Former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Legal Adviser and All Progressives Congress (APC) chief Victor Nwaugo, in this interview with Legal Editor JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU, speaks on the administration of justice, security challenges and ministerial nominees.
What do you consider to be the greatest challenge to justice delivery?
There are challenges facing justice delivery in Nigeria, but the worst challenge is delayed justice delivery. A situation where it takes not less than five years to deliver judgment in ordinary tortuous liability matter, where witnesses may not be more than four even in states where there are better facilities. Rivers State, for instance, can boast of good facilities in the court system, yet I have cases involving The Nation that have been pending since 2015 and we are yet to conclude with one witness. The judges should take pre-trial proceedings very serious and settle many interlocutory applications and dispose of some contentious issues and ensure that scheduling order is issued and followed strictly. I blame the judges mainly for this, because they are in charge of their courts.
What is your reaction to the allegations of corruption in the judiciary?
Yes, the Judiciary has been in the eyes of the storm for some time and in particular, over allegations of corruption. As a Christian, I read a portion in the Bible where God requested Moses to raise judges who will adjudicate matters over the people of Israel. God did not just ask Moses to nominate anybody, but that he should chose men who hate bribery. Many of our judges are weighed down by societal demands which they easily succumb to. Judges lobby these days to be selected for Election Tribunals. I followed the petitions, presentations and proceedings against the former CJN, Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen. I must tell you that if it was in a clime where laws shine above all, the former CJN wouldn’t have just gone home. He would have gone to the place where he had sent many Nigerians whom he found guilty of crime.
What is your take on community policing?
Nigeria is challenged by security problems. I talk from an environment that was once over- whelmed by kidnapping. To stem the tide of criminal activities across the country does not lie in the state police, but lies in embracing technology and involving all the three tiers of government and the citizens. While police, army and other security and para-military agencies are under the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government, the governor is the chief security officer of his state and the local government chairman also the chief security officer of his local government. Both the governors and the local government chairmen are allocated security votes monthly. What do they use the money for?
What do you mean by this?
The governors can install CCTV cameras, buy modern vehicles to security agencies, initiate the setting up of a police unit that will be well-equipped with modern electronic gadgets, well- motivated, insure their lives, place their children under scholarship, provide special them allowance, give them houses while the local government will work with the traditional rulers, church leaders, market leaders, town unions, mobilise the citizens and train them on how to give security alert. These criminals live with us; we can fish them out if we mean business. Our prosecutors should be better trained and motivated to prosecute those arrested.
What is your reaction to the judgments given on the Zamfara, Osun and Rivers governorship elections disputes?
Well, there is this saying that the outcome of a judgment in an election petition is not a yard stick to determine a brilliant lawyer. For students of such school of thought, election judgments are determined by depth of pocket or political consideration. But for me, that the judgments are delivered within 180 days from the date of presentation of petition at the Tribunal is a welcome development. However, election petitions are based on technicalities and less emphasis on the justice of the case. These hiccups embolden politicians to ensure that they win at all cost. The judgment in Zamfara as far as I am concerned is a wake-up call for my party, APC not to adopt the style of PDP, who at a time, behaved as if it can turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man.
You participated in the last general elections. What is your appraisal of the process, particularly in Imo?
Yes, I was both the APC Local Government agent for Ihitte/Uboma, trainer of APC ward agents and APC Supervisor for Ihitte/Uboma in the 2019 elections. By the nature of my assignment, I had the power and indeed monitored the conveyance of election materials from Owerri to Ihitte/Uboma, observed the distribution of election materials to super-rack centres. I posted out our agents, supervised and monitored the distribution of materials from super-rack centres, to the wards and polling units. For almost a week, in each of the elections, I didn’t sleep because I had to remain vigilant from distribution of election materials, to the announcement and transmission of results to INEC headquarters in Owerri. In Imo State, transmission of results were done manually in line with the Electoral Act and INEC Guidelines, 2019.
What is your take on INEC’s conduct during the elections?
I can state that INEC compromised the elections, particularly the National Assembly, House of Assembly and Governorship elections. Imagine were INEC was hawking their certificate of return to the highest bidder and turning themselves into courts of law to determine a return made properly and the one under duress in the face of Section 68 and 75 of the Electoral Act. Imagine the case in Imo State where a returning officer spat at the constitutional provision that a candidate for the office of the governor must score 25 percent of votes cast in two- thirds of the local governments in the states in addition to the highest number of votes cast in that state to be declared the winner; but in the case of Imo State, no candidate met the two conditions.
How?
While PDP had the highest number of votes cast, they failed to score 25 per cent of the votes cast in two third of the local governments in Imo State while A.A. secure 25 per cent votes cast in two-thirds of the local governments in Imo State but did not score the highest number of votes cast, yet, the PDP’s candidate was returned as elected and was sworn in as the governor. The INEC ad-hoc staff, particularly, the professors, lecturers and youth corps members heavily compromised the last election to the highest bidder. Most of those youth corps members are half-literates while the lecturers and professors came to make money not minding how the system was compromised.
So, what is the way out?
I plead with INEC that the vision of Prof. Attahiru Jega in bringing in the lecturers has been destroyed. I advocate that we should fall back to classroom teachers and our clergies and Imams. These lecturers are too bad, the returning officers compromised the principles of margin of votes and cancelled some areas to the benefit of the highest bidder.
What are your expectations of Chief Justice Tanko Muhammad?
The confirmation of Justice Tanko Muhammad as the Chief Justice of Nigeria ( CJN) followed already-established practice at the Supreme Court that the most senior member of the apex court is made the Chief Justice of the Federation while next in seniority order becomes his deputy. So, he was deputy to Justice Onnoghen from where he succeeded him. I will advise the CJN to ensure that the highest standard of discipline expected of a Judge is maintained from the High Courts to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court should ensure that justice is done to all manner of persons to sustain the confidence of the people in the judiciary. Rumuor of bribery at the judiciary should be thoroughly investigated and dealt with. Judges must be above board in a corrupt society in since they are the arm that imposes punishment on those found to be corrupt.
Which aspect of our laws do we need to amend to have credible elections?
The constitution and the Electoral Act must be amended to take away from the regular courts the jurisdiction to hear all post and pre-election matters, including membership of political party, conduct of party congresses, nomination of candidates, qualification of candidates and existence of political party. I call for regular constitutional courts whose jurisdiction will be limited to everything bordering on elections, political parties, membership of political party, party offices and officers and candidates. Appeal from that court should end at constitutional court of appeal, with limited jurisdiction to hear appeals from constitutional courts.
What about INEC’s role?
It must be compulsory that INEC shall, two months before election, re-educate the members and supporters of political parties on the format and procedure of conduct of the election. INEC must be unbiased and shorn of favouritism to the highest bidder. INEC must start the process of recruiting their ad-hoc staff on time and must ensure that those to be recruited must have the capacity to write report and make use of the INEC gadgets. The reliance on lecturers has failed the nation as these lecturers are greedier than INEC staff. A returning officer must know that he does not have the powers to cancel election conducted at polls. Once a presiding officer submits his result to a ward collation officer successfully without questions, a local government collation officer or constituency or state returning officer should not have the powers to review the conduct of election at the polling units, but should have powers to review the collation of results of a direct subordinate that did not tally with figures computed at a lower stage of the election. My observation from the last elections is that there should be declaration of state of emergency in our educational sector as most of the youth corps members are half-literate. The major problem with the conduct of the election is that most of the INEC staff are heavily corrupt and compromised the system according to how they were paid.
What about adjudication of post-election disputes?
The system of adjudication of the post-election dispute is more technical than dwelling on substantial justice. The procedure should be made simpler. Every result sheet must be signed by the INEC ad-hoc staff concerned and countersigned by two other security officers. The signature of INEC ad-hoc staff alone should not authenticate a result. INEC should produce better quality result sheets which must reflect clearly and almost equal to the first copy in all the copies of the result sheets for security and parties so much so that a political party should by law chose either to obtain a certified true copy of the result as announced either from INEC or office of the security department that participated in the conduct of the election. Where the copy of a result presented by a party tallies with the copy of result obtained from two offices of the security department that participated in the conduct of the election and does not tally with that of INEC, that of the two security agents shall represent a better copy of the result except where proof shows otherwise.
