The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Femi Falana (san)

  • Military justice

    “Twelve soldiers were convicted in September 2014 and sentenced to death by a court-martial for demanding weapons when the General Officer Commanding, the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army, visited a military camp in the war zone while 58 others were convicted and sentenced to death in December by another court-martial for demanding weapons to fight the insurgents. Therefore, the number of soldiers who were sentenced to death by the two court-martials is 70 and not 66.”

    That was Lagos activist lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) clarifying the information released by Army spokesman Colonel Sani Usman on December 19 about the number of soldiers whose mutiny-related death sentences were commuted to imprisonment.

    Apart from the confusing detail concerning the number of soldiers involved, more confusing is the decision by the military authorities to impose 10-year jail terms on the previously condemned men despite exonerating evidence.

    Although the outrageous corruption-related narrative emanating from the office of the former National Security Adviser in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, Sambo Dasuki, is still unfolding, there is already enough information to show that the soldiers being punished do not deserve punishment.

    Those who ought to be punished are the crooks who stole public funds, using the anti-terror war against Boko Haram as a cover. The multi-billion arms scam and the alleged scammers making the news at this time are at the heart of the Jonathan administration’s failure to defeat the Islamist terrorists who have been on the rampage in the country’s Northeast since 2009.

    Apart from the huge number of mortalities linked with the insurgency, and the huge figures of internally displaced persons, the yet-to-be-resolved kidnap of 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, over a year ago, remains a huge open wound on the country’s conscience.

    It was an open secret in the Jonathan presidential era that people in power ironically fuelled the Boko Haram insurgency by fraudulent acts. The anti-terror war became a pro-terror effort because of the weakening of state-capacity by government officials expected to win the war. Under the Jonathan administration, the image of the Nigerian military appeared irredeemable as it battled unimpressively and unconvincingly against terrorism.

    Now the world knows the terror war was kept going and had to be kept going to keep the fraudulent actors going.  So, the mutinous soldiers have been vindicated. Their ultimate vindication would come when they are not made to pay for the sins of others. Or is military justice inflexibly and unfairly different?

  • The Buhari change revolution

    The Buhari change revolution

    A coalition of activists, led by Femi Falana (SAN), at Dr. Musa Babayo’s book presentation in Abuja, deliberated on the government’s anti-corruption crusade, economic and foreign policies and the way forward. Gboyega Alaka reports.

    Although President Muhammadu Buhari has embarked on a global pilgrimage to right the wrongs and atrocities committed by successive regimes and improve the nation’s image in the comity of nations, his mission and intentions, however noble, may remain a Sisyphean exercise, if priority is not given to the fight against corruption, economic diplomacy and foreign policy.

    This was made known at the presentation of the book: “Economic Diplomacy and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy,” written by Dr. Musa Babayo, immediate past chairman, Board of Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Legal practitioner, Femi Falana (SAN), and a coalition of activists seized the opportunity of the occasion to provoke a discussion on why the Buhari administration should beam its searchlight on reviving the country’s foreign policy and the anti-graft crusade.

    In a lead paper, titled: “The right to accountable government in Nigeria,” Falana was not happy that what should be a national commonwealth has been hijacked and placed under the control of a few hands. This, he said, runs contrary to nationalism and principles behind demands for independence. Nigeria has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and is therefore under a duty to ensure the exercise of the right to development and respect the economic, social and cultural rights of the people, with due regard to their freedom and identity and in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind.

    Falana is not comfortable with the politicisation of government’s anti-corruption crusade; especially with allegations of vendetta being read into the Buhari government’s actions. He said, “Since the allegations of bias or persecution being levelled against the EFCC are deliberately designed to discredit the renewed fight against corruption and shield looters from prosecution, it is high time that the attention of Nigerians was drawn to the fact that corruption is fighting back.”

    He noted that majority of the petitions that formed the basis of the ongoing investigation by the EFCC were submitted before the emergence of the Buhari administration.

    On his part, Babayo said Buhari’s anti-corruption drive should be pursued with all amount of vigour and radicalism, considering that over $157 billion has been lost by Nigeria, according to a Global Financial Integrity report, to illicit financial flows between 2003 and 2012. He said this is where the nation’s foreign policy formulators should intervene.

