For the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the need for continuous legal education for lawyers has become more imperative with the sophistication and advancements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The belief of the NBA is that the standards need to be upped for better dispensation and administration of justice at all levels. The general consensus is that the standard is ebbing. In this interview with JOSEPH ONYEKWERE, a renowned law teacher and a senior member of the Bar, Professor Uche U. Uche, examines the issues. He also speaks about insecurity, corruption, federalism, National Assembly probes, as well as the recommendation of the scrapping of anti-graft agencies. Excerpts:AS a law teacher, what is your view on the standard of legal education'We have talked about it many years ago. We talked about how to maintain standard and ensure that people who come in to the profession enjoy what they come to do and also know why they come, which is to help us keep justice going. We haven't quite been as successful as we want, but we have not given up.However, suggestions are being made on how it could be improved upon, including the request to have law as a second degree. The argument is that probably, it will be the only way to ensure that there is sufficient intellectual maturity before we start imbibing legal concepts. The hope is that when you are that mature, we would be able to produce mature thoughts and that would lead to mature justice. Once you have that level of maturity, it helps to strengthen other professions because when they get entangled, you use the maturity to disentangle the problem that may have arisen.What is your own position on the second-degree proposition for law profession as some people are canvassing'I support it. I support it for the reasons that I have already given. And that is also because the standard of education, of universities seems to have come down so abysmally that before we have the best, we should make sure that the ground is leveled. So, the issue is that if you want to come to law, you must be an intellectual adult. That is why I say that second degree has become necessary.In your view, will it resolve the issue of falling standard if it is adopted'It could be the beginning. It would not be a one-day affair. Some days back, a colleague was making a statement about law, he said that it was becoming diffident about the future of the legal profession. Another colleague said that his own diffidence was petrified into unbelief. We hope that particular approach of having law as second degree would not allow the putrefaction to happen; to petrify into unbelief. Though you cannot marry the truth, you can marry your receptive capacity, which has nothing to do with the truth. The truth remains the truth.What about the introduction of the part-time programme, which was stopped by the Council of Legal Education' Do you think graduate workers coming to study law as a second course on part-time basis will bring maturity into the profession'I don't see anything wrong with that, provided they are going to comply with those requirements of law in terms of its strictness, its accuracy, and total independence.What is your take on the development where non-lawyers wear the wig and gown like Speakers of various legislative Houses'I am sure you have also watched movies in the television about malaria and so on where they wear it for whatever drama they want to perform. They even wear wigs and the senior dressings of the Inner Bar for what they want to perform. If they do that and get away with it, I don't see anything wrong with others, provided they don't parade themselves as lawyers. These days, you go to a primary school, you hear that pupils are graduating and when you get there, they wear hoods and wig and gowns. We know it is all wrong but when it comes to being serious, you acknowledge the seriousness. If the legal profession comes out to quarrel with people about what they wear, then it means that we have run out of what to do.But those who are acting are in the make-belief industry'But the children are not acting. They are quite ignorant about it when they wear the gown.What they wear is an academic gown. Is it not'That is not the general understanding of graduation. A graduate is a graduate. And it normally follows university or polytechnic programme. But for an infant to graduate is a bit of absurd in terms of language. But if you allow it just to make them happy, why not extend the joy to other people provided they would not start practising as lawyers because that one is specialised.What is your view about how to tackle insecurity in Nigeria'Insecurity is sad for any nation. We have heard the suggestions being made by other nations as a way of tackling it. Frankly, I believe that people have reached a level of frustration to a point that looks as if they are just venting their anger in different ways. It is sad that we have become violent. Some of us have been shouting about this system that would get us to a restructured country, where you don't concentrate all the foods, power and money in one place. We need to restructure Nigeria.On what basis is it going to be restructured'It is going to be based on the regional basis. That is the answer. It happened before. When I talked to the South Easterners a few years back, I made a point that Lord Lugard said that Africans had no visions, that they had no intention