriate official channel but nothing was heard from them since then.

    The recent threat to demolish the monument came on July 2, 2016, when a developer in collusion with some members of the family mobilised a bulldozer and some armed men with the intent to demolish the structure. The National Commission for Museums and Monuments got information about the move and quickly mobilised the Lagos museum staff and Lagos State government officials, who accosted the group and frustrated the attempt. In the meantime the attention of law enforcement agencies was drawn.

    On July, this year, the developer again mobilised to demolish the building and this action was again rebuffed this time through the intervention of Hon. Agboola Dabiri Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on the Lagos Central Business District.Following his intervention,a stakeholders’ meeting was summoned at Lagos State secretariat Alausa, Ikeja where Hon.AbikeDabiri-Erewa did everything possible to avert the demolition of the monument.

    Subsequently on Tuesday, August 16, 2016 a stakeholders’meeting was convened by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments at the National Museum, Lagos involving major stakeholders. This include members of the Olaiya family, management staff of National museum, Lagos, representatives of Lagos State Ministry of Tourism and that of the Brazillian Consulate, Benedita Gouveia Simonetti and Adeniran Arimoro.

    During the meeting, the stakeholders agreed that steps must be taken to safeguard the monument from any threat, including involving law enforcement agencies and placement of notice on the site notifying the public about the status of the building. The meeting also agreed to revive an earlier plan to organise a gala night to raise funds for the rehabilitation of the monument.

    To our greatest surprise however, on Saturday, August 27, 2016, the same developer again mobilised his bulldozer and actually damaged a portion of the building. A petition was written and submitted to the Area Commander of the Nigerian Police (Lion building), requesting  the arrest and prosecution of the culprits but apparently the police did not find the matter serious enough to detain or prosecute them.

    Seeing the levity with which the Area Command handled the matter, another petition was written on August 29, this year to the AIG Zone 2 Onikan. Meanwhile on Thursda, September 1, 2016, Hon Dabiri-Erewa was again approached and he gave an official letter to the Special Adviser to the Governor on Urban Development requesting the ministry to withdraw a letter of permit for demolition said to be given to the developer. Another letter was written to the Governor intimating him about the status of the monument and seeking his assistance to safeguard it.

    However, despite all the efforts of highly responsible and patriotic individuals and government agencies, the developer on the eve of Eid-el Kabir (September 11, 2016) sneaked in with his instrument of destruction and wilfully demolished the Ilojo Bar, an outstanding historic and architectural monument that has adored the cultural landscape of Lagos Island for nearly two centuries.

    This sad event is a critical turning point in the history of heritage management in Nigeria. The shocking way the action was carried out without any shame and embarrassment is a source of serious concern for the National Commission for Museums and Monuments as heritage managers and for all responsible Nigerians who love history and culture. The action is not only criminal, but it has robbed us of an important heritage resource that helps defines us as a people and assist our understanding of our past and our projection of the future.

    The demolition has destroyed a masterpiece of the only surviving Brazilian houses in Lagos with its attractive arches and fine iron works as statue described as being “Gothic in style and balustrade reminiscent of a Venetian palace”.  It has done great injustice to the credit of African craftsmanship in architecture which has exerted great influence on Yoruba architecture that is today visible in all parts of Yoruba land.

    Indeed, the demolition has eliminated the tangible evidence of social and cultural impact of the transatlantic slave trade and its abolition. It has wiped away an outstanding source of memory and history of freed slaves and their roles and impact in the evolution and development of cosmopolitan urban Lagos. At the same time it has destroyed one of the outstanding symbolic evidence of cultural ties between Nigeria and Black diaspora in general and Brazil in particular.

    This dastardly act has distorted the eminent position of Lagos in colonial history as centre where returnee slaves from Brazil built houses in the new architectural fashion when Lagos was created as a colony, thus impoverishing Lagos of its rich architectural urban history and undermining its acclaimed status as centre of excellence.

