By Daniel Kanu
Renowned constitutional lawyer, anti-corruption crusader and foremost scholar, Prof Itse Sagay, SAN, has hit hard the members of the National Assembly, accusing them of being insensitive to the nation’s bad economic condition by collecting N116 million each for Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV).
Prof Sagay who condemned this in this interview, also spoke on his disappointment on the off-cycle governorship elections held in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi states, restructuring and corruption in the judiciary, among other national issues. Excerpt:
The recent off-cycle election that took place in Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo states were also conducted with a lot of violence, vote-buying, and loads of electoral malpractices. What is your impression about the continuous abuse of our electoral processes despite assurances from relevant bodies for free and credible elections?
What I see in it is that the human nature of the Nigerian politicians, the desperation to acquire power at any cost is even getting higher. What we are witnessing is very unfortunate, people writing results on result sheets before the election, that is so discouraging. All the efforts that have been made, the Electoral Act, the BVAS, so much have been done, but the human nature, which I will call the animal nature with the Nigerian increases with each precautionary step to protect the electoral process. I was very sad about quite a number of things. In some places, I heard that there was no voting at all and results were still produced from those areas. This is crazy.
Let’s look at the Labour and Federal government face-off. Do you think that the government has really given Labour the needed attention for amicable resolution of this avoidable impasse?
I think the Federal Government is trying its best. You cannot satisfy every demand by labour, you cannot. The best thing that the Federal Government can do is to offer what it thinks it’s capacity can carry and I would have thought that was done with the addition of 35 per cent of their salaries that was offered, which I am sure will be implemented and a few other labour-friendly gestures with the government had taken place, but we must realise that things are very hard. The government had said they don’t have money and we know that, so everybody has to be patient. I don’t think the government has done badly in their action with labour and the alleged maltreatment incident concerning Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, president, Joe Ajaero, I don’t think the Federal Government was responsible for that and I don’t know the extent to which Imo State government was involved, but certainly not the Federal Government. And it is an official of the Federal Government that has brought peace, I am talking of Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, NSA. So, if you ask me, I don’t think the government has done badly because they are battling with tackling corruption, inflation, with very poor Naira and poor exchange rate etc. It is, indeed, a very bitter period for the country now, and I think everybody should exercise patience.
But is it not an irony that with the bad economy being experienced our National Assembly still went ahead to procure their jeep which is over N100 million each?
The National Assembly is always saying that they are the best evidence of democracy, that they are number one in terms of democracy, arguing that the other arms of government can be suspended without democracy being affected. They boast and say they are the real elected representatives of the people and the number one evidence of democracy, but the problem with them is that they are not doing anything to sustain democracy. They have this lack of sensitivity by demanding cars worth N116 million in a situation where people are perishing with hunger and lack of things to keep life going. So, they are number one evidence of democracy and also number one evidence of anti-democratic conduct that can negatively affect the survival of democracy. They are very insensitive and their stubbornness in having those cars in the light of what is happening in the country is condemnable and very dangerous to our democracy.
Most Nigerian statesmen and commentators are calling for a re-visit of the 2014 CONFAB report by the President Tinubu-led government. What is your response to this?
I have requested for the copy, but have not gotten it, nobody has given me; I am told it has a very good provision on true federalism, that the provisions contain a new power and authority structure that favours true federalism. That it gives the Federal Government the basic things that should be under their authority like the army, currency, etc, and few other things, while other things will be in the control or responsibility of the states. That is what I am told, but I have not seen it myself. If that is the case, it is good because that’s what we call true federalism or restructuring, but I don’t know the content yet. So, if you ask me, what I will say is that there is need for restructuring. Nigeria as it is now is not a true federal state, there is no reason the constitution should create local governments for states. That is madness. Local governments should be created by states. They should create the number they want and even decide whether they will appoint people like DOs to control the local government or have a democratic elected local government. They can decide how they want to run their local government. They can decide what to tell them. There is no reason the Federal Government should be paying the salaries and other allowances of local governments in the country, that is crazy because local government is a state responsibility. Local government does not form part of the units of a federation. The two units are the Federal Government and state government, local government is subsumed in the states. In fact, when they talk of local government autonomy I laugh, constitutionally they can never be local government autonomy, they can never be because local government is a state creation, if they have autonomy then that’s the end of the federation. Like in England, where you only have the government in London and then local governments, there is nothing in the middle. If you create something in the middle like state and federating units then local government disappears into the states, so it cannot be autonomous. Those who are calling for autonomy for local government within a federation are constitutional illiterates.