How do you think we can resolve the challenges of criminality?
The level of insecurity in this country is large. The system of detection of crime by way of surveillance, prevention, investigation and prosecution should be reviewed. Take a visit to our prisons and you may begin to wonder why those charged with prosecuting cases hardly dedicate themselves to that duty. Once a prosecutor defaults in coming to court to prosecute an accused, the court has no option than to discharge the accused and he comes back to the society without being reformed and becomes a bigger problem to the society. Every hardened criminal must have gone to the prison either for an imprisonment or as a detainee awaiting his trail. Prosecutors both states and federal should assist the security agents.
How do we resolve these herdsmen and farmers clashes?
Both federal and state governments must provide large portions of pasture land for modern grazing reserves. I feel sad when people treat herdsmen as if they are not human beings. In Abia, for instance, there is a law known as Control of movement of cattlee and other animals law. The law was originally made in 1955. That law drew cattle routes from Arochukwu from the North of Abia and Ukwa from the South. It is an offence under the law to farm along the cattle routes and also an offence to drive cattle outside the cattle routes. The government is to train prosecutors to enforce compliance between the farmers and herders.
The herders were to pay cattle tax through the Ministry of Agriculture who man the routes. The government had paid compensation to owners of land acquired as cattle routes. In the beginning, there was peace until the routes were blocked by farming and other activities and the herders were forced out of the routes. If state governments give land for development of markets where individuals apply and stalls allocated to them, the government builds stadium for footballers, schools for students, courts for lawyers, judges and litigants, hospitals for doctors and patients, there should be reserved areas for herders who are willing to pay and rear their cattle.
How do you appraise the role of governments in this regard?
It is at this point that I hold successive governments liable for this crisis between farmers and herders. Who said cattle rearing is for Fulani people alone? My Mbaise and Umuahia people are into it. My grandfather was a herder. Please, we have herders who may be Fulanis, Umuahians, Mbaise people or Yoruba people. Ndi-Igbo should read numbers in the Bible and discover that Gad’s descendants; Ziphon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, Areli, Ozni, occupying River Jordan area were herders. So, if Ndi-Igbo are claiming to have descended from Gad and yet have disdain for herders, then the theory that Ndi-Igbo migrated from Congo region may be real.
Buhari has nominated ministers? What do you expect from them?
Nigerians, by our constitution, did not vote for Buhari. They voted for APC, even though Buhari was the face of APC in the presidential election. To that extent, we had many Buharis in our various wards in Nigeria. I was the Buhari of my ward, Umuezegwu, Ihitte/Uboma in Imo State. Buhari did not come to Umuezegwu. We endured the propaganda of PDP in 2015 and Buhari won. Like we promised our people, some of them were selected as vendors in the school feeding programmes, N-Power programme, soft loan programme, etc.; it was easy to go back to them to ask them to re-elect Buhari and APC in 2019. So, I thank Buhari for appointing real APC people as his ministers. In Abia for instance, Uche Ogah knows the problem of Nigeria from his Abia grass roots contact. Ogah was everywhere that day in Aba. I am quite satisfied with the quality of men and women appointed by Buhari as ministers in most states. This is the time Nigerians will experience total APC governance. Sharon Ikeazor has done marvelously well at the Pension Transition Administration Directorate (PTAD) and I am sure that she will perform well wherever she is posted as a minister. If Ogah or Emeka Nwajuba do not do well, then people who meet them daily will blame them. They cannot afford to disappoint us. For this and other reasons, I commend Comrade Adams Oshiomole and his National Working Committee members for helping the president in getting it right this time around in the election of National Assembly leadership and ministerial appointments. To Buhari, Adams, and all members of National working committee of APC, I bow.
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