Former President, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) is not happy that Nigeria, despite its endowments, is still tottering. He bares his mind in this interview with Assistant Editor DADA ALADELOKUN. He also clears the air on some insinuations around his philanthropic gestures as well as his professional practice. Excerpts:
Keen watchers of Nigeria ‘s democratic odyssey are quick to give the judiciary knocks over its role so far. What is your view as a stakeholder?
The judiciary in Nigeria has fared fairly well. However, I must confess that we could have done better, but when you consider all the extenuating factors, one cannot but say that the judiciary has fared considerably well. In governmental nomenclature, we have the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Without any fear of contradiction, of all the three, the judiciary is the best. Our judiciary is overwhelmed and afflicted by the problems it did not initiate. For now, there will be political lull in the United States of America for two and a half years or more, except when you go to the Capitol where there will be debates on national issues. But here, right from the day Jonathan and the other governors were sworn in on May 29, 2011 , the struggle for 2015 started and at the end of it all, the unfortunate victim is the judiciary.
But let me say this as a lawyer; the person we have as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) now, I think, we are lucky to have her there. I don’t go to her office because I don’t patronise people. But I know that she is not bendable; she is not a woman that will take dictations from anybody. She is not politically inclined and she is not a respecter of any person, powers or principality. So, having her at the helm of affairs strengthens people’s hope in the judiciary.
Practitioners in the echelon must not hobnob with the bad eggs in the society because you and I have transferred our independence and sovereignty to them. Ultimate justice is of God but they represent Him on earth. And for anybody who will occupy the seat of a judge, he must not make conscious mistakes.
By your assessment, is that all about the ills plaguing the arm?
There must be precedents and that is where I have reservations about the judiciary in the country. There must be certainty in law to some extent. More often than not, now, precedents seem to have no place in judicial decisions and this is worrisome. But I am happy that the Supreme Court is trying to address it.
Another worrisome trend is the way our judges are being appointed as if they are state commissioners. These are people who will be invested with the power of life and death over fellow human beings. Lobbying should not be a factor. The Supreme Court should open its doors and windows to the very best in the profession in order to give room for a confluence of ideas that with strengthen the sector, all in the overall interest of the people. There are a lot of issues to be addressed. When a client brings his case to a lawyer, it is unethical for the latter to say, ‘you will win this case.’ I will always study your case and if I have a positive feeling, I would say, ‘your case is not frivolous; we will try our best.’
But the issue of corruption is still there…
When you talk of corruption, you talk of bad eggs; you talk of people who should not be there. Such a situation ought not to have arisen at all because it is a very delicate position vested with enormous power and authority over you and I. The President of Nigeria will say he is the Commanded-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. But he cannot say that I have contravened the laws of the land and therefore, I must be killed; he cannot say that.
But the Constitution has invested somebody with that power to say, ‘with the evidence before me, you have been found guilty; therefore, you are sentenced to death.’ I therefore won’t buy the argument in some quarters that because our judges live within the Nigerian environment, automatically, they must be inflicted with the virus of corruption; it is nonsensical. The judiciary must be independent.
Is it the same picture both at the federal and state levels of the arm?
Let me say this that the judiciary at the federal level is by far freer than the judiciary at the lower levels, especially the state. A good number of the governors see the High Courts in their states as appendages of their offices; that is not good enough. Sadly, we keep on talking about the Federal Government to our own peril when we are talking of the judiciary. Nobody makes a microscopic foray into what happens at the states.
Look at what happened in Kwara; the state House of Assembly and the executive removed a Chief Judge and nobody raised an eyebrow. The Chief Judge was already booted out, though she later went to the Supreme Court for justice. Nobody sympathised with her. Everyday is always awash with what happens at the federal level when worst things happen at the state level.
On corruption, we focus on what happens at the federal level without considering what goes on at the state and local government levels because our federalism is an aberration.
So, whether it is about corruption, education, judiciary and what have you, we must consider things globally and generally without a biased focus on the federal level. I am from Ekiti; the state used to be the bastion of cocoa production when we were growing up. I had my education through proceeds from cocoa; my father did not borrow a dime from anybody to train me. But where are the cocoa trees not in our country? When we were growing up till mid-60s, there was only one Federal Government school in the Western Region-Government College and Queens College , both in Ibadan .
We all attended public and mission schools; where are they today? In our life time, where are the virtues that we keyed into while growing up? Where are the teachers? Where are the role models? Where are the politicians? Many youths today may not know how great people like Enahoro and Akintola were. To some, Akintola was only versatile in Yoruba language. Go through the archives and see how Awolowo, as the leader of opposition, would marshal his research-rooted points. Are we improving? No. Shakespeare would say that ‘the fault is not in our stars but in our selves.’
Let us look at the whole noise about the absentee governors that is causing uproar in the country today…
It is the height of irresponsibility. In the Book of Isaiah, God asked, ‘Who should I send?’ Prophet Isaiah said, ‘Here I am, send me.’ But in our own country, you see people saying they had a dream or heard a voice to serve as governor, forcing themselves on the people, begging them. Some would say, ‘oh, God has told me to contest,’ as if He is their fiefdom. So, if you volunteer to throw your heart into the ring in a bid to serve your people, it is, unequivocally, irresponsible for you not to be at your seat for four months.
And sad enough, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is urging us to sympathise with them. Why did they not say that during the case of Yar’Adua? And in any event, the constitution does not want anybody to sympathise with it. The constitution makes it clear that for any political office, especially, there shall not be a vacancy for a split second! Yakowa, the late Kaduna State governor died in that unfortunate crash. Even before his remains were taken to Kaduna , his deputy was sworn in because political offices, like nature, abhor a vacuum.
