Mr Olu Daramola, SAN was called to
the Bar in December 1993. Before then, he studied Political Science at the
University of Ibadan He obtained two Masters Degrees in law, the first from
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and the second in Maritime Law, from the
University of London. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators,
Nigeria and UK.
He has been in active legal practice
since his call to bar and he was elevated to the Inner Bar in December 2008. In
this interview, Daramola who specialises in commercial litigation and
arbitration spoke on the last constitution amendment, his expectations from the
new administration and how the government can tackle corruption.
Excerpts:
The intervention of the Supreme
Court on the dispute between former president Good Luck Jonathan and the out
going National Assembly, over the fourth alteration act of the 1999
constitution was timely. Do you think the matter should have gone to the Apex
Court?
It is clear from the Constitution
that power is shared by the three arms of government. It is not open to debate
that the president has veto power and that the national assembly can override
the veto. The law making process involves the National Assembly passing a bill.
The bill is forwarded to the President for his assent so that it can become
law.
The president may decide to veto the
bill but the national assembly can override the veto and pass the bill into law
without presidential assent. To me, it is not an issue that should have been
taken to court in the first place. It is not proper for the Government to go to
court to seek to prevent the national assembly from exercising a power given to
it by the Constitution.
One of the contentious issues in the
constitution amendment was the separation of the offices of Attorney general/
and Minister/Commissioner for Justice. Do you agree that the office should be
separated and who in your own opinion should be the number one law officer at
Federal and State level respectively?
To me separating the office of the
Minister of Justice from that of the Attorney General will not change anything.
It does not make any of them to be more effective. On the contrary, rivalry can
develop between the two officers as to their respective functions and powers.
What is important is to appoint a credible lawyer as the Minister of Justice
and Attorney General. If we have two people who are not credible occupying the
two offices, I don’t see how they can make any difference.
Meanwhile, the country would be
saddled with maintaining the two of them when no effective services are being
rendered. The problem with us in this country is that we run away from
addressing the real issues. We look for ways to avoid confronting a problem
headlong. For instance many people without thinking will tell you that it is
the immunity clause that is responsible for the pervasive corruption in
Nigeria. This is a laughable proposition. If immunity clause is responsible for
corruption, how may ex-governors have been jailed or effectively tried since
they left office?
All those public officials whose
terms expired, how many of them are in jail?
Mind you the only persons who are
entitled to immunity from prosecution under the Constitution are the president,
vice-president, governor and deputy governor. None of them signs government
cheques. If a governor perpetrates fraud through his commissioners and
accountant general why are the law enforcement agencies not going after the
officers?
After all, they are not covered by
the immunity granted to the governors. The immunity granted to the governor is
only for the period when he is in the office and there is no limitation of time
in prosecution of crime. Separating the offices of the Minister of justice from
that of the Attorney General will only lead to duplication of offices which
create more financial burden for the government. It is not the way to go with
our dwindling resources. It is high time we began to merge some offices to
reduce cost of governance.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria
recently, said that there are too many fake lawyers in the system, how do you
think this issue can be addressed?
It is unfortunate that there is no
profession in Nigeria including the medical profession that deals with human
life where you don’t have fake practitioners. In England you cannot hear of
fake lawyers because proper records of practitioners accessible to the public
are kept. Until we begin to keep proper records, the issue of fake
practitioners will continue to plague the system.
I am aware that NBA is presently
addressing the issue by trying to establish a data base for all lawyers
enrolled to practice in the country. They are also working on seals. The
Supreme Court should create on its portal a section where members of the public
can access the name of all lawyers in the country. If this is done, it will be
difficult for fake practitioners to have easy ride on the system.
As a lawyer, how will you advise the
Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari on improving the judicial sector?
First and foremost, the government
must ensure that judicial officers are well paid. This will attract the best
legal minds in the country to the bench. Second, the president must appoint
credible lawyers to the Federal courts as judges. He has the power to appoint
Judges on the advice of the National Judicial Council. He must use this power
effectively and ensure that only credible persons are allowed to mount the
judicial saddle.
What do you think the Government
should do to tackle corruption in the country?
The main reason why the electorates
voted massively for Buhari was because he was seen as a man of integrity who
would deploy all necessary arsenals to fight corruption and restore the
integrity of the country. He cannot afford not to deliver on the promise.
