Why The Buhari Anti Graft War Would Fail

Martins Ogunleye is the Chairman of lagos branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and a public affairs analyst, in this exclusive interview with Iniobong Iwok, he speak on the anti graft war and performance of the current administration more than one year in office.

Quote: The process of appointing Judges in Nigeria today is subsitible to corruption and only throw up people that are corrupt.
What is your assessment of the anti graft war of the current administration?

Is a courageous move. But if it is making the desire impact is another cattle of fish. One thing is to fight corruption,another is to fight it in a proper manner. most of the cases have been high profile ones, as a lawyer we need to look forensically at the criminal justice system again, starting form the investigation,the  police and EFCC. form the time prosecution start it take too much time to resolve cases of corruption and the longer it take to resolve this cases the more difficult it is to success in the war against corruption.

I am one of the advocate for a change in the investigation of our security agencies,the way we are going about it make it look like witch-hunt that give rise to sensationalism and that in the eyes of the public make the person look guilty.

But in the developed countries what they do is discreet investigation so that when you are arresting the person you already have a case against him and you are ready to go to court and when the man see the evident against him he would have no choose than to surrender that is where plead bargaining come in.

Look at the Ibori case,nobody went and arrest him and put him in detention for three months they did investigation on him and by the time they arrested him they put evident in front of him and he had no choose than to admit in such situation. We need to professionalism our security agencies and put it under the attorney office.

What is wrong in the way the anti corruption war is been fought?

It very crude,we need state police,we are running a federal constitution, Nigeria is a federation but despite this since 1979 we are running a unitary police system which is in conflict with our federal constitution and it affect prosecution. In the USA and Canada that operate federal constitution the police is under the state.

The FBI can come in when it involve federal crime they do not have office in the states,when they want to come in they can use the apparatus of that state police. so the apparatus of federal system should be a state structure.

In nigeria what we have is a federal police if inspector general of police is not there ,a case come into court if an investigative officer, that is to give evident in court and the case is in lagos and there is an order from abuja to transfer the police officer to owerri that may be the end of the case because there would be nobody to testify. That alone have been the challenge for prosecution it lengthen the time that would happen because we have a unitary police if it was state the man who not go out of that state. many time a case is lost in court because the policeman that suppose to give evidence is transfer out,and the judge say we can not be waiting for a police man let do a way with that evidence and it is crucial. let decentralised police force,EFCC been a federal body can be there when it involve federal crime we can not be a federation and operate a unitary system.


There are insinuations by the opposition party that it is Selective?

To my mind there would always be allegation, it is the duty of the opposition party and member of the ruling party to investigate corruption. They should bring it to public view they should carry out investigation.
That is why I say there is a problem with our method of investigation in this country. EFCC would never share any information, so the police they are not transparent and if all this not done  the issue of witch-hunt would always arise.



There is the view that we don't have enabling law to fight corruption?

Fighting corruption in nigeria is an attitude thing. It is not because of lack of law, it is lack of professionalism and know -how on the part of the investigators and prosecutors.
Investigation must always be discreet  where you see investigation go on for several years and when they come out and reveal it the accuses would have no join than to admit. Here,when there is mere allegation the police would arrest and ask for your bank account details. It is not that we don't have laws, there is no professionalism in applying those laws.

The president said he is not satisfy with suport form the Judiciary,do you agree with him?

The president may have his view, but I do not totally agree wit him the judiciary suppose to be an abitrater between two people, the judiciary would never get involve. The Judiciary would only act on what have been brought against it. If the prosecution bring weak case it is not the work of the judiciary to help them bring evident it is the job of the judiciary to say this case is not up to and throw it away.

The president should speak to the prosecuting agencies and ask them to do a through job. If you are talking of delay it mean we do not have enough judiciary personnel. For example in Lagos state we do not have enough, in lagos we have the highest number of judge in the country but I can tell you that each of this judges handle up to 10 cases in a day, that is high we need more judges,at the federal high court if you ask them they would tell you they need more and lagos has one court of appeal ,that is where all the case go to lagos need about three court of appeal on normal circumstance.
The president should be gratefully some of the criminal cases are fast tracked.

What about special court?

The problem with special court is that they would have the mindset they are set up to prosecute.-if you are setting up special court it mean you are taking judges from the existing court which is not enough,or you are appointing new judges. If you want to set up a special court why don't you just empower and expand the existing ones.

In lagos we have the criminal court which is running why set up a special court,may be we have to expand the existing one,I don't think the call for special court is a convincing one.

Do you believe the Judiciary is corrupt?

If there is corruption in the Judiciary then what we should be looking at is what is the process of appointing Judges. Our adage say: you can't  plant bean and expecting rice,it is what you plant you ripe. The process of appointing Judges in Nigerian today is subsitible to corruption and only throw up people that are corrupt. let me say corruption is not about taking money alone, there is also institutional corruption there is class corruption.
when you begin to appoint judges on funny criteria,party loyalist ,cronies and friend. we need to look at the process of appointing judges, in the past it was not like that it was serving judges and justices who recommend them based on integrity.


How would you access Buhari administration more than a year in office?

The administration had not done badly. I know the expectation of nigerian are high .I want  to believe there is no government that would come in an implement an austerity programme when he met a full treasury. The only reason any body would get into government and start doing that is because there is no money there. Is always easy to bring down what has been build, but to rebuild any  structure would take time and strategy thinking effort.

Yes the administration came on the mantra of change but let ask our self: how many nigerians have change them self? The trust is a lot of nigerians do not want to change but want change.

We are so used to a system of behavior which we are not ready to change. But I think  Buhari is doing well, let ask our self if  nigerians are keying to the vision, ready to support his government and change too?

But the president promised nigerians change, the current economy state is becoming more harsh due to his policies?

I do not fill disappointed because as someone who have been in leadership position before, I know what it take to re-engineer and implement policies.

when a man come in and promise certain thing in his manifesto, when he get into offices he would need like six month to synchronise what is on ground and his manifestos to begin to manifest.

Look at the budget,the government is saying we are going to make intervention and employ the youths,the money has to come form somewhere and it has to be approve.
It mean that the bigger problem we all saw we have to solve that before we move forward.

Of course I would have though the government  would have been more fasted in implementing and taking action that improve the lot of the masses.

Look at the other issues like ban on forex, I think the use of forex to the tune of several billions on education outside the country is unnecessary. I gave a lecture recently and I told them it does not make sense to use 1,000 pounds to train a child and when he comes to here ,the highest paying entry level job in nigeria would not pay more than 200,000 per month. how long would it take that person to repay that loan to pay back? We need to discourage the kind of thing  we spend forex on.

I was at a PTA function I said parent who spend 10,000 dollars a year on sending their child abroad for education they should come together and pool the money together and build schools and enrol their children here and employ teachers,our desire for forex Is much and we need to change that.

Source-- Iniobong Iwok (Journalist DailyTimes)