By Daniel Kanu
Fiery activist and human rights lawyer, Malachy Ugwummadu, no doubt, is believed to be stepping into the big shoe of the late legal icon, Chief Gani Fawehinmi.
Ugwummadu, the immediate past National President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) in this no-holds-barred interview with Sunday Sun, dissected the problem with the country and pointed the way forward.
He also spoke on the implication of the attack on the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA), the danger posed by conflicting court orders and the perceived lull within the civil society, among other national issues. Excerpt:
Let’s begin with your primary constituency and know how you feel about conflicting court orders and judgments of courts of coordinate jurisdiction?
Of course, it is badly affecting this growing civil rule. I have had the privilege of responding to this question at different fora. It is a pity, it is unfortunate, it is not new, it has been there and there have been series of efforts to control this. What has not happened is a successful control of this tendency that compromises the confidence that the people have in the judicial system and that is where the problem lies. I have argued elsewhere that the notion of justice, I want to be properly quoted, that notion of justice evaporates not at the point when you lose a case, no, it disappears at the point when the people lose confidence in what is going on in that system. We understand the background or genesis of this whole thing, which has to do with the desperation of politicians, who desperately, inappropriately, inordinately circumvent the proper channel which is the rule of judicial procedures with the view to getting, if you like, favour and then move from the area of the theatre of dispute. For instance, the case of Anambra, the challenge regarding the facts of the matter arose in Anambra State, the parties are within Anambra State, the political party in question, though a national party, but with respect to the Anambra chapter branch of it in Anambra State, yet they took their matter, ran as far as Jigawa State and obtained not just a judgment, but an ex-parte order without notice. Now, that is bad enough, what is also bad on the part of the judiciary besides the politicians who are in the business of undermining themselves to gain an edge, but it takes two to tango in such situation. A judicial officer even if you are just a year or six months in the Bench, but don’t forget that judicial officers in Nigeria, particularly those on the level of High Court, they are not just appointed the day you are called to the Bar, no, no such thing happens. They ought to have been at least 10 years, post-call, at that point it is expected that such a judicial officer should be properly guided in dealing with such a situation. Let it be on record that I said: there is nothing wrong with ex-parte orders, in short, it is part of our judicial processes, it is deliberately an integral aspect of work we do to be able to take care of extreme cases of emergencies where the subject matter of litigation is not destroyed before a proper hearing. A proper hearing in this contest is before the opponent is put on notice and invited to put up a defence. So, it is legitimate, within the premise of what we do and it is part of our judicial process. The problem is that in activating that power the judges ought to be extremely circumspect that all the facts needed to be able to come to that interim preliminary conclusion are before them. So, a man runs from Awka to Birnin Kebbi in Jigawa State, for instance, and tells you a story that doesn’t align with what you as a Nigerian beyond being a Judge is aware of, you must ask few questions, those questions will enable to determine whether there are material facts that are deliberately suppressed. Now, what do you do? And this is where my recommendation comes in. It is not in all cases; in short, it is advised that interim orders particularly relating to political matters should be seldom and sparingly granted. What you could do as a judge of a court of record is to advise or direct because they are in control of their courts, they should direct that the other parties should be put on notice if you are unable to find the extreme urgency that will justify such an interim order. Secondly, if that is not going to be feasible in a circumstance that you find the case you can direct that the time should be abridged, in other words instead of giving the usual one-month adjournment or three weeks, you can give 72 hours adjournment and direct the parties to put the respondents on notice and come back since they feel it’s an urgent matter. What is more, you can, if it’s a federal High Court transfer the matter back to Awka. Section 22 of the Federal High Court Act empowers you as a judge to return the matter to where you think has the appropriate territorial jurisdiction to deal with the matter. It can even be subject matter jurisdiction, so this whole idea of wholesale grant of ex-parte is causing confusion and is ridiculing the judiciary and do not forget the earlier statement that I made that once you shake the confidence of the people on the supposed last hope they have for justice, you are actually pointing at the last bus stop before anarchy. People will lose hope and resort to self-help. The worst is that it wanes the confidence of investors; I am not even talking of foreign investors even local investors who are unable to believe in their heart that in the event of dispute there are certainties around the operations of the judiciary in a way that may deny them justice rather than promote it.
