Daniel Kanu
Human rights activist, legal giant and former President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba is known for his bold and courageous position on issues no matter how sensitive it is.
In this interview with Sunday Sun, Agbakoba addressed urgent national issues, including the Operation Amotekun (South West security outfit) recently declared illegal by the Federal Government.
He blamed the problem with Nigeria on the poor quality of leadership, pointing out why the civil society seems, erroneously, to appear weak in public perception.
Agbakoba also said that lessons have not been learnt from the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, saying that Nigeria is going off the point of good governance having survived.
It was not all about condemnation as he gives President Buhari kudos on border closure, contending that the undertaking would pay off in the long run. He spoke on other crucial issues, including INEC and credible future elections.
President Muhammadu Buhari has received a lot of bashing. In what area, at least, can you give him kudos for a job well done?
Nigerian leadership is generally very poor, but Nigerian leadership could be a lot better and your question lies on the reason in spite of our natural and human resources we remain so backward. In that general context, I don’t want to focus on Buhari alone because that will miss the point. The point is that the quality of leadership across Nigeria is so poor, very poor and with that sort of bad quality very little can come out of it. But some of the governors have done a few good things. In the case of Buhari, the attempt to fight corruption seems to be honest, but it’s not getting through because there is a whole package of actors and institutions that you need to involve that are not involved. On the border closure that is one of the most brilliant moves by Buhari, why? Because Nigeria is a dumping ground for everything. I would not have called it border closure because border closure may tend to offend the ECOWAS protocol on free movement and free services, but the truth is bleeding…we are spending heavily on importing rice. The way that the Nigerian borders were so opened meant that we were dumping ground for China, for a country as small as Benin Republic. So, I am in full support of that border enforcement because it has had an impact. We may be suffering the immediate impact of the border closure, but in time people will see that it is a very good move. For Nigeria to continue to be a dumping ground and our unemployed is about 23 million, by two to three years it’s going to be about 50 million, the poverty loads are pushing to 100 million, and this is simply because the country can’t produce. Even the only thing we have – oil – we can’t even convert it and add value, we have to export as raw commodity, but we could have refined it and sold it at a higher price, but we are so inefficient because everybody is now looking for cheap ways, nobody wants to produce, everybody wants to import so that move to close the border, I rank it as one of the best moves that President Buhari has taken.
But don’t you think that it could also be rubbished by the Visa-on-Arrival policy?
I was surprised by that. Visa-on-Arrival is a good idea in theory, but I don’t know what the haste was about because we are one of the last countries to sign the African free trade agreement and one of the first to be opening our borders to all kinds of visitors. I would have wished that wasn’t done. If I was advising I would not have done Visa on arrival now, I would have wanted to see how the African free trade treaty would have played out.
The Federal Government has declared the Southwest security outfit, code-named Amotekun illegal. What is your reaction to it?
It simply challenges our notion of federalism. On the one hand, the Southwest feels that they have the constitutional rights to set it up, on the other hand, the Federal Government says no…that it is a matter only the Federal Government can legislate. And I like things like that because it gives the opportunity for the court and I do hope that both the Attorney-General and the government of the Southwest should be ready to litigate it. One of the most active litigators ever as governor was Tinubu and he used the Supreme Court to expand the notion of federalism. For instance, when he came, the Federal Government was controlling building approvals in Lagos over property and he said it’s not correct and he won. There are about 20 or so examples of how Tinubu challenged the Federal Government. So, I think the only way to resolve this, it’s a highly political thing and there is no one correct answer. If you are on the Federal Government side you would argue that the Amotekun thing is a matter that falls within the policy of policing and that the state governors have no power to do so, but the state governors are simply saying that all they are doing is a neighborhood watch to compliment what the police does and that all the information they get will be geared towards providing the intelligence to the police to better their work, so it also makes sense. But there is no correct answer unless it’s something that has been given careful study and I pray that the governors either resolve it politically, failing which they should get an answer from the court. Whether the Federal Government is right or wrong, whether the states are right or wrong, there is no correct answer, it is either you settle it politically or through litigation.
You said the issue is contestable in the court, but looking at the way government has been antagonizing the judiciary, decimating and undermining the sacred temple of law, do you think it is a case they can win?
Well, for me, I don’t think the blame should be put at the doorstep of the executive. The judges take an oath of office and what we have always said in the jurisprudence of being a judge is that no matter the intimidation, the proper course of action a judge is faced with dealing with a decision is to be unconcerned about the consequences. If you don’t have that courage as Justice Ojukwu showed in the Sowore case don’t be a judge. Don’t go and start saying that because the government will stop your salary and all that stuff…that’s not the correct attitude and that is precisely why our judiciary is weak. If you like pay them five times their salary if the notion is that they are terrified of what the government will do, they will never live up to their oath. So, let’s forget the issue of what is it that the executive can do to them. When the DSS invaded judges’ houses what did the judges do? What did the NJC do? They just sat back and did nothing; they allowed themselves to be decimated. When the Onnoghen thing started what did they do? Nothing, but look at what the Pakistani Supreme Court did when the executive attacked their Chief Justice. So, I think it’s time we stopped this nonsense about always blaming the executives. No, I wouldn’t do that; I will blame the weakness of the judiciary in not rising up to their oath of office. There is nothing as important as when the public perceived that a judge doing his work is being maligned and persecuted, it gives the judiciary more courage, but if the judge is cowardly then there will be no public sympathy. And that was exactly why the sympathy for Onnoghen by the public wasn’t very high, it was only those of us who were looking from the due process issues that said no, no this was wrong, but generally the public didn’t react the way they should have done and it was a big shame that the CJN, the head of Nigerian judiciary, could be forced out the way he was and nothing happened. I would have thought that the NJC would have met, take a decision to respond to the invasion of their houses by the DSS, but nothing happened. So, it is up to them to show bravery.