    However, the NCMM will not rest on its oars until the perpetrators of this dastardly act are brought to book. In line with the powers and responsibilities conferred on it by NCMM Act, Cap N19, Laws of the federal republic of Nigeria 2004, the NCMM will ensure that criminal action is brought on the culprits as well as demand full compensation for the demolished monument. It will be reconstructed and fully restored according to professional restoration standards. We wish to assure all Nigerians that the Ilojo Bar will be restored as it is a fully documented National Monument with an up-to-date and comprehensive documentation of its architectural history and design details.   Consequently, NCMM is poised to restore Ilojo Bar back to its original authentic form.

    In the meantime, the site of the monument being an integral heritage space is being explored for rescue archaeology and heritage impact assessment.

    We call on all well-meaning Nigerians to join the National Commission for Museums and Monument in saving, protecting and maintaining our national heritage resources.

  • CJ advocates closer Bar, Bench ties

    Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade,  has called for closer ties between the Bar and Bench for better justice delivery.

    She spoke while inaugurating the Lawyers’ Changing Room renovated for the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos Branch, by the judiciary.

    According to her, a symbiotic relationship between the two is imperative if the wheel of justice is to run smoothly.

    The CJ urged lawyers to maintain the highest level of diligence and integrity in the discharge of their duties.

    The ceremony also marked the launch of a coffee-making machine donated to the branch by Patoreal Limited.

    NBA Lagos Branch Chairman, Mr. Martin Ogunleye praised Justice Atilade for fostering excellent relations with the Bar.

    He noted that the Lagos CJ had earlier upgraded the foyer used by the branch for its monthly meetings and other activities to a world-class facility.

    Ogunleye added: “My Lord is a shining example of how the Bench can support the Bar to drive reform and engender progress.

    “We continue to receive tremendous support from Your Lordship on all fronts for which we are very grateful.”

    The branch secretary, Mr. Stephen Obajaja, stated that the new Changing Room would impact positively on the lifestyle of lawyers, and thanked Justice Atilade and her management team “for bequeathing this great edifice to Lagos lawyers and posterity.”

    Among those at the ceremony were Justice Opeyemi Oke, Justice Yetunde Idowu; Chief Registrar, Mr. Emmanuel Ogundare; Deputy Chief Registrar (Legal), Mrs. Femi Segun, Deputy Chief Registrar (Administration), Mrs. S. Solebo and a member of the State House of Assembly (Eti-Osa II Constituency) Gbolahan Yishawu.

  • ‘Bar, bench scuttling anti-graft battle’

    ‘Bar, bench scuttling anti-graft battle’

    A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN),  Mr. Femi Falana, has said the anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari may not be won if he does not tackle the problems posed to the fight by neo-colonialism, the bar and the bench.

    Falana, who spoke at a Special Congress and public lecture of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) chapter, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, said those three factors were not only engendering corruption, but also propping it up as well as making the war against the vice difficult to execute or win in  the country.

    The activist lawyer said neo-colonial capitalist system gave rise to unbridled corruption.  He slammed judges, who grant frivolous injunctions in favour of corrupt persons and lawyers, who file petitions for such injunctions on behalf of their corrupt clients.

    He called for a review of the nation’s criminal laws to make them more effective in tackling corruption while every Nigerian should also be carried along in the struggle to rid the country of corruption and other vices.

    The lawyer also said looters of the nation’s treasury and their lawyers had highjacked the judiciary by suspending their trials with all manner of petitions.

    Falana said: “The criminal system has been hijacked by the corrupt and looters of the public treasury and their lawyers. It is only in Nigeria that an accused will ask his trial to be suspended.

    “Many of the governors who faced corruption charges, their lawyers had asked for their trial to be suspended, and judges granted this. How would a lawyer also plead with a  judge that a criminal should not be arrested?

    “Someone who stole millions of naira getting perpetual injunction not to be arrested and prosecuted. Lawyers must allow cases to go on.”

