Ahmad: Buhari Has Bungled the Fight against Corruption
Peaker of the Kwara State House of Assembly, Dr Ali Ahmad has faulted the approach adopted by President Muhammadu Buhari in fighting corruption, saying the president should have known that he could not rely on the judiciary to rid Nigeria of corruption. H
Amendment of the Electoral Act to reorder election sequence has continued to create disaffection in some quarters in the country, do you think the amendment is in order? Nigeria as a nation, we do not learn. I don’t know why we engage in politics. I know a lot of people engage in politics to better the lives of the people but in Nigeria, I think politics is an end in itself. We get into politics just to be in politics, perhaps to make money or to be visible. I don’t know why some people play politics because if you get into politics with an agenda to achieve something or to help your people, we wouldn’t be doing this thing that we are doing. A lot of people are frustrated about Nigeria. We are not losing hope. But it is like constant motion without movement.
We were in this exact same situation in 2003. I wrote an opinion, which was unusual for a lawyer like myself but it was deliberate. In 2002, there was amendment in the then section 15 about reordering of the election sequence and timing. INEC went to court, that is the only difference. Now, it wasn’t INEC. INEC went to Federal High Court. Justice Okeke said National Assembly has the power. INEC appealed and National Assembly also cross appealed on some issues and the Court of Appeal said no, National Assembly did not have the power. So, there is a split.
The best thing to do was to go to the Supreme Court so that we have a finality. It never happened. So, today, we are the same situation. A year before election, there is amendment, some busy bodies went to court. Another difference here is that in 2002, Justice Okeke waited until National Assembly finished with the passage of the bill before he took charge. Here, Justice Mohammed couldn’t wait; he was so much in a hurry that he did what he did. It was unprecedented. We have never seen it in any democracy in the whole wide world and not to talk of Nigeria. As I said, we have similar situation but what Justice Mohammed did has never been done. Lawyers would always come but judge would listen to any lawyer to decide or determine something that is still ongoing an embryo, which might even be still born anyway. So, you don’t kill an embryo before it is born. So, what Justice Mohammed did is condemnable judicially and everybody should condemn that order. I’m talking now so that nobody tells me that what I’m doing is prejudicial. I’m commenting on the order that he gave, and I have constitutional right as a lawyer and Nigerian to do that. So, that order that the National Assembly should stop midway is to me unjudicial, unjudicious, undiscretionarial and we shouldn’t allow it to stand because it will lay a precedent.
Our decisions and resolutions as politicians do not have presidential value. In fact, it is the opposite. What you did today is not what you would do tomorrow as a politician. But as a judicial officer, what you did today is necessarily what you must do tomorrow. That is why everybody should condemn it so that in 2023 when there is another amendment to an electoral act, another judge would not come and rush. That precedent should never be allowed to stand really.
Your reaction to the looters list released by the federal government? Well, I would say whoever is preparing that list is taking Nigeria for a ride. Apart from being one sided, if you ask them why it is one sided, you would see APC members there as those who are not in agreement with them. So, looters list is opposition list. Those who are opposed to the power brokers in the APC. There are those who have looted and whose investigation had been carried out and their names are not on the list. They take Nigerians for a ride.
The people whose names are on the list are undergoing trial in law courts. What is the implication of this? It is prejudicial to mention the names of those who are still answering to the charges. Because those people can go to the judge and ask that those people should be summoned and come and answer why they have pronounced them guilty before the judge does his job. In preparing those lists, I think those ministers don’t have a lot of things to do.
Should corruption attract capital punishment? You provide capital punishment as a deterrent and not as an exemplary punishment. Capital punishment should be reserved for those heinous crimes. If Nigerians believe that corruption, which will mean, financial crime has graduated and we need that to control that, so be it. It must be determined by the solution to that problem. But I don’t think we have taken necessary steps to provide death penalty. As we are today, I will oppose it because you will kill wrong people. You prosecute the people you hate and protect the people you love. I will not support death sentence with that definition of corruption.
How do you think corruption can be curbed in Nigeria?