Look at the case of Chime in Enugu . The position of Chime is not peculiar to him. He is a colleague of mine but we must say the truth in the interest of our nation. It is only a monarch that says, ‘this position is ours until we die.’ I had been out of the country for some days; so, I would not know if his deputy whom he purportedly handed over to, has presented a budget. The entire state has been held to ransom because of an individual. See what the state has been suffering and we are all looking as if nothing has happened.
But if it were to happen at the federal level, the whole country would have literally been on fire. It is worrisome that Nigeria does not have a system; we are running people’s affairs like a game of chess. You practise whatever catches your fancy and impose it on the people. We in Africa always say ‘yes, a black man is the President of America; who told you? Yes, Obama may be, but his orientation and character are American; his focus is American; his conscience is American because there is an enduring system there. Anybody can live in America and be President because you cannot change the system. The same Bible with which the first President of America took his oath is still there. The seat of power is still there. Nobody will sell it off and say they are monetising.
But the Enugu Assembly should have acted appropriately; don’t you think so?
Oh yes; but they are not doing their job. The National Assembly is far more independent than all the state Houses of Assembly combined. They are lily-livered. Many go into the Assembly without any idea or ideology. All they need is a sponsor whose bidding they will get there to do. Now, people are talking about 2015; it is going to be the same old story. I am not an incurable pessimist; I am a realist.
You sound not too comfortable with the situation of things in the country…
Oh, yes! We are running an unhealthy system. And bad enough, the constitution is in a terrible state of health. It is amusingly worsened by the ongoing attempt by the National Assembly to revamp it; but the effort will take us nowhere. We have to sit down to chart a new course for our future. Let us forget about the contentious word, ‘sovereign’ and let us sit down to talk. We must not allow the disintegration of this polity. Look at the argument about state police. Some would say the governors will use it to haunt their enemies or opponents; is the President using it against his perceived enemies now? Who says my home town, Ikere, does not deserve its own police? This is the surest way to ensure security of lives and property in the country. Do we have political parties? All we have are groups without ideologies. I respect personalities but the general run of the dramatis personae in our political arena today is there to capture power without any clear-cut intention to serve the people.
The Federal Government would say they want to ‘capture’ Lagos. Party ‘A’ would say ‘we want to capture this ‘state’. Rather than argue based on facts and criticise, our politicians would be cursing themselves; and this is among why people like us run away from politics. It is disheartening the word, ‘capture’ has assumed pre-eminence in our political lexicon. These are among the issues that have coalesced into an Albatross on our neck.
Based on your experience as a lawyer, has it been happening in your professional constituency?
Woe betides any lawyer that would tell a client, ‘give me some money to give a judge.’ I cannot say I have not heard it; but it is alien to our practice in my chambers. A lawyer must be sure-footed and creative. He must be a doctor, a psychologist; he must be the melting pot of all the professions. Above all, he must be close to God and always ask for the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. If God gives you wisdom, your opponents and adversaries will say you are cutting corners of using juju. Here, we employ knowledge and fidelity to law and what is good. And in any event, we don’t win all our cases; we lose some.
I thank God because this is what I prayed for when I was going into this profession. The only Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) governor in Nigeria , I led the team for his defence in Nasarawa, from the Tribunal up to the Supreme Court. Yet, I was counsel to Jonathan against CPC. Despite that, CPC had confidence in me. I’m happy; I’m enjoying my profession.
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and PDP are not the best of friends. On November 21, 2011 , the Federal Government charged Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the ACN national leader before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Three months before the charge was served on Tinubu – a brilliant, very sagacious man – he had called me and Yemi Osinbajo and put us into confidence. He said, ‘Wole, my friend, you will handle the situation.’ I led his very formidable team to ask the Tribunal to discharge and acquit him. I finished my submission around 12.30 pm that day. By 2.30 pm same day, I was in the courtroom of the Court of Appeal in the same Abuja to join my colleagues on the leadership of the defence team of the Jonathan election petition. It was the same day; defending Tinubu in the morning and Jonathan in the afternoon. That is the joy of the profession. I heard from the rumour mill that some people went to tell Jonathan that Wole is Tinubu’s friend and so on, but Jonathan reportedly told them: ‘Leave Wole; I have implicit confidence in him; the man will never compromise your case.’ If you know your onions, research well, conduct yourself well, refrain from abusing judges but not necessarily patronising him, with solid facts, your case is sure.
Of recent, I have been lucky to lead very formidable teams of equally good, if not better lawyers than myself. But the defence would say, ‘come and lead the team.’ And they have been cooperating with me. I am a triangular person from my house, to my office and back home. I’m a member of the Island Club and many others, but the time is not there for me to club. The earliest time I leave office daily is 8 pm . I go to bed earliest by 11 pm . With the help of the Holy Spirit, I naturally wake up by 2 am everyday to read for three hours after fervent prayers and meditation. When I was young, I had dreamt of becoming a workaholic and successful practitioner like Chief FRA William. This has remained part of me and a secret of my modest accomplishment.
Many still wonder how you cope, defending clients of opposing political leanings…
Although I work for President Jonathan, I don’t go to Aso Rock; I’m not a contractor. Tinubu respects me and I respect him too. That would not have anything to do with my defence of Mimiko (Ondo State governor) in any electoral dispute. Apart from being my friend, he is my soul-mate. When my mother was alive, I would be in Ilorin ; he would leave his town, Ondo, for my house at Ikere and my mother would cook for him. He is one of my few friends who have shared same bed with me. The process of Mimiko becoming governor started when both of us were commissioners in the old Ondo State in 1992/93. I constituted and led the team of his election petition four years ago. We have been that close. He respects me and he will dare not ask me about my association with Tinubu or others. I don’t do the politics of my clients; I handle my job uncompromisingly. For me, my career is a covenant. If I have chosen to handle a