    Falana, who spoke on the topic: “The limits of anti-corruption law,” added that there was nothing like equality before the law in the country, as the wealthy and influential Nigerians get lighter punishment for corruption while the commoners get stiffer penalties in the criminal system.

    The legal luminary said the Nigerian rule of law favours the rich at the expense of the poor while “advance nations sacrifice personalities for sustenance of their rule of law”

    He noted that by the way things are going with the prosecution of persons accused of corruption, 2019 would come and pass by without anyone being convicted.

    Falana said he had no doubt in the sincerity of Buhari and his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, in  tackling corruption but said the duo can’t achieve much if Nigerians failed to join in the fight.

    He urged ASUU to join the anti-corruption crusade and take the pain to identify lawyers who are scuttling the government’s efforts towards a corrupt-free nation.

    “Nigerians must join him (the President) and take advantage of their declaration to fight corruption. We must insist and publish the name of their lawyers,” he said.

    Falana noted that since 2007 till date, of the tens of corrupt cases involving big personalities in Nigeria, only two persons were convicted.

    ASUU’s National President Dr. Nasir Fagge assured that the body would collaborate with the government in the fight against corruption.

  • Bar, Bench in people’s court

    Bar, Bench in people’s court

    These are unusual times for the Bar and the Bench. Lawyers and judges have come under attack for alleged corruption. Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ibrahim Magu is calling on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to purge itself of those he called “vandals in the temple of justice”. Lawyers have challenged him to name such people. Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Mahmud Mohammed and NBA President Augustine Alegeh are also not keeping quiet on the claim that the judiciary is corrupt. How can this perception be corrected? JOSEPH JIBUEZE reports.

    It was a turbulent week for the Bar and Bench. First, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)  Rickey Tarfa was arrested on a court premises and charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with alleged obstruction of justice. A few days later, it was reported that five SANs were under probe over the Halliburton scam.

    The judiciary is also under attack for its handling of corruption and election cases. President Muhammadu Buhari fired the first salvo about two weeks ago when he expressed doubt about the judiciary’s commitment to his administration’s anti-corruption war.

    EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Magu,  at a meeting with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) executive members, urged the body to purge itself of those he called “vandals in the temple of justice”.

    He said: “We must tell ourselves the truth: there are lawyers within the fold of the NBA who ought not to be among your noble ranks. Those people are not fit to be called ministers; rather, they are vandals of the temple of justice…

    “Notwithstanding our hard-won successes, we are very worried that on a number of occasions, some members of the NBA have elected to side with those who do not want the good of Nigeria. I believe it is part of the professional ethical code of lawyers to ask questions as to the source of their clients’ wealth.”

     

    CJN, Alegeh kick

     

    Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed and NBA President Augustine Alegeh (SAN) decried the corrupt tag on the judiciary. Justice Mohammed said the barrage of criticisms against the judiciary is as a result of ignorance of its operations. Alegeh faulted the “total condemnation” of the third arm of government.

    They spoke in Abuja at a valedictory court session for retiring Justice Muhammad Saifullahi Muntaka-Coomassie of the Supreme Court.

    The CJN said: “The judiciary, though constantly striving to redress wrongs and tilt the balance in favour of that which is right, has recently had to face the backlash of misguided opinions fashioned without due consideration of the law and rationale for the system of government that we operate. The judiciary is duty bound to act in accordance with the dictates of the law as it stands and not as critics would like it to be.”

    Alegeh deplored what he described as the “generalisation and/or categorisation” of the judiciary as corrupt and a stumbling block to the Buhari administration’s war against corruption.

     

    Are graft allegations against lawyers misplaced?

     

    Are allegations of corruption against lawyers misplaced? Constitutional lawyer Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) believes there is substance in the claims. He said: “The most blameworthy are senior lawyers — a number of senior advocates who have made it a speciality; who have developed particular skills to kill corruption cases so that their clients, after many years of delays and frustrations of prosecution, end up going away with their loot.

