A Professor and His Love for Controversy
Since his appointment as the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) has displayed an inexplicable obsession with controversy, sometimes drawing the ire of the public which once revered him, Davidson Irie
Indeed, there is hardly any week that the former law teacher has not issued a fiery statement aimed at some hapless foes or to rationalise an action of the government. In doing so, the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay has made himself more visible than any government official in the President Muhammadu Buhari-administration.
To many analysts, such magisterial pronouncements are incompatible with the office he occupies which is largely advisory - not one vested with executive powers.
From the day he was tapped to chair the PACAC, he has been unsparing in his criticisms of the judges, lawyers and members of the National Assembly. This intense passion has made him often reflexive, inevitably putting him on a collision course with former colleagues alike who are outraged at his seeming assumption that the legal system could be transformed overnight.
There is no doubt that corruption is a hugely emotive subject in Nigeria, but it’s not in doubt too that Sagay has frequently gone beyond his core mandate to that point where emotion trumps logic.
First was when the Supreme Court delivered judgment in the Rivers and Akwa Ibom states governorship poll. While everybody, including the victors and the vanquished had apparently moved on, not so for Sagay. In several analyses and interviews, he kept denouncing the justices even when they had given the reasons that informed their decisions. To him, the reasons were not tenable. Based on the reactions of some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, it did not take long for Nigerians to know why Sagay was angry.
Then came the Peter Odili’s case. Even when it was obvious that the EFCC did not diligently handle the case against the former governor of Rivers State, Sagay has kept on making it look as if the order of perpetual injunction by Justice Ibrahim Buba was stupid. At every interval, he would refer to the case as a bad omen for the war against corruption. Of course, as a professor of law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria he knows it’s trite that he who asserts must prove, and that once a sufficient and relevant evidence have not been adduced, then it is he who is unable to produce the evidence that fails in his case.
Sagay also showed a seeming indiscretion when he lambasted two Supreme Court judges, Justices John Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta, for levelling allegations of bribery against the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi. The two justices in separate letters to the immediate past Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmoud Mohammed, alleged that Amaechi sought to influence their judgments in election petitions before them in favour of the APC. Rather than confirm from the former CJN the veracity of claims that the two justices had petitioned him in that regard, Sagay evidently took sides and swiftly concluded that the outburst by the two justices was surprising given that it was totally unrelated to the raids of their premises, their arrest and subsequent charges. He further noted that men of such standing should not indulge in diversionary activities in the face of grave charges against them. To Sagay, justice is only one way.
To him, the fight against corruption should not go hand in hand with the rule of law. Anybody who is accused of corruption should not defend himself/herself but must be instantly pronounced guilty and jailed. On many occasions, he has taken his fight to his colleagues in the legal profession, accusing them of frustrating the war against corruption forgetting that they are merely doing their jobs. The professor of law once publicly advocated stiff punishment for counsel, particularly senior advocates, who have, in his opinion, routinely obstructed and frustrated proceedings in high-profile corruption cases in the country. This recommendation came even when he knows that a defendant is entitled to a counsel.
It’s instructive that while the professor of law railed against the opposition, the political party on whose platform he was appointed openly applauded him, but once he apparently failed to discern the red line, he was promptly cautioned.
When the Senate in a unanimous decision, on March 28, stood down the confirmation of 27 Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following the continued retention of Ibrahim Magu as EFCC acting chairman by the president, Sagay labelled the Senate’s action as “childish” and “irresponsible”, describing the upper legislative house as a place filled with people of questionable characters. He even went as far as saying that the Senate does not have the powers to confirm Magu. Understandably, this did not go down well with the legislature, necessitating the call that he be summoned before the red chambers. The verdict from most lawmakers was straightforward: Sagay’s comment on the Senate’s power to confirm nominees of the president was disrespectful, uncouth more so, coming from a professor of law who ought to know better.
The protest would later compel the APC to publicly denounce and caution him to stop making statements that could further worsen the relationship between the executive and the legislature. A statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, said that such utterances could derail the party’s effort to make peace between both arms of government. The party specifically urged Sagay to exercise restraint in his comments and also charged him to desist from making utterances that might be misconstrued as an attack on the institution of the National Assembly.
“We believe the comments attributed to Sagay are uncalled for, regrettable and could further complicate the relationship between these vital arms of government. The party wishes to reiterate its earlier position admonishing all elected or appointed government officials to desist from utterances that may ruin efforts to build a harmonious relationship between the two arms of government. Sagay should not operate outside this admonition. Our expectation would be that as a law professor of repute, Sagay would appreciate the need not to denigrate the institutions of democracy, be it the executive, legislature or judiciary,’’ he said.
But if the lawmakers thought that would help moderate Sagay’s attacks, they were mistaken as the professor of law fired another salvo at them. This time, he said the enemies of the administration’s anti-corruption drive were in the National Assembly. He described the legislature as constituting itself into an opposition to the anti-corruption struggle efforts of the Buhari administration. “In fact, the National Assembly has constituted itself into opposition to the anti-corruption struggle. It has mounted a war against the anti-corruption struggle. It has decided to obstruct it at every stage,” he had said.
In unison, members of the National Assembly condemned him. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Matters, Senator Chukwuka Utazi in his reaction, said: “The National Assembly can never be an opposition to the anti-corruption war of the government. Rather, those who are the enemies of government and opposition to the anti-corruption war are the likes of Sagay and aides of the president who compromise their views, who see their views as only correct, who say one thing today and tomorrow they reverse themselves. We plead with PACAC to stop Sagay from speaking for it; instead let Professor Femi Odekunle who is in a better position to do that be speaking for the body for very obvious reasons.”
Senator Dino Melaye on his part said: “Sagay is speaking his age, he should not be taken seriously by anyone.”
However, the reverential tone still reflected in the lawmakers’ denunciation of Sagay was totally absent last week after he disparaged them in a public lecture organised by the Society of International Law, in Lagos. First, they called on Buhari to call the professor to order. They described him as a senile, loose cannon and one of the divisive elements in the president’s administration who believe their relevance is enhanced only when they create constant tension between the legislature and the executive, or pit members of the executives against one another.
Senate spokesman, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, in a strongly worded statement accused the former law teacher of using every opportunity to disparage the National Assembly, using uncouth and unprintable words to describe legislators and the institution.
“Ordinarily, we would ignore Sagay whose statements and attitude present him as a rascal and sadist instead of a former university teacher. However, his last speech in Lagos during which he was reeling out false and exaggerated figures about the salaries and allowances of legislators and also lied about the passage of anti-corruption bills showed that he just deliberately sets out to undermine the legislative institution and lower its reputation in the estimation of right thinking members of the society and we therefore believe we should put him in his rightful place….”
For sure, the brickbats between the legislators and Sagay look likely to continue. Yet, it’s unclear what sort of legacy a professor of law who built his public profile on account of years of advocacy for rule of law will leave behind after what seems like months of relentlessly canvassing a circumvention of that noble ideal. Could this be just another reminder that the idealistic and emotion-laden world of activism and the pragmatic world of politics do not mix? The answer will certainly be as fractious as the country’s politics.