Enoidem: PDP Had 122 Cases in High Courts, 44 in Courts of Appeal , 27 at the Supreme Court, We Won 90%
Okon Bassey holds a conversation with the immediate past National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP National Legal Adviser and National Chairman of Maintain Peace Movement, Mr. Emmanuel Enoidem
On his achievements as PDP National Legal Adviser We thank God for the four years that spanned between December 10, 2017 and December 9, 2021, which is the period I served as a National Legal Adviser of PDP. It was a very challenging moment but at the end of the day, when we look back we can thank God for all the things He has enabled us to achieved.
Without being boastful, I didn’t meet a place that can be properly called a legal department of any organization for that matter. I didn’t meet a single copy of any book on law. I didn’t meet an office space that was habitable but by the grace of God, by the time I left, I left a place that can be called a Law Chamber, a properly, so called law department.
I went and did a fantastic renovation of the office space that was given to us and bought relevant office equipment and furniture out of my pocket. I’m not talking of what I got money from the party to do and we got some law books to furnishe the Chambers to make the office a legal department and of course, there was no single lawyer on employment in the department but by the time I left, I left two lawyers that we recruited. The two of them are more than 10 years old at the bar who are now permanent staff of the legal department for the first time in the history of the legal department.
In terms of litigation, we went round the country, I think this is the first time, and I am not being boastful here, this is the first time that the legal department has been able to prosecute up to 122 cases in the different High Courts in the country, 44 cases in the different Courts of Appeal in the country and 27 cases at the Supreme Court for the first time directly from the legal department.
Before we went there, most of the cases were given out to different lawyers in the country. For instance, we inherited a debt of more than N4 billion out of which more than N3 billion came from the legal department alone, from different lawyers from all over the country. But as at the time I left, I did not leave one kobo in debt for the legal department, not a Kobo was incurred under my watch for any legal fees from any lawyer anywhere in the country. It’s not just about the number of cases I am talking about here, a number of wins were also made.
Of all the 122 cases in the different High
Courts in the country, 88 of those cases were done to completion, and then of the 44 cases in the Courts of Appeal, all of them were done to completion. Of the 27 cases in the Supreme Court, all of them were done to completion. The only one that remains in the Supreme Court is one case that is awaiting judgement. We have taken the brief, we have adopted the brief and the case was adjourned to the January 21, 2022 for judgement.
Then of course we won all the 27 cases we had in the Supreme Court, except one. Then we won 42 out of 44 cases in the Courts of Appeal and lost only 2; and then out of 2 we lost, we won one of them at the Supreme Court remaining the one I said we lost. And of the 88 that we completed at the various High Courts, we won 78 of them, and those we lost we won at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court except one. In other words, we had like 90% litigation success in all the courts across the country.
For me, this is a record that stands challengeable, I want somebody to go there and challenge those records.
Apart from all of these, we also were able to raise the moral of the staff in the department because some of them that did not have promotion, we were able to secure promotion for them which also raised their moral and made them more committed to work for the department. Some may ask what was the process, what did you do to be able to leave the department in a zero free debt.
Another strategy I adopted apart from massive litigation through increase the capacity in the department was whenever we had a case from far flung areas or states that we cannot go, maybe because of insecurity, we’ll call a leader in that state and ask him to fund the case for the party. And I thank God all the leaders, everyone we’ve ever called responded positively and also took up those cases and nominated lawyers for us that is good by their own account and then we appoint the lawyer for that case and then they will fund it.
Most of the states that we couldn’t go and we have to resort to this procedure and they cooperated with us. It was by the grace of God. These were the things we adopted to ensure that the legal department performed optimally and we can look back and say we are very happy for what happened.
On Akwa Ibom State not having an officer in the new PDP NWC
What happened was that the Governor in his wisdom thinks that since Akwa Ibom State is already very strong as a PDP state since 1998 till today, winning all the elections all the way, we are already very familiar with the environment, the terrain, the party is a household name in Akwa Ibom State, there is need to strengthen other states that are not PDP states by allowing them to get nomination into the national offices.
For me, it was an unimpeachable wisdom even though I would have loved to have somebody at the national level but for me that reason was very impersonal and it’s also very strong for the party. It’s unimpeachable, something you cannot fault. So that’s the justification for not having someone at the national level this time around.
On PDP losing the 2015 presidential election after 16 years in power.
I don’t like crying over spilled milk. But I believe that as a political party we (PDP) made some mistakes and one of the foremost mistakes we made was to renege on our zonal arrangement in the sense that in 2015 power was supposed to return to the North by our zoning arrangement but the party in fielding Jonathan which was not a very popular decision and apart from just fielding Jonathan, the party also did not take into consideration the sentiment of the North.
And it is not a rumour that there was a gentleman’s agreement by Jonathan that he will serve one term when Yaradua died, it’s not a rumour, it is a common place knowledge that Jonathan had promised that he will do one term but he reneged on those promises by insisting that he wants to go for a second term. Those were the weak points that contributed to the loss.
Then of course, another reason was that the managers of the process of the election also gave out the works of the party during the election to what they called TAN and that was the major mistake of the party because party politics is better run by the managers of the political party at all time. But what happened was that the entirety of the structure and procedures of the campaign was given out to TAN and TAN began to be as if it was an alternate platform, having offices all over the country, in all the states.
For me, that was a very demoralizing decision, it was a major mistake in the prosecution of the 2015 general election and that made us to have the outcome we had. We laid the foundation for it. It wasn’t because Nigerians did not love PDP. It wasn’t at all but it was because PDP made a lot of mistakes. And the third point I will make here is that PDP also did not recognize internal democracy which would have been promotional of local interest, promotional of the best person for any office in the country was not also respected. We behaved as if we were Lords and masters unto ourselves and we are not running democracy.
We’ll go and upturn primary election results in some states even if it was clear that this person won and in those days Ghana-must-go bags were flying about in the national secretariat of the PDP. These were some of the things that contributed to the failure of PDP at the national election and I stand to be corrected.