Do you share the view that the civil society appears to be in a cooler in recent times?
There is this seeming mischief with which these questions are thrown around. For instance, I am a lawyer first and foremost, a Nigerian, and because of the enthusiasm I show and the passion we have brought to bear and the energy and time and resources we have placed trying to assist the Nigerian people away from what the government is doing because that is the meaning of the civil society. The civil society is that entity that operates outside the government, the reason it is also known as an NGO, Non-Governmental Organisation. The press, your sector also belongs to the civil society and it is the media, for instance, that took the lead and fought so hard much more than any other formation in the restoration of civil rule in Nigeria. Of course, we can’t run away from that assessment, it is largely true, but what is responsible? You see, the Malachy Ugwummadu you are asking has been in the furnace in this battle even as an undergraduate, so much so that even at the age of 23-24, I had taken the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) to court twice before I even graduated. Upon graduation, no degree, degree seized, went back to court two additional years and won, and you have monitored my antecedents up to where I relinquished my leadership position (President) in one of the oldest civil society organisations in Nigeria, CDHR (Committee for Defence of Human Rights). It is only CLO (1987) that is older than CDHR (1989). There are different eras in the human rights community and each era is marked by the nature and type of government and governance that were in place at those different times. You see, the traditional civil society organisations that have track records, documented, were largely formed during military rule in this country and their overriding objectives was to assist in the democratization process where the civil rule will become the order of the day and they largely succeeded after serious pains, pangs, deprivations, and dislocations with many losing their lives in the struggle. The leadership of the movement was more about courage and determination. Who is it that will not run away when the tanks are rolled out? But they stood their ground in that long walk to freedom. They had the integrity quotient, never compromised, had principles and you can predict perfectly what they can do. You can predict that Beko Ransome Kuti, Prof Festus Iyayi (Pioneer Presidents of CDHR) or Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Chima Ubani (God bless their souls), Abubakar Momoh (who became the D-G of Electoral Institute, Abuja), Femi Falana and many others, some dead and some alive, you can predict their stand on issues. So, to cut the long story short, the struggle is still on, we are now in a different era and this requires a different approach. The truth is that those that benefitted from the struggle were not even those that fought for it and as such derailed the democratization project. Let me mention, for instance, a person like David Mark. Let me use David Mark symbolically (he was in the Armed Forces Ruling Council of the President Babangida era) to represent those who stood against the democratization efforts of Nigerians. They became beneficiaries of the same process, but unfortunately muddled it up. They found themselves in a civilian democratic environment, but they are not democrats. But the issue is, do we continue to agonise and bemoan our fate, no; it is our responsibility as activists to continue to conscientize the people to demand their rights from the government. As activists, we must push aside, dust off these restraining, constraining factors and renew our commitments to the Nigerian project, rigorously device further means in the face of the challenges, we are having or have had and creatively reinvent ourselves, re-introduce greater strategies of dealing with the present time challenge. We have left the era of military rule, we now find ourselves in civil rule badly managed. It is our responsibility as many are already doing to appropriately engage and lead the way in a manner that consolidates this rule because we are not confused when we say that civil rule is better than military rule. The fact that politicians are muddling it up does not mean we should all hand off, it will mean that there is still work to be done. As a matter of fact, the business of nation-building is never ending, that is why we say, Aluta Continua, it must continue until victory is assured. One thing we must know is that citizens are not to relent in their demand for their rights as guaranteed by the constitution. As I have always advocated, the people must identify their rights, what the responsibility of the state is and ensure you place a demand on it. Freedom is never free; you must demand for it, insist on it, struggle for it and ensure you get it. You may think that the nation is not feeling the heat of the struggle, they do and all we need at all times is not to give up, we must remain steadfast and focused if we must win this battle. Citizens must demand implementation of their human rights from the government, and to resist any attempt to trample on their inalienable rights.
What is your comment on bandit’s attack on NDA?
For me, that is the strongest exposure of the poverty of the security challenge in the country. It undermines not just the internal, but the heart of military formation in Nigeria. We have seen this in so many forms, but the temerity, the brazen manner with which NDA, Kaduna was attacked by militia groups, clearly exposes the depth of insecurity in Nigeria and if that happened the way that we saw it, clearly, it will mean that Nigeria is at risk of any form of attack and quite vulnerable for that matter. It doesn’t mean that our soldiers are not there and are not doing anything; it means that there are great possibilities of total security collapse in the country.