    “And such lawyers, of course, share in the proceeds of crime. They get a part of the loot and that is why you see them buying private jets and so on. That amount of money from the proceeds of crime has completely blunted their consciences and they are as active as the accused persons — the looters — in trying to protect the loot because part of the loot now belongs to them by association.”

    To activist-lawyer Ahmed Adetola-Kazeem, senior lawyers are viewed as enemies of the common man. According to him, the feeling on the streets is that lawyers have teamed up with politically exposed persons to milk the state and by extension Nigerians dry. To him, the drum is beating louder and he hopes it does not get to a stage where lawyers will be mobbed on the streets.

     

    What lawyers should be

     

    In the book, Professional Conduct of Legal Practitioners in Nigeria, Prof J.O. Orojo, quoted the late Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah as saying: “In a developing country, the first priority is not for lawyers trained to conduct litigation between wealthy individuals … The lawyers needed in a developing state are, in the first place, those trained to assist the ordinary men and women in their everyday legal problems and particularly in the new problems likely to arise through industrialisation …”

    President Kenneth Kaunda, in an address to the Law Society of Zambia in 1970, was quoted as saying: “The lawyer in a developing society must be something more than a practising professional man; he must be more even than champion of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual… “

    A former CJN, the late AdetokunboAdemola, said: “Nigerian legal practitioners must be able not only to perform their traditional functions of catering for the professional needs of the citizens, of administering justice and manning the various legal institutions of the state, but they must also be involved in social change; they must be committed to law reform to ensure the harmonisation of law with the culture of the people and they must strive to ensure a strict adherence to the rule of law and among other things, ensure that the newly acquired political power is carefully watched and controlled so that it is not used to protect or perpetuate the status quo or class domination.

    “As the watchdog of the people, they must, through their independence and total commitment to social justice, provide the necessary support to sustain equally independent and fearless judiciary, the last hope of man for law and order, peace and progress.”

    In the past, lawyers were viewed as emancipators of the common man because of the activities of the likes of the late human rights crusader Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), among others.

    According to Adetola-Kazeem, the court which used to be viewed as the last hope of the common man is now mockingly viewed as the “lost hope of the common man”. The NBA, he believes, must rise up from its slumber and assume its rightful place as the voice of the voiceless and the hope of the common man.

    “We must find our identity and remain determined to have an expression of who we are as lawyers – which is naturally and principally to serve the common good without allowing economic, social, political, ethnic, religious or any prejudice whatsoever, to dictate the performance of our professional duties for the good people of Nigeria. These are the obvious challenges stirring at us, but we must resolve to be who we ought to be,” he said.

     

    In judiciary’s defence

     

    • Justice Adebajo (rtd)
    • Justice Adebajo (rtd)

    A former Lagos State High Court judge, Justice Ebenezer Adebajo, does not agree with Magu’s views. “I wholly disagree with them. I totally disagree with the President. I think the President’s view is wrong,” he said, referring to claims that the judiciary delays corruption cases.

    To begin with, Justice Adebajo said the executive has not done enough to stamp out corruption by retaining immunity for public office holders.

    “There is nobody in Nigeria who has immunity, not even the President of Nigeria. It is only that there is a special procedure in bringing the President to court for any offence. The law does not grant 100 per cent immunity. The law only dictates that under certain circumstances, some persons, proceedings can only be initiated against some persons in a particular manner,” he said.

    He, however, believes that the Bar must do more to entrench ethics in the profession. “I believe that Mr. Magu might have been referring to the lack of ethics in the profession. I think that is where the focus should be – to find a way of re-establishing the absolute reign of ethics.

    “If there is ethics, nobody will be stalling proceedings in court just for the sake of stalling proceedings. I think that is where we should look at, not to say judiciary is corrupt. It is a meaningless statement. We are lucky to have the type of judges we have in Nigeria.