Happily, he has an eminent lawyer who is well respected for his integrity as a
deputy. The war against corruption must be fought centrally from the presidency
to the local government. There are many States where no single official has
been prosecuted by the State Governments since 1999.
Does that mean we do not have
corrupt people in the State? The anti-corruption agencies must scrutinise
budget implementation at all levels of government to see areas where contracts
are inflated or not executed at all. Several means have been devised to steal
public funds and make stealing look legitimate. Many government officials use
companies where they have interests as consultants to perform the very tasks
they were elected to perform.
Security vote is another means through
which public officials steal public funds. As a first step, all public
officials must be made to do open declaration of assets. Jonathan lost the
moral battle against corruption when he refused to follow his predecessor in
declaring his assets publicly. Many states made laws where they awarded jumbo
terminal benefits for some selected officials which include annual overseas
medical check-up and treatments.
This is another area of corruption
because such laws guarantee a permanent life of obscene luxury for political
office holders while the people continue to wallow in misery and poverty. What
is the morality of allowing a president or a governor who cannot build
functional hospitals for his people to be given the privilege of overseas
treatment even when he has left office?
I have never heard that the
president of America, the chancellor of Germany or British Prime Minister
travelled to another country for medical treatment but here, Nigerian public
officials take it as a pride and status symbol. To sustain the confidence of
the Nigerian people, the new government must depart from the ungodly and
sadistic trend of spending the bulk of the nation’s resources only to secure
comfort for the tiny minority of politicians in public office.
President Buhari must resist
pressure to use political appointments to compensate those who worked for his
success at the polls. He must appoint credible persons who can help him lift
Nigeria to the first world. This is his chance and he must utilise it so that
history can remember him for good. With the resources we have in this country,
there is no basis for mass poverty and suffering. He must ensure that only
those who want to serve are in Government and not the political merchants who
have held the country down by their greed and callousness.
The cost of running government must
be reduced drastically to discourage profiteers from seeking public office.
There is no reason why a senator should earn more than a professor in a
university. It is only in Nigeria that all categories of political office
holders can be clamouring for life pension. If his anti-corruption crusade
succeeds, he will have enough money to provide infrastructure across the
country.
In fact, his economic and political
programmes will only succeed to the extent of his success in the
anti-corruption crusade. For me, he has started well by refusing to be drawn
into the controversy of selecting or nominating leaders of the National
Assembly. It is not the business of the president to nominate or even advise the
National Assembly on who should be their leader.
The due process office must work to
prevent fraud in the conduct of Government business and not function as a
clearing house of corruption. He must devise a way of watching the watchers.
The anti-corruption officials must be strictly monitored in the discharge of
their duties and must not be allowed to operate as loose cannons. The cleaning
exercise must start with the law enforcement agencies or else no tangible
result will be achieved.
Recently, a bill on Violence Against
Person’ Prohibition that had spent almost 12 years in the National Assembly had
just been passed, how do you react to this?
All these issues are already in the
criminal code, so also are issues relating to corruption. There is nothing in the
EFCC Act that is not covered by the criminal code. It has always been the law
that violence is unlawful, so I do not see any new thing the law is bringing on
the table. Rather than enforce existing laws, we keep on making new laws in the
vain hope that the new laws without more will prevent the problems we are
seeking to address.
It does not work that way. No matter
how good a law is, unless it is properly enforced, nothing will change in the
society. The point is that we like multiplying things and all these will not
change anything. All that need to be done is to amend the criminal code to
bring it up to date and not creating new laws to address issues already covered
by the law.
Eight drug offenders, including four
Nigerians were recently executed in Indonesia, and the development has brought
to the fore again desirability or otherwise of death sentence. What is your
position on this?
Personally, as a pacifist I don’t
subscribe to death sentence for any crime but in saying that, we must not lose
sight of the damage being done to the society by drugs. Drug pushing
constitutes a serious risk to the health of any society and any responsible
government cannot fold its arms and allow the illicit trade to continue
unchecked.
When Buhari executed three drug pushers
in 1984 most drug pushers avoided Nigeria because they knew that the
implication of being caught was death sentence. If you are issued visa to some
of the countries that retain death sentence for drug pushing, it would be
clearly spelt out in a booklet given to you that the offence attracts capital
punishment. A person who knows the implication of taking hard drugs to some
countries but decides to take the risk can only blame himself.
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