How successful do you think the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s anti-graft war has been, looking at the number of convictions, amount recovered and fairness across the board?
I think the anti-graft war in this administration has been extremely successful and Nigerians, unfortunately, are not appreciating that degree of success. The only area that has not been a roaring success is the conviction of high profile public servants.
When we talk of the normal individuals, who are not high profile, the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC) only records about 252 every year. So, it is only during the cases of these high profile politicians, who bring in Senior Advocates that would raise technical issues, including those the court seems to have an undesired respect for, that we have had problems.
But there have been quite a few of them and I believe that the latest being the conviction of a professor of Agriculture, retired Director-General of IIT about two weeks ago for five years. So they are coming in gradually and we have also seen cases of recovery of assets which has been a roaring success.
Hardly a day passes without one property, either in cash or in real estate, being forfeited to the Federal Government. So that has been a tremendous success.
Then there’s also a question of fuel subsidy, which fraudulent claims amounted to about N380 billion yearly before this government came into power. This amount was funded out of the country fraudulently but now it is zero, absolute zero. There is no such thing existing again.
Also, there is a general tendency, particularly among the public servants now, at least in the Executive arm of government and the Judiciary which has gone down. I am not so sure and therefore, can’t say the same for the Legislature. There is a downward trend in corruption at the elite level of the country and corruption has been at the apex in terms of amount involved in every case. Therefore, when all these are summed up, I think it has been a tremendous success.
Former Petroleum Minister Diezeani Allison-Maduake recently expressed her willingness to return to Nigeria to defend herself if the Attorney General makes the move. Some people believe that given the plethora of allegations against her, the AG should have jumped at it. What is your take?
The first question I would ask, what stops her from coming? Why does she require the AG to bring her? Why can’t she jump into an aircraft and come back to her own country?
International law prohibits Nigeria from stopping any citizen from entry. So why has she refused to jump in? These are the essential questions one has to ask. And the real answer to that question is that right now they are concluding investigations against her in London and likely to charge her any minute. So that is basically what she wants to run away from.
She is soon going to be charged by the British in London. They have built up a very strong case against her for money laundering and so on. Presently, she is sort of restricted because she was granted a certain type of bail that prevents her from leaving the country.
She cannot leave because she would be arrested and put in detention if she makes that attempt. So she wants us to save her from being charged but of course the country is not stupid. That’s the reason the AG said ‘no’ and responded that she should face her charges there first. This is basically the issue.
Why did your committee support the designation of special courts to try corruption cases?
It is simply because of the numerous advantages. Firstly, the judges appointed will only deal with corruption cases and thereby the question of being completely overwhelmed by all sorts of cases like commercial, constitutional and so on will not arise. So they would quickly deal with each matter that comes before them and then the corruption cases would be expedited.
Not only that, the judges who would be appointed from the Corruption Divisions of the High Court are going to be specially selected and vetted. To a great extent, we would have judges who are clean and have no history of corrupt tendencies; people who would therefore be committed to eradicating corruption.
What impact do you think the recent NJC committee set up to look at corruption cases headed by Justice Ayo Salami will be able to make?
Well, Justice Salami is the best and perfect choice anyone could have made. His appointment was actually an inspired choice of the Chief Justice of Nigeria. But where there is a problem is the inclusion of the formal Nigerian Bar Association presidents in the group.
However, what is being stated is that, it’s not that they are corrupt, but some of them or virtually all of them, have been defending people who have been accused of looting the treasury of this country. They have been involved deeply in several matters. Some of them right now still have such cases before them.
Therefore, we have two dimensional problems which include the problem of orientation. This deals with events where one is used to defending people who are accused of economic and financial crimes. Unconsciously, they may not be very keen in spotting problems in the prosecution system that would inhibit successful and speedy prosecution of such people.
Secondly, there may be conflict of interest in the sense that they have been on the other side; either you are on the other side or you have been on the other side. And suddenly you are trying to haunt with the hunt while you’ve been running with the herds all along. So there would certainly be conflicts of interest since they cannot be on both sides. This is simply to state that they cannot be judges in their in case. So they would certainly not be the best people to function in that group.