    “As far West as the Gambia and as far South as Luanda, Nigerian Law Reports are in use by the highest court in those countries. So, why should we be demeaning our judiciary? Why should we be demeaning persons who have given themselves to the serve the people of this country?

    “Let us start with professional ethics. That is where we should start from; that is where we should turn our focus, professional ethics,” Justice Adebajo said.

    Asked how the Bar and the Bench can assist in the fight against corruption, Justice Adebajo said: “If they say something is badly constituted, the court would not say it has been properly constituted. So it is a matter of getting sufficiently qualified person to prosecute cases in court and you would see that the judges are able to do what the law asked them to do. Judges are not afraid of doing what the law says.”

    • Daudu
    • Daudu

    A former NBA president Joseph Daudu (SAN) does not agree with Magu. “No. It is extremely impolite and scurrilous for the chairman of the EFCC to refer to lawyers as ‘vandals’ in the temple of justice,” he said.

    Daudu argued that lawyers are trained to offer legal services, which include prosecution and defence of persons alleged to have committed criminal offences.

    “It is absolutely corrupt for any person, no matter how highly placed, to say that lawyers should not defend people who have been branded as corrupt. This is how Hitler and other practitioners of totalitarianism started,” Daudu said.

    He believes anyone accused of committing an offence is entitled to be defended by a lawyer of his choice.

    “It is absolutely wrong and immoral for law enforcement agencies to view lawyers as the source of their troubles. I think the defence of accused persons would be more interesting if and when prosecuting agencies did their work well,” he said.

    The former NBA chief also does not agree that the judiciary suffers from a perception crises.

    “The so-called negative impression on the judiciary by no other arm of Government than the Executive is propaganda-driven. The function of the judiciary is not to prosecute for and on behalf of the executive but to adjudicate fairly and in accordance with the law and justice.

    “The problem with this executive (Buhari led) is that it either does not understand the foundation pillars of the Nigerian Constitution, which are; (a)  the rule of law (b) separation of powers (c) independence and impartiality of the judiciary. The judiciary does not take orders from the executive,” Daudu said.

    Daudu, however, agrees that the bad eggs within the judiciary must be ridden of. “The level of corruption in the executive is both historical and legendry. However, the judiciary has some bad eggs but it is not such that can be characterised as institutional corruption,” he said.

    On whether he thinks the Bar and Bench need to do more in the fight against corruption, Daudu said: “We have consistently maintained that that there is a need to find solution to the menace of corruption but this scourge can only be fought in accordance with the tenets of the rule of law and due process.

    “The simple truth is that corruption cannot be fought in a day. The structures for anti-corruption are deliberately laid down over a while. They are not impulsive or selective or actuated by bad faith. The present anti-corruption crusade is headed for failure if not implemented property or faithfully.”

    • Fagbohungbe
    • Fagbohungbe

    For Chief Felix Fagbohungbe (SAN), one of the elders of the Bar, allegations of corruption without proof are designed to scandalise the judiciary. He said there is no society anywhere in the world where there are no bad eggs; yet, there are also good men. Where there is evidence of corruption against anyone, including lawyers, they should be charged.

    “But for EFCC chairman to say that, they have all the records of the people under investigation. They can do same on all the judges if they want to. They don’t need to go to the press and be stating all these things to the press. To the outside world, it would mean that the entire judiciary of Nigeria is corrupt.

    “So, all I would suggest is that if there are specific issues or isolated cases or individuals that have been identified, then of course they can deal with those people. But to bring the entire judiciary, to scandalise them and say that the entire judiciary is corrupt, I don’t agree with that.

    “So, it is not for the chairman of the EFCC to say that they corrupt or that they are this way or that way. If he has any report on any one of them, he should bring it out and prosecute those people. It is not for you to speak to the press and be making allegations. It is too general,” Fagbohungbe said.

    The senior advocate said the heads of the three arms of government could come together to find a common solution; but one arm, he said, should not run down others. “It is not for the executive to run down the judiciary,” he said.

    Fagbohungbe said EFCC should not blame the judiciary when it does shoddy investigations that gets thrown out by the courts.

    “Many of these things are just sensational. We read them in the newspaper and at the end of the day, you will just discover that it has died down all because either they didn’t do thorough investigation or because they don’t have evidence to even prove the allegation.

    “In the meantime, they would have destroyed the name of the people alleged to have committed such offences. Trial in the public or newspaper or other news media is not proper here. Proper investigation and proper prosecution is what I support here,” he said.

    On how the Bar and the Bench can help fight corruption, Fagbohungbe said: “They are partners in the fight against corruption. The bar will always support the bench, the bench will take the cooperation of the bar and they would work together.

    “If they want to set up any specific panel, when Kayode Eso’s panel was set up, some lawyers were part of the panel at every level, the state and the national level. So, if they set up any panel, NBA will support and cooperate with them. There is no doubt about that.”

    Another SAN, George Oguntade, said it was not fair to characterise the judiciary as corrupt. On Magu’s statement, he said: “I will say that this is a most unfair generalisation and that it was most likely made out of frustration as regards the lack of progress in the numerous corruption cases being prosecuted by the EFCC.”

    Oguntade said the “Cab-rank rule” requires a lawyer to take any case upon which he is instructed, including representing even “vilest offender.”

    “A lawyer who takes a brief has the duty to defend same to the best of his ability and in so doing, employ and exploit legitimate means to the benefit of his client. I believe that the EFCC chairman is not aware of this lawyer’s duty and obligation and that this is why he is unable to comprehend why a lawyer will accept a brief to defend an allegedly corrupt person or ‘looters’ as he put it,” he said.

    According to Oguntade, as it is with many professions, there are lawyers who have engaged in unethical conduct and who deserve to be appropriately sanctioned, and that the Bar needs to do more as regards the regulation of its members.

    “The Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007 makes copious provisions regarding the sanction of erring lawyers but the problem has been with implementation and enforcement. This is an area that definitely needs some urgent attention to stem the increasing flow of criticism against lawyers generally,” he said.

    On the judiciary’s commitment to the anti-corruption crusade, Oguntade said it must be examined in the context of constitutional and statutory provisions, many of which occasion delay in the administration of criminal justice.

    “The judiciary do not make laws but interpret and enforce laws enacted by Parliament. They cannot go outside them. Where the Constitution or the laws are inadequate to meet the reality on ground, it will be unfair to heap the blame on the Judiciary. Rather, the Constitution and the laws will need to be reviewed and reformed such that the judiciary are able to perform effectively,” he said.

    The SAN said judiciary cannot be expected to perform magic when it is not even adequately funded. “It is indubitable that a judiciary that lacks financial autonomy can never be truly independent and will always be prone to interference.”

     

    The way forward

     

    Alegeh said the judiciary will not close its eyes to cases of corruption by its members where there is proof.

    “The NBA, however, wishes to sound a note of warning to the few bad eggs in the system to desist from further causing untoward embarrassment to the judicial arm of government and will henceforth petition any judicial officer involved in or suspected to be involved in any corrupt or fraudulent transaction to the appropriate quarters for action.

    “We believe that a word is enough for the wise and that wise counsel will prevail in this regard,” the NBA president said.

    Oguntade admits the judiciary’s image has nosedived in the public’s eyes. More, therefore, needs to be done.

    “The image of the judiciary and indeed that of lawyers is clearly at a very low ebb and it is necessary that for both to survive, they urgently need to work together.

    “Judges must perforce turn to whistle blowers against colleagues involved in graft and also refrain from granting orders that are difficult for the reasonable man on the street to understand or justify.

    “Lawyers and, indeed, judges also need to expose lawyers who try to interfere in or pervert the course of justice, and where cases are identified, the Disciplinary Committee of the Bar should be swift and firm in dealing with such cases,” Oguntade said.