    Babayo also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “turn his attention to the activities of multinational corporations in Nigeria, with a view to repatriating the funds stolen from Nigeria and putting a stop to further bleeding of the nation’s economy.”  He drew a parallel between the economic policies of Buhari as a military Head of State and now as a civilian president and wondered if there were lessons from his economic policies then that could be useful in the current administration.

    A former Minister of Foreign Affairs and founder of Savannah Centre, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, on his part, expressed concern about the fact that “Africa has the highest amount of foreign investments abroad.” He wondered how Nigeria and indeed Africa can be great, if the people do not invest at home. He said decades of talks on diversification of the economy from a mono-economy should now be translated into concrete actions, with all major stakeholders coming together to foster better economic management.

    Gambari, who was former head of United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur, said government must tackle headlong the current socio-economic challenges, such as high poverty level, huge youth unemployment and perennial disconnect between the government and the citizens. He advocated “a new permanent inter-ministerial council which would provide an effective link between our general foreign policy endeavours with external trade and international economic interest.”

    His views were supported by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, who bemoaned the deplorable state of most Nigerian foreign missions saying, “Almost half of our missions overseas are in deplorable condition.”

    Ahmed therefore emphasised the need for the present government to critically review the number of Nigerian embassies abroad. The ex-SGF said, “We have to get the management of our resources right in this country. When we can predict that work on the second Onitsha Bridge will start and be completed in a certain time, then we would have improved.”

    He denounced a situation where Nigerian politicians make every development issue political, wondering how it is that “At the time of campaign, we will go and say Onitsha Bridge will be completed,” only to use the same bridge to campaign at the next election? He therefore clamoured for proper national planning, as was being attempted by the late Yar’ Adua administration.

    President of Public Interest Lawyers League, Mr. Abdul Mahmud, gave a legal insight into Nigeria’s foreign policy, when he argued that for almost a decade and half, Nigeria’s foreign policy has retrogressed almost to a point that her claim of Africa as its centre-piece is today a non-recognisable relic of the foreign policy museum.

    He argued that “In the years following Nigeria’s glorious contributions to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles on the continent, there has not been any conscious attempt at reinvigorating her foreign policy to meet contemporary realities, globalisation, high modernity and the plurality of global politics.”

    But if others were interested in anti-graft crusade and foreign policy, the Executive Director, Human Rights Monitor, Festus Okoye, wants Buhari to implement the report of the 2014 national conference. He said since the last all Nigerian conference on foreign policy, nothing has been said about it again and posited that “You cannot embark on good and effective foreign policy if everything takes us by surprise.”

  • Religion and security: a legal perspective

    Religion and security: a legal perspective

    A paper delivered by Femi Falana (san) at the conference of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan (UI) on April 15.

    Introduction

    Realising the volatility of religion in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country like Nigeria, it was entrenched in the Constitution that the government shall not adopt any religion as a state religion. The fundamental right of every person in Nigeria to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is also guaranteed by the constitution. But in utter contravention of the clear constitutional provisions on religion the political class has adopted Christianity and Islam as official religions. By deliberately refusing to separate religion from the state the government has encouraged the manipulation of religion by public office holders and other interest groups.

    This paper examines the illegal involvement of the state in the manipulation of religion and its threat to national security. As such manipulation has led to several ethno-religious clashes and terrorist attacks the paper concludes by calling for the immediate withdrawal of the state from religious affairs and the implementation of the directives of government on the recommendations of panels that have been commissioned to probe political violence, civil disturbances and terrorism.

     

    Religion and the state

     

    The Constitution does not recognise the secular nature of the state. Hence it has merely prohibited the adoption of any religion as a state religion. As the late Dr. Bala Usman, a member of the defunct Constitution Drafting Committee rightly opined, the provision could only have been intended “with the deliberate intention of allowing the President, the governors and other public officers to manipulate religious differences by associating or identifying with religion. Otherwise, knowing fully well the chaos that has been caused in this country because political parties and governments have cynically manipulated religious belief that have no excuse whatsoever for not being unambiguous and categorical on this matter.”

