Sometime ago, some lawyers from some branches of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) took to the streets of a major commercial city in the country in their full regalia in protest of what they called injustice done to one of their own.The demonstration was to force the relevant authorities to reverse the action. In this interview withKAYODE BELLO, Ibadan-basedlegal luminary and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Niyi Akintola, speaks extensively on this issue and suggests better ways to go about such protests. He also explains why the Capital Gain Tax Law should be vigorously enforced to fish out politicians who evade taxes so that they can be punished. These and other sundry matters are contained in this piece. Excerpts:IS there anything wrong with lawyers protesting in wigs and gowns'The legal profession is conservative. We have the core values that we cherish so much, which were bestowed on us by our forefathers so that even though it is normal for lawyers to protest in a democratic society, certain decorum must be maintained. As I was saying, it is normal for any society to protest. A group of people can protest, but when it comes to the issue of protest by lawyers, all over the world, the lawyers do protest whenever they need to address the issue of rule of law. But the concern of stakeholders is that where lawyers do such a thing, it must be with decorum, and it must be done in such a way that the aura that surrounds the profession must be maintained.In other words, nobody condemned the protest. We are only addressing doing that with their full attire. If you look at the history of democratic process in Nigeria, protests are always championed by lawyers and journalists. Under Abacha's regime, majority of the people that were detained were journalists and lawyers, and they did protest over and over again, even in Yaba, Lagos State. Most of the ring-leaders and people that mobilised others were lawyers because of the special gifts, which we have. I remember a time when we went to Bodija Market in Ibadan to mobilise the youth. We were always the ones to talk to the market women and traders. It is something God has ordained to be so. In doing that, you do not expect the lawyers to protest the way the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) would protest, smashing cars and smashing windows. These are parts of the decorum, which we are talking about. We caution our members to maintain decorum. After all, lawyers protested in Pakistan and forced the government to do what was deemed to be right. When lawyers now degenerate to destruction of property and use abusive words, it is no longer a decent protest. That should be left for the touts. If you want to protest, you don't do such in your wigs and gowns, and the elders in our profession do not like that. It is a very conservative profession and we must maintain the standard and ethics.Will the present directive on speedy dispensation of justice on election petitions eradicate the notion about justice delayed being justice denied'I think the issue of adjournment had been tackled in the Electoral Act. The issue of adjournment does not arise because the lawyers are being put under rigorous test and stress, because sometimes you have papers that run to 3,000 pages, and you are expected to produce what could capture such in 40 pages. That calls for usage of language, brevity and everything comes to play. Law is a specialised profession and those who come into it must face the challenges. When you have to compress your argument, you would eliminate frivolity and abandon rigmarole and go straight to the point. Address the issue.The issue of corruption in Nigeria has pervaded the judiciary. Is there any hope of a corruption-free judiciary in the future'I agree with you that only the deaf and the blind would say that all is well with the judiciary. The judiciary is not as bad as people want us to believe. Quite a number of allegations about the judiciary are exaggerated. If you ask for proof, many of them could not justify the allegation of corruption against the judiciary. But there may be one or two places where corruption rears its ugly head. By and large, men and women of the judiciary are of impeccable character, given the enormity of responsibility on their shoulders. If politicians are given this kind of responsibility, I do not think they can stand the pressure. The judiciary has discharged its responsibility creditably well. Of the three arms of government, it is still the best. Can you score the legislative arm of government 20 per cent in Nigeria' But you have to appreciate the fact that the Nigerian judiciary operates within a context we expect the same result. Only mad people would expect to do same thing and expect different result. If corruption does not kill Nigeria, nothing else will kill Nigeria.Is there any legal basis for the removal of oil subsidy by the government'Well, the production of crude oil and the importation of it over the years have been shrouded in secrecy. No ordinary Nigerian can beat his/her chest and say that he knows the number of crude oil produced everyday, not even the Federal Ministry of Statistics could give us that. Nothing, not even the NNPC. A lot of bunkering is going on here and there among the public shots in the society, between the military and the civil establishments. Apart from the issue of bunkering, a lot of oil- tradings go on where contracts are awarded and persons are allowed to lift oil in lieu of payments. So if we need more than required, we cannot even see. Because of the corrupt practices in the system, nobody can be convinced on the issue of oil subsidy because I do not know how many barrels we are producing and exporting. I don't know the number of litres being exported back into the country. So, the cost of production, nobody knows. We are left to the issue of conjecture. Today, they would tell you 3.3 trillion barrels were produced, tomorrow 2.5 barrels. Nobody knows exactly the amount of crude oil we are producing. We produce this commodity, God-given commodity and we are trying to put a price more than those countries that import it. There must be something, which the government knows, which ordinary people do not know. Until they put in the open the necessary pieces of information, you and I