On Tuesday the Supreme Court verdict on the Imo guber election removed Emeka Ihedioha and more of such may still happen. Does it bother you that the election verdict is now from the court rather than from the results of the electorate? Is it not an indictment on the electoral umpire INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission)?
It is and that is simply because the legal framework relating to elections are not credible, not transparent and one of the things we in the Uwais Panel recommended was that INEC will take absolutely no position, INEC own was to provide the evidence to the tribunal about what happened, so INEC will file no defense, but you can see that in most of the cases INEC is actively a defendant, that takes away the credibility. So, it’s obvious that if we want credible elections that will reduce the role of the courts because it now seems as if it is the court that is now electing…let’s say governors, for instance, into office. It will mean that our electoral act requires a substantive amendment to allow for the electoral process to be very fair.
There was this lecture at the Muson Centre in Lagos recently on Nigeria-Biafra civil war, 50 years after, where speakers and contributors expressed the fear that what characterized the period that resulted in the war, sadly enough seem to be playing out now. Do you share that view?
Yes. Part of what caused the war was lack of trust, lack of confidence among the key actors, so if you take, for instance, the attempt by Ghana to help resolve the conflict between Ojukwu and Gowon there was a resolution, it was called the Aburi Accord, but immediately all the parties returned the Federal Government changed its position, giving Ojukwu justification for proceeding with the Biafra declaration. So now, I see the same thing in the sense that…just take the issue of restructuring. People have forgotten that if you remove all the grammar…restructuring simply means: giving more powers to the states to be economically viable so that the Federal Government is not providing bailout money, that is all it means and making sure that the states are able to tap all the resources under their land. For instance, in Ondo they will do their bitumen, Zamfara will do gold, Ebonyi will do salt mines, Enugu will do coal, Anambra will do the oil and gas trade, etc. So, I don’t understand why it is difficult not to see that this is a good idea for development, but because there is so much mistrust and distrust some say that restructure is to break Nigeria up. So, those high levels of mistrust that played out that led to the Biafran war is again playing out.
So, what are the lessons learnt and your advice?
The advice should be that we need a Mandela-like leader. So, what this leader is all about is the good of Nigeria. For instance, President Buhari is in a very good opportunity to take a very neutral view. He is into his second and final term, so he has got nothing to lose; there are no obligations to any person except to the Nigerian people. In that sense, he will try to do the best he can to ensure that Nigeria is politically stable and economically viable. So, he should put his weight behind strengthening the constitution and giving more authority to the states. Why have 36 states because apart from Lagos and Rivers states, most of the states are unviable. So, it will be his duty as the leader to see that if you are in Zamfara you are not rushing to Abuja for anything because you are satisfied to do your politics in Zamfara. For instance, in the UK, they have Wales, Ireland, England, and Scotland. If you are appointed a SAN in Scotland, you are happy, you don’t want to be a SAN in England. If I am appointed a SAN by the Eastern regional government, for instance, it makes me happy, I have no ambition to be appointed a SAN in the Southwest region because all the regions have all the resources that enable anyone within the region to succeed, whether a medical doctor, a journalist, lawyer, engineer whatever, but if everything is in one place in Abuja, so Abuja appoints all the SANs in Nigeria, Abuja appoints all the commissioners of police in Nigeria, Abuja distributes all the monies to all the governors in Nigeria and all the 774 local government areas, there is something wrong. There is no way the political leader in Abuja can superintend over 36 states and 774 local governments. Even an American president of Clinton’s stature cannot do it. Why will a leader not simply see that the more you empower local leaders the more you strengthen the 36 governors the less problem you have as the president? I couldn’t, for instance, in the UK, expect the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to give me a C-of- O over my house, but here in Nigeria, it is the governors that give you the C-of-O, why? So, unless we have a leader that understands that all 200 million Nigerians must have a role to play and not just the political elite either in the APC or the PDP, we are going to go nowhere. Right now, it’s about the PDP and the APC, there is no difference. So, we need the leaders; leadership is the challenge of Nigeria, to answer your question directly.
Critics say the civil society where you also belong and played a very active role has gone to slumber in recent time unlike what it used to be. Why?
Is the civil society government? Are we government? Did we take the oath of office to be the government? So, don’t shift the responsibility. Did we beg those in office to run for the government? They ran for office on a manifesto that they will do ABCD… they haven’t done it, so, don’t start looking for the civil society and apportioning blames, hold those that took the oath of office that campaigned with a manifesto responsible.