I have never spared a moment to tell. I delivered a lecture at NUJ Ibadan when this government is less than six months and I told them that you cannot fight corruption in Nigeria the way EFCC or Federal Government is fighting it. From day one, you know our court system is slow. Even with the administration of criminal justice, it has reduced it by 40 or 50 percent. But it is still slow. You have only four years. How can you place your number one priority on a platform that you know it is beyond your control? You cannot fight corruption judicially. What you can do is to sit down. Let Nigerians buy into this war on corruption. Let us name and shame corrupt people, strengthen these institutions that we have told you; the state assemblies, the National Assembly.
So, you strengthen these institutions, get the buy-in of Nigerians, which is zero at the moment; nobody believes you are fighting corruption. When you place that priority on the door of judiciary and after three years you are telling me, we warned you. If we didn’t warn you, you should know that you cannot fight corruption in four years through the judiciary. There are alternative ways.
Plea bargaining even in the ACJA is not being utilised. In US, plea bargaining is not part of their law but they are utilising it knowing that the criminal justice system is terribly slow. People even want to do plea bargaining, you said no. I have never seen this kind of country.
Some judges are now even attacking EFCC. A Federal High Court threw out a case and said I’m not prosecuting any case from EFCC because you guys are not fighting corruption. If we have a government that wants to fight corruption today, it will have to sit down with Nigerians.
Then how do we go about it, judiciary is the last resort. The cases that would be judicially determined would be very few, and we have these mass cases resolved within one year and Nigeria moves forward, so that when the citizens abhor corruption and they know that you are really fighting corruption, they would be reporting it. And once they report, you have the evidence, you collect your money back, you name and shame him, he is convicted within one month and the president or governor does whatever he wants.
We are just wasting our time with this one. I have said it since 2015 and I would continue to say it because it pains me. The best person that Nigeria has ever had since independence to fight corruption is Buhari but he bungled it and I can’t see him correcting it.
President Muhammadu Buhari recently declared to seek for second term in office in 2019 even though many are of the view that he has not performed. Well, he (Buhari) has the constitutional right. I’m talking now as a lawyer. That would be my answer to it. Politically speaking. I’m not qualified to comment on that because now I’m a local politician. But I will always want our party to win. Those who are saying APC has not delivered, it is their own personal opinion.
Some Nigerians say the president is not strong enough to pilot the affairs of the country. As a citizen of Nigeria, how do you respond to that? As I said, I’m a local politician. I will bring it down to Kwara State, and that reflected in Kwara State when the Offa incident happened. We were all saddened. I received so many calls from everywhere and I even know that the Senate President cut short his visit to come the following day but the federal government that is in control of the security apparatus lost a lot of men including policemen even if civilian lives are not worth anything to them.
I will score APC or whoever is at the federal government very low. If I’m in Kwara and this thing happened and the person that is in control of security didn’t do anything until 72 hours later, it is an afterthought. I’m disappointed. And if you asked me to go with whoever is in charge, I will think twice. It is unfortunate.
The issue of autonomy for states’ houses of assembly remains the priority of the National Assembly. How far has that struggle gone? We are very happy this time. We have 24 houses of assembly. We had only two or three states voting against. And I’m sure those states are regretting now. We are sure Mr President would assent to that bill. We have assurances from members the federal executive and members of the kitchen cabinet that Mr President would sign it. When this thing happens, I think Nigerians should celebrate because we need to strengthen institutions. Once you strengthened the National Assembly, you strengthen the office of the Auditor General, EFCC would just be dealing with some issues. EFCC cannot even tackle what goes on in the federal alone. If you allow me 10 percent, EFCC is not going after federal civil servants who get involved in over 60 percent of corruption nationally. EFCC is not going to states where governors are governor generals. So, when houses of assembly become independent, when federal and state auditors general become independent and looking at state governors at a distance and do their report, they wouldn’t give it to him. Their report would go to the house of assembly. That is independent.
The best person that Nigeria has ever had since Independence to fight corruption is Buhari but he bungled it and I can’t see him correcting it