    However, in ensuring that religion was not exploited by political leaders as a divisive issue Dr. Usman and Dr. Segun Osoba had proposed in their minority report that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a secular state and the state shall not be associated with any religion but shall actively protect the fundamental right of all citizens to hold and practice the religious beliefs of their choice”. But in order to allow political leaders to openly associate with religions and thereby keep the people divided the ambiguous recommendation of the Chief Rotimi Williams-led majority report was adopted by the Constituent Assembly and the Olusegun Obasanjo military junta which promulgated the 1979 Constitution. Thus, section 10 thereof provided that “The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion”.

    In spite of the several religious clashes which the association of political leaders with religion have caused the ambiguous provision was re-enacted as section 10 of the 1999 Constitution by the Abdulsalami Abubakar junta. Instead of preserving the secular status of a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society like Nigeria the political class has since adopted Christianity and Islam as state religions. Apart from declaring public holidays to mark the major activities of both religions, billions of naira are earmarked in the annual budgets of the federal, state and local governments to sponsor pilgrims to foreign holy sites and celebrate religious festivities.

    In Osun State, the governor has added traditional religion to the two official religions. Thus, in addition to prayers said by Christian and Islamic clerics, an Ifa priest is also allowed to say prayers in official programmes. Although the traditional religion is secretly patronized by many political and religious leaders the governor has been accused by the leaders of both Christian and Islamic faiths of promoting “idol worshipping”. In the past few months there has been an unnecessary controversy over the wearing of hijab by female moslem students in many secondary schools in Lagos and Osun States. Some Christian teachers have subjected students who appear in school wearing hijab to corporal punishment in Lagos. The House of Assembly is currently investigating the incident. In Osun State, the Christian Association of Nigeria has accused the state government of committing illegality by not banning students from wearing hijab in Christian schools.

    It is sad to note that some of the Christian leaders raising serious issues over the wearing of hijab attended universities in the South West where female moslem undergraduates wear hijab. In any case, it is submitted that the wearing of hijab or headscarf is not illegal by virtue of section 38(1) of the Constitution which states that:

    “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either or in community with others, and in public or in privacy) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

    The Ambassador Usman Galtimari Committee Commission by the Goodluck Jonathan Administration to study the security challenges in the North East zone traced the genesis of the dreaded boko haram sect to some political leaders in Borno State. According to the Committee:

    “8.The Report traced the origin of private militias in Borno State in particular, of which Boko Haram is an offshoot, to politicians who set them up in the run-up to the 2003 general election. The militias were allegedly armed and used extensively as political thugs. After the elections and having achieved their primary purpose, the politicians left the militias to their fate since they could not continue funding and keeping them employed. With no visible means of sustenance, some of the militias gravitated towards religious extremism, the type offered by Mohammed Yusuf.

    9.It recommended that the Federal Government should direct the security agencies to beam their search light on some politicians who sponsored, funded and used the militia groups that later metamorphosed into Boko Haram and bring them to justice.

    10.Government accepts this recommendation and directs the National Security Adviser to coordinate the investigation of the kingpins and sponsors to unravel the individuals and groups that are involved.”

    On the basis of the above finding the Federal Government directed the National Security Adviser and the Inspector-General of Police to fish out such political leaders who have been sponsoring the terrorist group with a view to prosecuting them. The panel equally identified poverty as a major root cause of the emergence of the boko haram sect. Today there is no greater to national security in Nigeria than the menace of insurgency in some state in the northern part of the country.

     

    The threat to national security

    by terrorist groups

     

    In less than three years the nation has lost 3,000 people and properties worth over two trillion naira. Apart from bombing churches, media houses and the United Nations Office in Abuja the suicide terrorists have successfully attacked police stations and military barracks. Although the Federal Government has continued to assure the Nigerian people of security there are fears that the terrorist attacks could lead to a civil war. Convinced that the military onslaught by the Joint Task Force has failed to curb the menace of terrorism President Goodluck Jonathan offered amnesty to the members of the boko haram sect a fortnight ago. A Presidential Committee was inaugurated for implementation of the amnesty.

    But in a swift reaction to the offer the Boko Haram sect denounced and rejected the said amnesty. The unwarranted embarrassment would have been avoided if the Federal Government had implemented its directives on the Reports of both Presidential Committees on the Security Challenges in the North-East Zone of Nigeria and the 2011 Election Violence and Civil Disturbances. With respect to the controversial dialogue with the Boko Haram sect the Ambassador Usman Galtimari Presidential Committee had recommended as follows: