By Ifeolu J. Koni
Every Nigerian, irrespective of tribe or creed, who has the love of this country at heart, must be worried by the spate of losses the executive has recorded in the law courts regarding the ongoing war against corruption. The judicial scorecard is as disturbing as it is ominous. Disturbing because the losses occurred in quick succession (all within five days) and ominous because they foreshadow what many fear to be an imminent failure of the much cherished anti graft crusade of President Muhammadu Buhari.
When we factor in the fact that the majority of Nigerian electorate voted for President Buhari and his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), because they believed that he was the best and most suitable man to confront the hydra-headed malfeasance called corruption, the basis of this trepidation is well understood.
That four high profile cases were lost recently is no longer news. First was the case against former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, a flamboyant woman whose husband was generally believed to have presided over the most corrupt civilian administration in Nigeria’s political history, which was thrown out by a Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos.
Then came the case against Justice Adeniyi Ademola and his wife, Olubowale. A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, after hearing oral and written submissions from the prosecution and the defence, dismissed the 18-count charge levelled against the defendants. Affected by this ruling, which was delivered on 5 April 2017, pursuant to two applications for no-case submissions filed and argued by the defence, was a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Joe Agi, who was alleged to have bribed the judge by, inter alia, buying a BMW car worth N8.5 million for his son at a time the learned silk had a case pending before His Lordship.
Less than 24 hours before this ruling, another judge of the High Court of the FCT had struck out a six-count charge bordering on alleged N1.97 billion fraud preferred against former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe. Affected by what some commentators now whimsically refer to as “judicial bonanza” is a Lagos lawyer and human rights ‘activist’, Mike Ozekhome. A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had vacated an order barring him from accessing his N75 million deposit at a commercial bank. The money, which Ozekhome claimed to be his legal fee, was alleged to be proceeds of a fraudulent act.
Expectedly, different reasons have been adduced by different analysts for these costly losses. For example, former President Olusegun Obasanjo attributed the problem to inefficiency and lack of proper investigation on the part of the prosecuting agencies. His belief is that “if the investigation is sound and you have ‘ogbologbo’ lawyers to handle the case, even if you have Salami gate you know what the answer will be.”
His recommendation is that the anti-graft agencies should recruit sound and competent lawyers and use them for the prosecution of corruption cases instead of firming out these cases to private legal practitioners whose loyalty and honesty cannot, according to him, be trusted. Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, lending his voice to the issue, called for a reorganisation of the anti-graft agencies and a review of the anti corruption policy in line with the proposals designed by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), headed by a legal icon and scholar, Professor Itse Sagay, SAN. There has also been a suggestion that for the ongoing war against graft to be effective and successful, it should not be selective.
In this regard, a United States of America based lawyer and social critic, John Anyaeze, has advised the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to stop fighting corruption based on perceptions and sentiments.
Not a few analysts will agree that we have a great deal of problem with the National Assembly. Also, there is no doubt that the executive arm of government has not been able to design a workable policy for an effective prosecution of the ongoing anti-graft war, as the judicial scorecard mentioned earlier would reveal. But the question is, why should we also have problem with the judiciary, an institution that is constitutionally designed to be the last hope of the masses?
It is on record that the judicial revolution pioneered by the great Lord Denning in Britain has now crystallised into a robust system that could bring a former governor of Delta State, Mr. James Ibori, to justice, several times after the arms of our law could not catch up with him. The recent losses suffered by the anti-graft war in the courts, coupled with the Ibori case, which has since been shrugged off by the operators of our legal system, do, in the opinion of this writer, pose a great deal of challenge to our judicial officers. The need to embrace the elements of judicial activism to save the anti-graft war from imminent defeat – and our judicial system from public ridicule – cannot now be overstressed.
It is not enough for the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, to dismiss the allegation of judicial gang up, as he did during a recent chat with newsmen at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, as prejudicial. Our judges must borrow a leaf from the radical approach to adjudication initiated and developed by the likes of Lord Denning in England so that they too can be said to have left a remarkable mark on the development of the Nigerian jurisprudence.
Dr Koni, Ag. Head, Department of Public and International Law, Faculty of Law, UNIOSUN, can be reached via: [email protected]; [email protected]