of preparing a future; that Africans had no respect for history. That is one of the things Lugard was quoted as saying. I tried to draw analogy to Shakespeare's Macbeth and told you what Lady Macbeth did and when she died, what the husband said when he was told that his wife had died because she made him kill Duncan, the king. He then said she should have died hereafter, there should have been such a time as tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow''.What Lugard said was a repeat of what Shakespeare had said through Macbeth. Also, look at the same Shakespeare and I will tell you about that speech in Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, when he was looking at man. He said: 'What a piece of work is man' How noble in reasoning, how excellent in faculty' In moving and expression, how like a god, in aberration, how like an angel; the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.'That from my own assessment typified our experience before the soldiers came to power. We were the paragon of animals. We were doing well. There was progress when we were regionalised. It was great. We witnessed what was happening in the then Eastern Region, which was referred to as one of the fasted growing economies in the world. We saw what Chief Obafemi Awolowo was doing in the West, what Dr. Dennis Osadebey was doing in the Mid-West and the Sarduana in the North.Are you saying that poverty is the reason for the insecurity'Poverty has led to frustration and that frustration is manifesting in so many ways.Does that include reasons for the Boko Haram insurgence'It will not be fair to draw conclusions alone in respect of Boko Haram. Clearly, a lot of people know it is political. I do not see how one can be far from that. And I do not see how and why it should be concentrated 90 per cent against Christians. It doesn't make sense. It is to hit you where it hurts deepest. In boxing, you go for the jugular. In football, you don't put the second 11 in an important match. If you do that, they will leave the ball and kick the legs. So, the insecurity in the northern part of the country is a manifestation of multiple starvations. They act as though they believe that unless there is power wielded by them, then there could be no peace. But some of us disagree with that.What is the way out'The solution is that if we have had a different kind of Nigeria, things would work out differently.What do we do under the present arrangement'It is not late to resort to regions.Do you support the national conference call'Wole Soyinka said we should just go ahead and declare the regions and start working on that basis. He means well. But it is not enough to do just that because there are powers that are wielded by the centre under the constitution. Unless there is a procedure by which you wrest those powers and give them to the regions, it will not be easy for the regions to wield those powers. Therefore, there is need for a talk. Whatever you want to call it, whether it is conference or dialogue or any other word. If you feel that sovereign insults you, then take it out. But recognise that we have a problem. To recognise it is the most important thing because we are not behaving as though we recognise how serious the problems are. Otherwise, there should have been a strong statement to the effect that the government is considering what to do about restructuring this country. The reason is that once it is said, people would start respecting it. And it would give a different picture of what you intend to do. But when you pretend that you are not doing anything, whenever happens you 'say sorry, it is terrible, we are going to do something in future, it is not convincing. It is not enough.'What is your comment about the statement credited to the National Security Adviser (NSA) concerning the emergence of Boko Haram'The NSA made a statement and that statement, if taken on a face value, is a criticism of the existing structure. It is up to the system to say 'thank God, somebody has been courageous enough to say it or sweep it under the carpet.'But that is the same structure that brought him into the position'It depends on how awake he was. If he has just realised that, this is a shame and say so, isn't he courageous' The fact that he suddenly realised that his employers are dupes, and he says so, isn't it courageous'Some are saying that it is an affront on the Commander-in-Chief'Well, it depends on how the Commander- in-Chief takes it, whether he is taking his time to look at it in order to decide what to do about it or not. That is his strategy, system or method. But you cannot say that he has forgotten or forgiven. It is too early to draw that conclusion. Some will announce it the next day on television, some will do it in a different way. It's like some people talking about year 2015 now, when you know our problems; that the problems that are facing us are real, that people don't have power, that the roads are impassable, that the hospitals are not working; when you know that there are many things that need attention. How many people would be alive then' We are talking it about now! Do something now! Make people feel good now because if they feel good now, it would be easier for them to decide who will rule them then. But when you put it up as an important agenda item, it looks like a deliberate distraction. It is a shame.What is your view about the litany of probes that have been going on in the National Assembly without any tangible result'First of all, that of the oil subsidy probe came about as a result of enquiries into an attempt to remove what they called 'fuel subsidy' and the circumstances that followed and how those demonstrations followed. Some of us saw those inquiries as an attempt to get to the root of the problem. It is good to be optimistic and fair to the system that they are new and they don't like what they are seeing and they want to get to the root of it before they act. That is a fair opportunity to give to the rulers. Now they have done so. At least, in many sectors, it is up to us to see what next.How do you feel about the revelations emanating from the probes and so to say, the political willingness or otherwise of the ruling class to put into action the recommendations of the probe panels by prosecuting alleged offenders'Well at the end of the Second World War, there was an attempt by a group to do a trial of Adolf Hitler. Funny enough, I took part in that scenario at that time. I remember that when Hitler's defenders came up with the idea of why it was necessary to fight, because Hitler saw the Jews and others as evil. When the judge was summarising the submissions, he said that lofty, hefty, searching and penetrating as the defence of the defence counsel was, war guilt and responsibility for World War 11 belonged to you Hitler. That was the summary of the judgment. So, what we are saying in the light of this, irrespective of whatever defence anybody may have, we know that war guilt and responsibility for our misery have been visited on all the people. So, should they go free' The answer is No! And no government that means well should let them go free except they don't know what they are doing.What is your opinion on the recommendation for the scrapping of anti-graft agencies'In our profession, we have what is called the mischief rule. Mischief rule is the reason why a particular law was made. Why was those laws made' Wasn't it to curb corruption, wasn't it to ensure that people behave well' Those are cardinal questions this administration would answer. Except anybody is going to give us a substitute, it is difficult to believe that anybody would want us to scrap something that could be used to stop corruption. Remember I said, 'could be used' and not 'is used' to stop corruption. It could be if the leadership is right. If it isn't, then it becomes unfortunate. I am merely saying that the circumstances that led to the creation of those agencies should be looked into and we asked ourselves is it necessary or not' When Lee Kuan Yew was the Prime Minister of Singapore, the secretary used the government faxing machine to post a letter to her father, Lee Kuan Yew suspended her for using public funds to send a letter to her father and said that the money she was being paid was enough to enable her to buy a stamp. That was a statement as to the direction he wanted his government to go. We need to make a statement.Who is the 'we' you are talking about here'I mean our government should show the direction it wants to go. If the government feels that corruption is bad, what effort is it making to look at it in the interest of the citizens' The attempt to use the EFCC and the ICPC has been made. Is scrapping them the answer or making sure that they are used for the purpose they were created' A lot of people believe that they were being used against certain people only. But that does not follow. That you feel that they were being used does not mean that the instrument itself is wrong. If you give a sharp knife to a mad man, he uses it to cut across, but if you give the same sharp knife to a sane and clever person, he uses it to cut the bush. So, we should draw distinction between the two.The argument is that the police can perform the functions of the two agencies. How do you react to this'Well, if that is a theory, we have to properly look into it. The question is: how far have the police gone over the years' And if we are going to deal with the problems of the Police, would it necessarily be in the short term' A lot of people are thinking of state police and other ideas about how to reform the police. So, why don't we look at that as a separate issue rather than destroy the emergency measures made to curb corruption' This is a boil that is already there that requires to be taken out. So we have to look at police reforms. But to say that we will send them back to the police as they are now, then it seems that such a person is not serious.Some people believe that the fight against corruption has lost steam. What is your opinion'My experience is that it is terrible. But then, when you say that it has lost steam, the question is: have you tried to do something about it' Once you recognise where the pain is, then you devise how to relate with it. When we thought that we had done so, we started the EFCC and ICPC but we are not using it to achieve the purpose for which they were set up. Why don't we try to then use it for that purpose' I am not discrediting the report but merely saying that probably, that aspect has not been given a sufficient attention. I don't believe that the reform of the police system is what can be achieved within the time it takes to do something drastic about corruption. So some of us believe that a state police will be more effective than what we have now.
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