Thirdly, I want to add this, I don’t think we need SANs to go to those courts; I would rather suggest that young lawyers should be brought in. Young lawyers, who are not particularly known to anybody and can flip into the court, sit down, maybe not at the bar, but with the audience and nobody will know who they are. Rather than SANs who would stroll in since they are already well known to the court and would either intimidate the court or divert its attention- thereby inhibiting it from acting naturally.
This is because once their presence is seen, the court might try to tailor what it is doing to suit the occasion or their presence. So invariably, there would be a distraction. These are some of the reason why they are not suitable.
In most cases, most of the big time frauds are committed with the complicity of the banks, even in the face of their Financial Intelligence responsibilities. Why have these culpable banks not been brought to book?
That’s a good question and I must say that some of us have been advocating for it. Especially in situations where most of these bank managements pretend that they were not aware the monies which have been lodged had traces of crime.
I believe its pretence because if you see a huge sum of money which is placed in a private account, not government owned account, then you ought to be suspicious. In fact the various rules of the Central Bank and the EFCC have given banks the directives to report or query huge sums like that. Banks have been directed to report such findings to the appropriate authorities.
The origin of the money could be checked but on the contrary, many of these banks provide succour and a hiding place for the huge sums. And eventually when whistle-blowers or some other persons make the report, they would immediately surrender the money to the anti-corruption agencies.
When this is done, the banks are now left without facing the consequences of what they have done. I think it’s wrong. I think that any bank management found harbouring huge sums of money belonging to any individual, especially monies the individual could not possibly have earned legitimately, should be taken in and questioned on it. And if possible, should be tried along with the person who lodged the money as an accomplice.
Are there sections of the law that stipulates the prosecution of such financial institutions?
Oh yes! All the laws have it embedded within including the EFCC law, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) law, even our simple criminal code made provisions to that extent.
Up till now the report of the committee that looked into allegations leveled against the SGF and NIA has not been published by the Federal Government. And now the trouble around $25 billion fund at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). What do you think is the conspiracy between these events?
I don’t think there is any conspiracy. The issue of the $25 billion has been resolved and it was not money spent or touched. In fact there was no transaction involving money. It was rather a provision to enable the NNPC meet its counterpart funding with the international companies who are working within Nigeria to exploit its oil and gas. Honestly I don’t see any hideous wink about that anymore.
Regarding that of the SGF and the NIA, I believe that when the government is doing some certain things, most of us don’t really know the reason. Obviously there must be a reason for the delay and I don’t know what they are but I want to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
But, I can assure you that none of them is still working in his position presently. It’s not as though they came back or were suspended and recalled to work. They are totally out and the likelihood of their returning is remote. So I think we should be patient and allow the government to operate at its own pace. Let’s allow the government to make the announcement when they feel it is right and proper.
In looking at the handling of these entire issues, US Intelligence expert, Page recently said Buhari’s integrity is at stake. Is this far from the truth?
That is totally irresponsible! Whichever organisation made that statement is absolutely irresponsible. If it’s the US, then it’s particularly offensive because they should go and examine the record of their own president, Donald Trump.
What has happened to Trump’s university which has been closed down because of fraud? And there are so many other things. I would advise that they first go remove the log in their eyes before they begin pointing fingers at Nigeria.
How in your opinion can the anti-graft war be successful and the nation’s scarce resources can be recovered from looters for maximum development? How can we make embezzlement of public funds unattractive?
At least from the present look of things, you would observe that being able to embezzle government funds has become more and more difficult. We have the TSA (Treasury Single Account), BVN (Bank Verification Number) and various processes of which staff of various agencies, not only federal even state level, are being verified so that only bona fide employees would collect money at the end of the month.
In addition, punishments and convictions would add to the deterrence against economic and financial crimes of corruption. However, on that aspect, a lot of work is really going on.
The prosecution team and the anti-corruption team are undergoing a lot of workshops and training that would improve and build up their capacity to prosecute. So we are going to experience more and more successes in this coming year.