With what you are saying, it means there is also the need to re-jig the constitution?
Of course, yes. I have always identified some of the issues like the state police, As I said, local government has to be removed. Let states handle it and do it the way they want, the best way it suits them, as it used to be in the First Republic. In fact, if you ask me, I will suggest that we go back to the 1963 constitution (Republican Constitution). For example, on the issue of resource control, it takes care of the issue of resource control. It stated very clearly that whatever resource, particularly mineral resource, discovered in a state the state is entitled to 50 per cent of it, of all mineral resources in the state, Federal Government 20 per cent then there is 30 per cent which is left for assistance to states that are experiencing financial difficulties. It is distributed among such states so that they can get something from the richer states to pull themselves up. That was a beautiful constitution. So, you retain your resources, but at the same time you are giving assistance to sister states who are not so well-endowed to be able to pull themselves up. The Federal Government gets 20 per cent and will look for its own resources and should not be sucking as it is happening now, the resources of the oil-rich states. The Federal Government is now turning itself into the provider for states when in fact it is the receiver or the beneficiary of the rich states. It’s wrong, so I believe the 1963 constitution is the ideal constitution for this country.
Some critics have accused the President Tinubu government of suffering from policy summersault, insisting that most policies are not well-thought out before announcing them for implementation…?
(Cuts in) Well, I am not an economist, but on the issue of subsidy removal, personally, this is my personal view, I had thought that the best thing was to carry on the way we have been doing it and then get the refinery to start working, you substitute to an extent and this is done without inflicting any hardship as we have it now. You ensure any corruption is detected and stamped out, you will see that within a short period of time the pressure on foreign exchange, Forex, will ease and things will gradually stabilize. But that is my view, but I am just a layman speaking from outside, we have a lot of economists, loads of them who advise the president. There are some economists who believe that government should not assist the population in anything, but devote everything in establishing infrastructure, and other bodies etc, and let the people derive their wealth by hard work. They don’t believe in assisting people who are down and so on. They believe there should be no subsidy in anything, that the naira should be floated, even though it’s a weak currency etc; all those economists, they are loud on the air, even during the Buhari era and now too. They claim to have a lot of authority on the issue of the economy. Of course, they are seeking the attention of Mr. President and you cannot also ignore them. That is part of the issue because for me as I said, the removal would not have been carried out the way it was done, I had expected the refineries to be working before any subsidy removal, but as I said, I am not an expert there, it is not my field. I can’t understand why Dangote refinery which was commissioned when Buhari was in power is not working till now. How can they explain that? Does it mean everybody was deceived? Maybe the present government must also have been deceived thinking that by July of this year they will start producing and so the problem of subsidy being removed will become irrelevant, because, almost everything will be produced locally. Questions ought to be raised on why Dangote refinery is still not producing after its commissioning in May, but Nigerians don’t raise questions. The issue needs to be questioned why is Dangote not producing? That needs to be questioned because we have 20 per cent stake in it. The future of Nigerians, our happiness will be based on what it is producing because ones you bring down the price of petrol to let’s say N200 or N300 there will be a dramatic change in the condition of Nigerians. I don’t know why they are being allowed to toy with Nigerians in this manner.
The judiciary, your constituency, is being accused of corruption, the cases where courts of the same jurisdiction give contradictory judgments have become worrisome. What is your take on this?
That is indiscipline among the judges. If a court has already decided a case and that court is of the same rank, there should be no reason for the judge to give another judgment contrary to it. The case should go up to a higher court. How can you have a case in Owerri and then you go to Kano to file at a Federal High Court in Kano and the law says all Federal High Courts are equal. That should not be allowed. For that, I blame the President of Court of Appeal, because if she had put her foot down that all matters should be dispensed in places where the event occurred, it will stop. You have an election matter in Port Harcourt, you rush to Kano to go and file another case and the Kano court seeing such oddity will still accept to allow the case to go on. This is indiscipline among the judiciary and it shouldn’t be allowed. I think the President of the court should insist that all cases be filed in the area where the event occurred. She should issue a directive that all cases must be tried in the jurisdiction within which it occurred and not taken outside such jurisdiction. It is things like this that are leading to corruption where you go and buy the judge far away, and your opponent will go to another place to look for another judge to buy. It must not be allowed to continue.