How do you react when the government says they are on top of the security challenge and these attacks seem not to be abating?
Well, no government will own up easily. The word “on top of it” as a phrase has become a cliché that doesn’t approximate anything for people like us. We have had it for so long, so often used. You are on top of the situation in our own lexicon will mean that you are able to curtail it immediately, reverse it and take the battle to those people with clear evidence of apprehension and elimination of those who have done that, that didn’t happen. You are on top of it when the import or purport of such dastardly attack is brought to national consciousness in a manner that we don’t record any such attack anywhere again in the country, but that is not the situation. From that moment till now, we have continued to see pockets of attacks replicated, duplicated in so many parts of the country to show that it’s now a free for all sides, a field day for these militia groups scattered all over the country. You are on top of it when you are able to rekindle the hopes and confidence of the people that you are actually in-charge. On the contrary, the people believe that the nation itself is losing grip as things are getting out of hand. And it is not just about wishing that is the situation, it is by assessing, apprehending what is evidently obtainable. So, you are on top of it when clear strategic mechanisms are in place to reduce rather than escalate what has happened. These are not the situations we see, so it’s a bit worrying, it is disturbing and we must go beyond the usual rhetoric’s that have not taken us anywhere, feeding people with hopes against hopes and undermining the core security strategies that will secure lives and property in accordance with Section 14 of the constitution.
When some critics say that the Federal Government under President Mohammadu Buhari is romancing the action of bandits, but hard on agitators, how would you react to that?
I don’t react to what people are saying, I speak my own mind if what you are asking me is whether that is true, I will tell you I don’t have the evidence. What we know is that total insecurity, total state of instability, total case of resentment that have been elevated to the point of agitation to the point of insurgency, to the point of all manner of reactionary activities in a way that say that people are not happy. The way they have dealt with the one is not radically different from the other in the sense that what bothers people like us is, how did we get to this point where we now have agitations, reactions everywhere. This is taking a very long time now since the return to democracy; we have been in one form of agitation, or rebellion, whatever you call it. Those who are in the business of permutations are the politicians and the media are trying to hype that. For us, what is not acceptable is that in a country where lives and property are supposed to be secured you now have tendencies that pull the country from all corners to the potentials of destabilizing it. We are not in the business of comparing the degree and the disposition of the government towards the tendencies, looking for fault lines and all that to make their attributions. Our position is to continually remain focus on the challenge of reorganizing the Nigerian state in a way that makes it impossible or very difficult, at the least to toe this kind of line that we are witnessing.
How can Nigerians re-arrange Nigeria or what do you see as a solution to what we are witnessing?
We have for the umpteenth time repeatedly proposed a functional federalism and since that is not happening, Nigerians are beginning to take their fate into their hands and what you see playing out is all in the process of ensuring proper federalism is in Nigeria. Even as little as the VAT controversy, who collects, those are issues of federalism, fiscal federalism for that matter. It’s not just the case of River State, Lagos and I imagine many other states will take the queue because it is at the heart of fiscal federalism. Revenue mobilisation and distribution within a context of a federation, what is the place of the federating units in relation to the centre, that is the issue. This is what is playing out, we are toying with that question and resolving it, so it’s taking some dimensions. So, if they are too scared of calling a Sovereign National Conference as we have boldly proposed in the past, they are too scared of calling a National Conference, they are too scared of calling a Peoples Dialogue or whatever, then we are extracting it in piecemeal, but the problem and the hope is that we are able to remain in peace as we do this thing thinking that there is so much time. Even the agitations that we are witnessing are all questions of federalism. What is the security arrangement in the country in a way that brings confidence to the remotest part of the country as it relates to the centre, these are issues of federalism. So, at the end of the day, the solution as we want to know is that we save time. We realise we don’t have the luxury of this time and move head-on with the proposed restructuring of this country along the line of proper federation, along the line of a functional federal system of government. This will address the many contending tendencies in the country; it’s not a homogenous kind of country. We have so many tendencies from language differences, cultural diversities to all manner of identities. There is nowhere in the world where you clamp such people together and expect them to behave alike when they are indeed of different identities, heterogeneous.