cannot comment objectively on the issue. For now, I think trying to remove the oil subsidy when the government has not really educated the people, when those who don'treally appreciate oil politics, when it has not really mobilised the people to explain to them, when the people do not know how many barrels the government is producing, lifting, is not the best. They don't even know the number of barrels we have in the reserve. There is, at present, oil in Badagry and the government is not doing anything about Egba and Lekki. Somebody must be keeping that for God knows what. There is reserve there. We do not even know what is in our reserve. All we know is that there is tussle going on between the state and Federal Government. Until we have honest leadership, rather than using money to build refineries, we are busy looking for oil in the desert. And nobody thinks about this, and mostly the elite live on the government. Government had been their major industry on which they feed on. And that is why the only solution is to mobilise against corruption. Look at the money we generated from oil for the past 10 years, what have we to show for it' Nothing. Nigeria is the only country where you see the elite stealing what they don't need. Some are stealing for their great grandchildren and they don't know tomorrow. Some of those who stole our money died without being able to account for what they had stolen. Nigerians don't fight for their rights, or speak out thetruth. Nigerians must have been specially created by God. What could scatter everywhere, Nigerians would absorb it. One, there is corruption and corruption is endemic in the Nigerian system. It has permeated all the structures of the society: the political class, church of God, the professionals, common man, even the clergy men are not left out.How can there be a synergy between the press and the judiciary'I must tell you that there has been that rapport, that working relationship between the press and judiciary. Do not forget that the journalists and lawyers are usually the targets whenever there is military dictatorship. We must appreciate such relationship. By and large, you discover that they all need one another and there must be a synergy between them to be able to fight corruption. Do what is right. I recollect when I was growing up in the 70s. They stood up against dictatorial tendencies. They stood for law and order and good governance. The likes of Peter Sam, Tola Adeniyi were seasoned writers that students would be made to read and digest their write-ups. Their writings would form debates weekly, but we do not have such again. When The Guardian started, people would gather round in front of Students' Union Building (SUB) in the University of Ibadan to discuss the topic of the day. We cannot say that today. It appears there is something fundamentally wrong with us Africans. Once we find ourselves in government, our tune changes. Those days, Dr. Stanley Macebuh, Olatunji Dare and Yemi Ogunbiyi were part of people that made The Guardian tick. Then, it was purely an intellectual paper. Then, nobody was being addressed as 'chief' or 'doctor'. Nobody was engaging in ego-boosting in The Guardian. The Guardian set the pace, being the conglomerate of finest brains. But the media is not exempted from corruption. You read sponsored articles. Some are even doing espionage for the government. Some are on the pay roll of the government and they think that the Nigerian public do not know. We know. Nothing is hidden in Nigeria. Some write according to the dictates of Nigeria or the political parties. In the South-West, we know the political party a newspaper would represent. If you look at the media, you cannot rule out partisanship.The Boko Haram issue: Is it a sign of a failed state'Of course, it is yes and no. Pardon me for the contradiction. It is a failed state when you look at the leadership. The Nigerian leaders do not seem to appreciate their enormous responsibilities. We have leaders who do not understand the political arithmetic of the country they are governing. We have the six geo-political zones that have not been recognised by the Constitution. Of these six geopolitical zones, two of them feel marginalised. They are shouting everyday and these constitute 62 per cent of the population. You cannot have peace until you dialogue with them and especially the gatekeepers. Every community all over the world has gatekeepers and the kind of egg-heads that are at the Presidency may not be able to identify this. Let us identify the gatekeepers of the Nigerian communities. Forget about those masquerading themselves as our rulers in Abuja.Unlike in the First Republic where the gatekeepers were themselves in the government, the gatekeepers are not in government now. If you want an end to Boko Haram, all you need to do is to identify the gatekeepers. I give it to Olusegun Obasanjo because he understood the political arithmetic of this country. He may be aggressive, crude or dictatorial, here is the man who would say, 'look, you know I don't like you but this is the Nigerian issue, we have to solve it together'. I don't want to mention names. He would meet them at night. That is why some advisers would say they are not listening to me because there is superior argument somewhere.Obasanjo is still a factor in Nigeria. Whether anybody likes it or not, Sultan is still a factor in Nigerian politics. Whether anybody likes it or not, Lamido of Adamawa is still a factor in the Nigerian politics. Elkanemi of Borno is also a factor. These are the gatekeepers of their communities. But you go and gather some people, businessmen, those that are just interested in being in a hotel in Abuja.Under the military, there was a time that used to be conflicts around Bakatari, between the people of Ibadan and Egba over Bakatari. And I happened to come from that part of the state. There used to be skirmishes and fighting. One day, some gentlemen came in from SSS, that they discovered there would be another fight by the people of Bakatari, and they said that if anything happened, there they would pick me. They identified who the gatekeepers were. Because of the fear of the unknown, some could not travel. They pre-empted everybody. The gatekeeper can be in London and be pulling the string. They know what to do. If I want something