Recently you said the leadership of the APC is unprincipled, that they are lily-livered, weak, and cannot run any organisation; that the whole party was collapsing under them, and that the “APC leadership is weak, it is too compromising and is certainly a failure as far as I’m concerned.” What is your justification for this?
I really don’t want to talk more on this simply because I don’t have any personal grudge with them, either in thoughts or principle. I have made my points and I know they heard it clearly. I don’t want to repeat that otherwise they would assume I bear some level of hatred against them. I don’t hate them. I have nothing personal against them and I respect them as individuals but am not happy with the quality of their work.
And I hope with what I’ve stated, including what others have expressed, that they would look inwards into their actions in the past and make corrections. They should carry out their responsibilities effectively, efficiently and with some firmness so as the party could be disciplined, that’s our hope. So I want to encourage them to do that, it’s not a personal thing at all.
What was your involvement in the repatriation of former Governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamaisegha, as reported by some media sometime ago?
My attention was particularly drawn to Olukorede Yishau’s Column in the Nation Newspaper on Friday April 8, 2016, entitled “The man who made Jonathan.” I am not really concerned with the bulk of the rambling, incoherent infliction, but only with the last part wherein he stated that I justified the U.K’s extradition request for Diepreye Alemieyeseigha and concluded by accusing me of professional misconduct.
Let me say straight away that I was strongly opposed to the rumoured move by the government to extradite the former governor. I was certainly not consulted by the government and could therefore not have advised them on that subject. All these stories were concocted by in order to make his column interesting.
I am getting alarmed at the ease with which journalists make up stories and interviews without any concern about truth, ethics and integrity.
I was involved in Alamieyeseigha’s matter on two related areas, namely, (i) his illegal and gangster like removal from the office of governor and (2) whether he was entitled to immunity outside Nigeria as governor of a state in Nigeria. I was never involved in his trial for economic and financial crimes as alleged by Yinka Odumakin. So the question of defending him for corruption does not arise. That was a criminal case handled by other lawyers, which I barely remember.
I was indeed one of the counsels to Alemieyeseigha in the period of 2005 to 2006. My main effort was towards getting him reinstated as governor of Bayelsa State because of the horrific, illegal and unconstitutional manner in which he was removed from office.
Armed Police were deployed to arrest members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, who were carted to Abuja and tortured into signing an impeachment notice. The whole state was taken over by troops and the government’s bank accounts were frozen. They even shut down Radio Bayelsa.
This was the aspect of the legal struggle I was involved in. I appeared with Chief Mike Ozekhome at the Supreme Court three times on behalf of the former governor. The Federal Attorney-General had no answer to our case, and the matter was finally struck-out because the Solicitor General of Bayelsa State filed a notice of discontinuance of the case without our consent.
The Supreme Court struck out the case for this reason on the ground that if we were not acting on behalf of Bayelsa State, but only on behalf of Alemieyeseigha, we had no right to come to that court directly. We should commence at the High Court level. That effectively scuttled our case because the Bayelsa State judiciary would have been hostile to our case, given that the then Chief Judge was neck deep in the illegal ouster of the governor.
I had great respect for Alemieyeseigha and my view is that he had paid very dearly for whatever offence he had committed and should have been left alone to enjoy the rest of his life in peace. Indeed, if he had lived longer, he would probably have still played an important role in the struggle to resolve the intractable Nigerian national question.
Given my firm view that the former governor was entitled to immunity outside Nigeria and that he was illegally removed from office, I could not, in anyone’s wildest imagination, have supported his being extradited to London for trial. In any case, he had already been tried and sentenced to imprisonment in Nigeria, and was entitled to plead “autrefoi convict” (previously convicted) as provided in Section 36(9) of the Constitution, which prohibits double conviction for the same offence.
Until his sad passing away, I remained loyal as his former lawyer, to the former governor. Indeed, a few days to his passing away, I got a text message from him that he was coming to see me in Lagos. Sadly, that was never to be.
However, the false and vindictive accusation that I called for his extradition to the U.K. is a wicked and malicious lie, cooked up by some opportunists, who just wanted to tarnish my image.
