I agree with President Muhammadu Buhari
that ‘we have to kill corruption before corruption kills us”. Although I
think someone should tell Mr. President that while his administration
is busy fighting corruption, the ‘children of corruption’, i.e. poverty,
hunger and criminality in all its facets have developed killer fangs
and may just kill us, even if we survive corruption.
I have a lot respect for the men and
women in our security institutions, mainly for their services to the
fatherland. The DSS is an institution that I have grown to view with
suspicion. My experience as a blue-eyed lawyer with the Civil Liberties
Organisation in the military era plus my stint as an Attorney- General
of a State that was then governed by an opposition party largely
conditioned my reasoning to the possibilities of abuse of power by
security agencies. Indeed the last time I heard of the phrase ‘sting
operation’ was just before the 2015 elections, when the DSS spokesperson
announced to Nigerians that they had through a sting operation,
discovered a house in Ikeja area where the All Progressives Congress was
printing voters card for the purpose of rigging the 2015 election.
Nothing much was heard of that sting operation after the initial media
blitz.
I have gone through three dictionaries
plus an Internet search for the meaning of the phrase sting operation. I
have been unable to reconcile my findings with the DSS description of
its invasion of the houses of the Judges. I have also gone through the
enabling law of the DSS, the more I look, the less I see any provision
that specifically empowers it to investigate, arrest and prosecute acts
of corruption of any kind. I have read the views of some of my
colleagues who have sought to link national security with corruption and
attempted to dress our own DSS in the clothes of the United States FBI.
I struggle with this reasoning. Steeping on each other’s mandate and
scope of jurisdiction is one of the troubling attributes of our security
agencies. What wont Nigerians give to have the DSS conduct successful
sting operations on the houses of Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram
or those of the leadership of the Niger Delta Avengers or of those
herdsmen who raid communities killing and maiming innocent Nigerians.
I have said elsewhere that the National Judicial Council (NJC) should be reformed, not reform for the sake of it but because
Nigerians want a judicial system that
works in the interest of justice. The inherent flaws in the
organisational structure of the NJC impacts negatively on the efficiency
of the judiciary. For example, it is less than ideal that the
membership of a body established to supervise the judiciary and judicial
officers, should be dominated by serving judicial officers. This could
lead to conflict of interest amongst members of the body. I am well
aware that finding the balance between judicial independence on one hand
and public accountability on the other is a critical challenge. This is
a challenge the NJC must meet.
I have been deeply saddened by the role
and approach of the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to
this episode. First, by rushing to the media without the benefit of
hearing from the DSS and secondly, in an ill-advised attempt to walk
back on its initial blunder went to town with another deeply troubling
statement, asking the NJC to suspend the judicial officers in question
pending the resolution of the corruption allegations against them. This
position was further confirmed at a meeting of the Body of Senior
Advocates. The hypocrisy of it all is that till date, neither the
leadership of the NBA nor the Body of Senior Advocates recommended by
the same reasoning that the privileges accorded the Senior Advocates
currently being prosecuted by the EFCC be suspended until the
determination of the cases against them. One Senior Advocate, who was
caught up in the emotion of it all, went as far as asking President
Buhari to suspend the Constitution until the fight against corruption is
won. A Senior Advocate! The leadership of the Bar was probably
blissfully unaware of the potential fall-out of its recommendation,
including the threat to Independence of the Judiciary and indeed the
Legal Profession.
It is regrettable that this ‘sting
operation’ is being packaged and sold to the average Nigerian, as the
solution to all the problems with the judiciary and justice system.
Crowds in the name of NGOs are being rented to occupy the Supreme Court.
I have had first hand experience of rented crowds invading courts and
assaulting judicial workers and Judges. This action diminishes us all.
Our courts should be a no go area for acts of lawlessness. By all means
we should take every lawful step to purge the judiciary of corruption,
but it is important to put the challenge of corruption in the justice
sector in its proper context.
Expectedly, the NBA leadership was
accused of coming under the influence of the Presidency particularly
since the ‘ step down’ song was released after a visit to Aso Villa. To
be sure, there is nothing wrong with the Presidency and the leadership
of the NBA holding the same views on matters of judicial integrity, even
if, in this case, it is shortsighted and misplaced. However in my
respectful view this was a missed opportunity for the NBA to ask the
Buhari Administration what it has done for the administration of justice
system since its inauguration.
Many of us have shouted ourselves hoarse
in an effort to get the administration to prioritise the justice sector.
We have said that achieving the administrations three key result areas,
anti- corruption, economic growth and security, require an efficient
justice system.
Of recent we have became more vocal, out
of concern that almost two years into this ‘progressive administration’
we have little to show in the area of bringing justice to our people.
We have asked President Buhari to publish
his vision for the administration of justice in Nigeria. Justice sector
reforms stand a better chance of success when the government has a
clearly stated policy setting out the official vision of the reform
objectives, and committing government to specific reforms necessary to
realise that vision. This is an important reference point for any
strategic approach to justice sector development. The publication will
have provided a platform to openly debate and agree on practical
solutions to the many challenges facing the sector including but not
limited to corruption.
We have also asked Mr. President, to call
a meeting of the three arms of Government to agree on the future of the
administration of justice, with a view to seeking consensus on who does
what and within what time frame. In response to this suggestion, the
administration hid behind the doctrine of separation of powers. All
efforts to convince them that separation of powers does not mean living
in separate worlds, have till date yielded no positive result. This
meeting will have at the very least dealt with many of our concerns
about the justice system including law reform, access to justice for the
poor and vulnerable, judicial integrity and appropriate funding for the
sector. We simply are unable to understand how the administration
expects to win this anti-corruption fight without the support of the
Judiciary and Legislature.
We also suggested that Mr. President
convenes a meeting with the governors of the 36 states of the Federation
with a single item agenda- exploring federal and states government
collaboration in administration of justice. We thought this meeting
would deal with the politics of federal and state governments in
supporting institutions like the police, prisons and possibly the EFCC
and ICPC. We suggested that this meeting should also discuss the
conditions of service of the lower courts and the state high courts and
the responsibility of the state governments to these institutions. We
said that it simply couldn’t be acceptable that Chief Judges of States
are made to frequently go cap in hand to their State Governors for
funding. That, in our view, is a recipe for corruption. Judicial
corruption is not simply about judges taking bribes, it includes all
forms of inappropriate influence that may damage the impartiality of
justice. That meeting has not happened.
We have suggested various legal, policy
and administrative interventions for managing the transformation of the
justice system and the institutions that deliver justice. We have mapped
out the specific steps that should be taken and how the system might be
made accountable. These proposals have largely been ignored. With less
than one year of governance, before active politicking towards 2019
election begins, it will be truly tragic if the single legacy of the
Buhari administration in the justice sector is this sting operation.
By Olawale Fapohunda, Managing Partner, Legal Resources Consortium, former Attorney- General of Ekiti State
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