to happen in my local council, I know who to call. I might even be in my hotel in Abuja. Our security agencies have not been doing their jobs. They said they have been doing their best but unfortunately, their best is not enough. We must keep a tab on the so-called gatekeepers: what are they saying' What are they doing' Who sees them' Security is not about putting 1,000 security men in front of your gate with guns and 30 armoured vehicles. It is about intelligence gathering and technology. There is no fence in the front of 10, Dawnling Street. You can buy a pair of tyres in front of Washington in the States, but 500 metres away they can see you. But here in Nigeria, the Supreme Court is more than 1,000 kilometres away from the Presidential Villa and even before you get to the Supreme Court, you can see the number of security points you meet.Do you think FoI Act is enforceable in a country like Nigeria'Of course yes, if the will is there. Before the FoI Act, there was the ICPC Act that convicted expenditure that was not budgeted for. There was something on fake contract. How many government officials had been jailed for spending money on what was not budgeted for' Most of the governments at the state level run on brief cases. There is no planning, nothing. Government would be executing something else, because the governor has the House of Assembly in his pocket. Our problems are multi-dimensional.The issue of e-court system is not well-known yet. Will you advocate for the e-court system'Of course, yes. But the personnel of the court must still be trained on how to man the gadgets. There is no point bringing in what they cannot operate. Every office of the lawyers here is connected to the Internet, down to the library, but the question is: how many of the lawyers are computer-literate' Each of them here has desktop and laptop given to them by their Chambers, whereas 50 per cent of my lawyers are not computer-literate. Until we train the people, there is no point buying the gadgets and nobody to use them. Everybody has laptops. Some have i-pads and laptops. How many can operate these'Would you consider the agitation for the scrapping of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme as justifiable, especially in the wake of the Boko Haram threats and killings in some northern parts of Nigeria'You do not throw away the baby with the bath water. I would rather suggest the modification of the scheme. We are wasting the talents of these young ones. They are our children. We waste a year of their lives. A man that studied computer engineering would be taken to Obande School where there are no windows, chairs, computers or laboratory. I would rather proffer that we allow these young ones to spend nine months in the military. Let them be trained, at least, they can defend the country. Send them to military camp all over the country. Make sure that the ladies among them are trained and manned by female officers. And the remaining three months, they can serve in the communities of their choice. Let them choose where to spend the remaining three months. Nobody would want his/her wards to go where their lives would be cut short. There are some employers that only wait every year for cheap labour. They go out to NYSC to employ. When we are busy recruiting people, our competitors are busy recruiting the NYSC participants.What does the future hold for the judiciary'Not just the judiciary, but I would love to be asked: What does the future hold for Nigeria' As it is now, the government has not been serious in fighting corruption. Have you ever seen a man clapping with one hand. If you want to fight corruption as it is done all over the world, bring all the stakeholders on board. How can you fight corruption without involving the Inland Revenue people' Do you know what the politicians are doing' They would claim what they don't have. I have said it at different fora. I presented a paper at the University of Ibadan where the EFCC was represented and I said you have to take the battle to the corrupt politicians. We must adopt a holistic approach. If you declare that you have N30 billion asset, fine. We will go to the Inland Revenue Department to check your last tax clearance. If you are not paying something that is commensurate, you should go to jail for tax evasion or underpayment of tax. The law is there.There is a law called Capital Gain Tax. How much have you paid' If you lie on oath, you go to jail for perjury. For certain categories of public officers, the onus should be on them to prove how they came about their assets. The onus should not be on the prosecution to prove. How did you come about that house in Ikeja GRA and Asokoro' If you enter some directors' offices in Abuja, you would marvel at the arrays of cars you find. You do not need to prove beyond reasonable doubt. We must bring in Inland Revenue, Corporate Affairs Commission, Customs and Excise departments and of course, you must have intelligence-gathering unit. You get intelligence-gathering unit. The journalists should do investigation while the lawyers would do a search. Let us look at that. For you to do this, you need honest person in Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise departments at Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). And above all, you need an honest person at the level of the Attorney-General of the Federation. The ministries must not feel unconcerned. Those are the short-comings. As far back as 1999, Justice Kayode Eso submitted a proposed bill of about 149 pages under Bola Ajibola on this issue, but they kept it away.How do you react to the directive by the CJN on plea-bargaining calling for its abolition' Does this directive have any force of law'In my opinion, I am of the conviction that such must be taken with all seriousness. The CJN is the final arbiter and an authority when it comes to the issue of adjudication or judiciary in the country. No judicial officer would disregard the position of the CJN, whether it was made in a seminar or not. The issue of plea-bargaining is part of the corruption we are referring to. Why should there be a plea-bargaining where public funds had been stolen and embezzled. It further promotes corruption in the country so it must be discouraged in its totality.
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