Why it may be difficult to sanitise Nigeria’s judiciary – Ogunleye

Martin Ogunleye, former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos branch, in this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, assesses the state of the judiciary, calls for a new constitution and restructuring of the country. He also assesses the crisis facing the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), pointing out why political parties in the country are failing. Excerpts:

What is your take on Olusegun Obasanjo and Pat Utomi’s comments on state capture in Nigeria?

Yes, there is capture of all sectors in Nigeria and it did not start today. How do we appoint our Judges? My good friend and classmate, Professor Chidi Odinkalu has been shouting in the last four years, that appointments of Judges have become hereditary but people call him a noise maker. That is one aspect of state capture.

Politically-exposed people now marry and want to ensure that their siblings, wives, in-laws, girlfriends should be judges and sit on the bench.

Some would say are they not lawyers? In a country of 200 million people, in a state of millions of people, it is only the wife or relation of that political office holder that should be handpicked to be a Judge.

When someone is in government, he should say; even if you are qualified, what would people say? Justice must not be hindered; it must be seen to be done.

It is the people’s belief that justice is done, that is the test. That is why a sister, relative or brother of a politically exposed person should not sit on the bench.

If you go back to history in Lagos State, the Chief Judge of Lagos State was John Idowu Taylor, Yakubu Gowon was the military president of Nigeria and Gowon summoned Taylor that he wanted to see him, but Taylor refused; saying he was the head of the judiciary and Gowon could have case before him what would people say? Go and find out from senior lawyers they would tell you that the story is true. What we have today is different; in fact, the Chief Justice of Nigeria was hosted by the Lagos State government recently. Lagos State on its own has at least two cases pending in the Supreme Court. What would the ordinary people think?

Some people say the electoral system is the problem. Do you agree?

The problem with our electoral system started with our party politics, our party system. Unless Nigerians wake up, educate themselves, liberate their mind nothing can change in this country. Many Nigerians would say they would not vote because they think their votes would not count, but it is wrong; if you think they are doing the wrong thing, do you just resign to fate?

Take your destiny in your hand; it is only the masses who can deliver themselves. We have three tiers of government in Nigeria, we discovered that the tier of government which people should be most active, is the local government, but it is the one people are not interested in.

We had the Supreme Court ruling on running of local government recently. What is your take on that?

That is cosmetic reforms, since they did the reforms, we have seen local government elections in all the states won by the ruling party. So, what reforms are we talking about? Everybody believes the local government is the smallest unit, if as a Nigerians you cannot effect change in the local government, you cannot go out and say no it is desist.

What is your take on the situation in Rivers State, regarding the local government election?

The situation in River State is an eyesore; it is still part of that state capture that we are talking about. Why is Rivers State always in the news? We have one of the past presidents of the NBA, he is prominent there, but the problem is that everybody seems to be partisan, nobody is speaking independently. That is where I have problems with majority of my colleagues. Every year we produce about 70 SANs; today we have over 500 SANs, what is the impact of these people on the judiciary? What do they do to ensure that this our own sector, the judiciary works well?

What is your take on Kudirat Kekere-Ekun appointment?

The question is not about the appointment of Kekere-Ekun, the problem is with the thinking. It still boils down to leadership; leadership is not just at the federal level; it is at all levels. In the judiciary, there is leadership, in the bar there is leadership. The NBA has leadership, we have the body of benches, and we have Senior Advocate of Nigeria. What role is the Senior Advocate of Nigeria playing? During the military days, we had it better, even in the days of Yakubu Gowon, the Chief Justice of Nigeria was appointed outside of the Supreme Court. Kenya did it recently. The problem we have is that everybody wants to perpetuate it for their group’s selfish interest. For the past ten or fourteen years, the NBA has been trying to tell the system that they should be able to appoint Senior Advocate as Justice of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. The truth is that the constitution says that the Chief Justice of Nigeria must be a lawyer who must have certain years of experience at the bar. It does not say the person must be a serving Supreme Court Judge.

But the Supreme Court has found a way to make this hierarchy, when certain person retires, the next take over. With that kind of system, you cannot make progress or see change.

For example, in our Police force, we continue to appoint Inspector General from the rank of serving police hierarchy; the police would not see change.

Did you listen to the IG’s reasons for the arraignment of the minors who were arrested in the August protest? We should not look at the problem from the top, we should look back. We need to go back and see how we appoint our Judges. In the 1970s, the serving judges had great inputs, people didn’t apply to become judges, rather when there was a vacancy the serving judge recommended people and such people would be invited.

It is those that have good character that would be invited. But now, when they want to appoint Judges, they would say; go and apply. If it is the federal judiciary, it must be from a state, then you put quota system and then you put other things. When it comes to quota system, then the political play would start and you would discover the people that are appointed are those who have links. In the past five years, a great number of appointments to the bench are people who have no business sitting on the bench, but are there due to political patronage.

What is your take on the state of the main opposition party, the PDP?

They have internal crisis, but the APC has the same problem. It is like the problem we have in the first republic. The problem is that our parties say that their leader is an elected person who was sponsored by the party. When Goodluck Jonathan was the president, they said he was the leader of the PDP, but you cannot have a governor and he is the leader of the party, it is an invitation to crisis. That is why there is crisis everywhere.

That is why somebody like Wike is always strangulating the party, holding the structure like it is his own. That is why some governors are holding the structure everywhere. That is why the party in power can always win all the local government elections. That is not how a party structure is run. An elected official must remain elected official, sponsored by the party; he must remain subservient to the party. That is why we don’t have parties that have ideology and the structure is with that man. If we have a truly independent party, the chairman should be able to call the governor and say; this thing you are doing is not in line with our party agenda. Can that happen now?

Some people say the way forward is constitutional review or new one. Do you agree?

The 1999 Constitution is not our problem. I said that some years ago, if you bring a new constitution, it is these same people that would run it. So, if you don’t get the judiciary right, whatever you do may not work. We have gone back to the old nation anthem. Is that the problem? If you like, let us collapse this presidential system and go back to four regions, nothing would change.

But some people say this system is too expensive?

There is no system that is not expensive if there is a will. Everybody in Nigeria knows that we must run a lean government; but the President is still appointing people, about fifty ministers and several aides. So, even if you go to the parliamentary system, the people in parliament would say; once we are elected you must buy us one jeep each. It is still the same thing. If we need to do reforms let us do sensible reforms.

Politics is not a full-time job; nobody should be full time in the parliament and be on big salary and other benefits. We need to reform our party system.

In those days, if you belonged to a party, you would have membership card and contribute financially for running the party. I mean registered members who pay dues, weekly and monthly, because of that, moneybags cannot come and pick a governorship ticket with one million.

The party says they have members’ register, but we don’t know how much they get from members; if you don’t contribute, you don’t have a stake because the money bags fund the party. That is the basis of all the corruption you see in our party today.