    Constitutional lawyer Ike Ofuokwu said the Bar and the Bench need to look inward to purge themselves of corrupt elements in their midst.

    “It is a shame and a reproach to the Bar when you see very senior members struggling among themselves to represent accused persons in corruption cases and doing everything whether lawful or otherwise to extricate corrupt persons from the law.

    “If a proper code of representation of counsels is not put in place, all that could be achieved as we have today, is to produce billionaire lawyers and judges out of the proceeds of corruption.

    “Nevertheless, the bulk of the job still lies with the agencies of government saddled with the responsibilities of investigating and prosecuting these cases.

    “The EFCC, for instance, needs to put its acts together. They need to conduct thorough investigation and put their facts and evidence in order even before arresting the suspects. It is often ridiculous and preposterous that after arrest are made they go shopping for evidence. This is an anachronistic approach.

    “We are no longer interested in trial by media. Parading them before the press will not get them a conviction rather it sometimes yields sympathy in favour of the accused. Nigerians want a result  and that is to see corrupt persons behind the bars,” Ofuokwu said.

    A group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project’s (SERAP’s) Executive Director Adetokunbo Mumuni, said it does not only amount to professional misconduct but also a crime for a lawyer to knowingly assist another to break the law.

    “Lawyers are officers in the temple of justice but improperly influencing a public official to achieve results by means that violate lawyers’ rules of professional conduct or knowingly assisting a judge or judicial officer in conduct that violates applicable rules of judicial conduct or other laws is a clear negation of this sacred duty.

    “Yet, corrupt lawyers and judges often get away with their misconduct and crime. This impunity has contributed to the sporadic and lax prosecution and punishment of officials responsible for large-scale corruption, while, conversely, imposing severe sanctions for petty corruption and criminals, so as to give the impression of justice. This situation violates the underlying legal and moral assumptions that all persons will be treated equally, fairly, and with respect.

    “Any lawyer who acts in such a way as to be directly responsible for the act of corruption or acts as part of a conspiracy to corrupt should face liability as a ‘principal” offender.’ Even where a lawyer is not directly responsible for the act of corruption but facilitates or otherwise provides assistance to a principal offender, he/she should be liable as an accessory or accomplice. This accountability mechanism for lawyers and judges must follow due process of law.

    “The obligation on lawyers not to engage in illegal activities is vital in upholding professional standards and obviously extends to the activities of bribery and corruption, as lawyers must not themselves breach, or facilitate a breach, of the law.

    “For the sake of the legal profession, the cause of justice and effective remedies for victims of large scale corruption such as the arms procurement scandal, appropriate authorities particularly the NBA has to speak out strongly against corruption in the legal profession,” SERAP said.

     

  • Ayade has raised the bar of good governance, says Idem

    Chief Victor Idem is the Managing Director, Felodem Group of Companies and Director-General, Team-Ben Political Organisation, one of the groups that worked for Prof. Ben Ayade’s emergence as governor of Cross River State. He spoke with NICHOLAS KALU in Calabar on the administration.

    There have been mixed reactions from the public on Governor Ben Ayade’s performance since he assumed office as governor.  Many feel he has not done so well. How will you rate the governor so far? 

    There may be areas they feel the governor has not looked into, but nobody can actually say he hasn’t performed since he assumed office. I can say emphatically at any level using Ayade’s 100 days in office as benchmark that no governor in Cross River State has done what he has done. In his first 100 days in office, he was able to take off his signature projects. If you go to Bakassi, the Calabar Seaport is currently ongoing, the design is complete, the site has been cleared and work is ongoing. If you go to the superhighway, more than 20km has been cleared, I am into construction, drawing a design of over 200km within three months means that the people were not sleeping, it takes a lot to design a road of that length, more than 200km superhighway, it takes more than three months, but he was able complete it within three months, that means he put the designers into terrible task, this achievement is not just limited to the design alone, he has moved into the site, clearing more than 20km, that is sincerely laudable. The garment factory is ongoing; salaries that have been a problem in the state for several months have been cleared and are currently paid before the end of each month. Another aspect is the crisis in the judiciary. Within 100 days in office, Ayade sorted out what has been hanging for over eight months; added with the load of challenges he is having running the state. What is happening is the grace of God upon the life of the governor. It is God that has given him the empowerment and wisdom. What the people have seen in his 100 days in office is just a tip of what is to come. We should leave politics and ethnicity and join hands with him to make Cross River State to attain a level of multi-national economy. Ayade has raised the benchmark of good governance in Cross River.

    Team-Ben was a strong voice during the campaigns of Senator Ben Ayade. Now that the campaigns are over, what role are you playing?

    For now, Team Ben is engaged in enlightening the populace about the people-friendly policies of the governor, his projects and his visions for the state. There are several negative forces that want to see the governor fail and who are sending negative signals to the populace. We are correcting that by the enlightenment of the public.

    Some weeks ago, we had the state general meeting where our coordinators in all the local government areas were directed to start interacting with political groups, unions and members of the public; encouraging them to be patient. They were also enlightened on the governor’s achievements and policies.

    We have printed the visions of the governor, his projects and the successes he has achieved. These have been distributed to our members, so that they can be better informed to enable them to inform the public.

    We have also established another group that is liaising with churches to pray for the governor, because I notice that some of the problems people have against this administration, are not physical and you know spiritual things have to be attacked spiritually.

    Team Ben is on the streets and in every neighbourhood across the state enlightening the public. We just moved from the verbal street enlightenment to the media. We know it’s very expensive but we are doing our best. We don’t want to keep quiet or fold our hands or go to the governor to solicit for funds. If we do that, we won’t be able to advise the governor properly when he goes wrong. We will go to the governor only when it’s advisory and necessary.

    What is your projection about Where do you see Cross River State in the next four years under Senator Ayade? 

    In the next four years, Cross River State will be an outstanding one among other states of the federation. In the next four years, you will be hearing about Cross River State on international media. The state would have been positioned as a commercial centre. It’s not just hearing the governor talk about development; let his critics pray to God to open their eyes to see where the state will be in the next four years.

    This is the first time Cross River State is having an intelligent, humble young man as governor. It is the first time the state is privileged to have a business man who is an employer of over 500 people still working under him. It is the first time Cross River State is having a man so liberal, who has an antecedent of helping the poor even before he became a Senator.

    I urge residents of the state to drop all political and ethnic differences and support the governor. I know there will be a lot of distractions but I will say to the governor “stay focused”.  The crown of leadership on him was divine and I know he will succeed.

     

  • Agbakoba to chair Eastern Bar dinner

    Agbakoba to chair Eastern Bar dinner

    A former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) will on Friday chair a  dinner  organised by the Eastern Bar Forum (EBF) in honour of Justice Walter Onnoghen of the Supreme Court.

    The dinner, to be hosted by Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, is part of the programmes commemorating the maiden meeting of EBF’s new leadership, which holds on Saturday at the Tinapa Hotel and Resorts.

    EBF chairmanship Effiong  Ekong was elected at the Sir Louis Mbanefo Bar Centre, Onisha Anambra State in June and was inaugurated the same day.

    He succeeded Mr. Ogbonna O. Igwenyi.

    Other members of the new executives are:  Arthur Chukwu (Vice-Chairman), Basil Aguigwo (Secretary), Emeka Anosike (Financial Secretary), Promise Iwezor- (Rivers Representative) and Charles Azubuike (Abia State Representative).

    Imo, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom States representatives in the governing council will be presented at the Calabar meeting on Saturday.

    Chairman of the Organising Committee Mr. Mba Ukweni said: “Every arrangement is  concluded and we are putting finishing touches to make sure that we have a very successful  dinner and meeting. Baring one or two confirmations, which we will make early this week, I can say that we are done with the  preparations.”