What of the problem of prisons congestion?

It is believed that members of the House of Assembly are in the pockets of the state governors

That is not true, here in Kwara State, there is a mutual relationship between the executive and the legislature and one is not in the pocket of another, we have been performing our legislative duties without any harassment from the executive. Governor Ahmed is a democrat, he respects the legislators and we get our dues and we are working under the right atmosphere. Nobody is gagging us and we will not confront the executive unnecessarily. We are partners in the progress of the state

Plea bargaining is not a concept that has been accepted by the generality of the people, now that it is going to be part of our law, are you convinced that we need it and we should legalise it?

I have been involved in two public hearings and debates and they came out in favour of it. If anybody reads those sections, the chapter on plea bargaining, 270-285 or so, you cannot but agree with it. A lot of people who disagree with plea bargaining have not read those sections; once you give it to them, they read it and say: Okay, why don’t you do this? That was my impression at the public hearing. Only ICPC objected to it, and at the Law Reform Commission, they did a conference yesterday the report I am getting, even though they have not submitted a formal report, is that only the ICPC is objecting, but everybody else, all the judges, all the heads of court, from the CJN, Court of Appeal, Chief Justices of FCT, Federal High Court and Industrial Court, all of them are in support.

In 2012, when the Halliburton matter came up, we sat down with the AG and said let it be the last plea bargaining that you would do in Nigeria until we have reliable rules, verifiable rules, that everybody can look at and say you followed the rules. Fortunately, this bill came and everything was there. The problem with plea bargaining is ad-hoc plea bargaining; you will always have problems with ad-hoc plea bargaining. What we have been doing in Nigeria is ad-hoc plea bargaining, that is why we have been having problems and we will continue to have problems. But for now once this bill is passed it will no longer be ad-hoc plea bargaining, it is proper plea bargaining and you cannot but accept it because it lays down the rules, the steps, that you as a prosecutor, as an accused, as a judge and everybody will follow and you should do it in the interest of the public. You have to convince everybody that what you are doing is in the interest of the public. If anybody says he is against plea bargaining let him read those sections, we will be on the same page. Plea bargaining should apply to all offences where it is applicable, I want people to first read those 15 sections regarding plea bargaining and then come in and say despite this, it should be restricted to, or it should be involved with, sexual offences, financial crimes, etc. Let me take the general rules of plea bargaining, why for God’s sake are we regulating plea bargaining? The issue we set out to address in this bill is about reforming the delay in criminal justice, we want speedy dispensation of criminal justice, that is the fundamental objective, so if plea bargaining is going to assist in that direction, why not.

Now in our prisons, we have over 35,000 Nigerians, awaiting trial, some of them justifiably so. If you are a policeman you will say no way, those people can’t be released, because you have some evidence that the person committed the offence, but because the standard of proof is so high they cannot secure conviction, the best option is to keep the gentleman there for five years, 10 years, 15 years. This is the reality in Nigeria, so look at those 35,000 Nigerians, maybe someone committed a sexual offence and maybe the family says we don’t want this case to go on, as usual with sexual offences. The only option left for police is to keep him locked up, so if plea bargaining becomes part of our law, the policeman, the investigator, the prosecutor will now meet him, that look, we have evidence, but we cannot secure conviction because there is no medical record, because the witness is not coming forward, but if you plead guilty, because we know you did it, instead of giving you 15 years, we will give you five years and you will go. If the man agrees - there is no compulsion - you give him five years and if he has served the five years he has a criminal record. Mind it, he must be convicted - plea bargaining doesn’t mean that he should go free - so his record is dented. And now we have a central registry, all criminals, all the people convicted will be there, we have the records for him. That is number one dent on his record. Secondly, he will serve his prison term for 5 years, so for him it is justice, for the system it is justice.

People should read all those things before they now say it shouldn’t apply to this or that. It should apply to every crime except somebody can convince me that these sections, if applied to this scenario, would not work. 90 per cent of federal cases in the USA are negotiated through plea bargaining, because even in the US they have bigger problems against the application of plea bargaining than Nigeria. In Nigeria, we don’t have much inhibition to make plea-bargaining inapplicable. In the US they have to battle with the issue of constitutional provision that every criminal trial should be by grand jury; that is expensive and time consuming, so they can’t afford it. And they can’t amend the constitution, so what is the leeway? Plea bargaining.

The US with all their investigative powers, if they cannot go on, they don’t want to go by grand jury, they now call you, that you have to plea bargain, this is the evidence and you will see it, if you go to trial, you will lose. Instead of you going into trial, instead of the state spending a lot of money and wasting the court’s time, you plea bargain. Instead of 10 years, you get five years, but you refund everything. So why not Nigeria?

There have been calls for the merging of ICPC, EFCC. Do you support this call?

The way those two agencies are operating is a disservice to Nigeria. The fundamental issue is this: during Obasanjo, ICPC was enacted in 2000, EFCC I think in 2004. ICPC is for corrupt practices, it is very wide. EFCC is narrow; it is for financial crimes, bank fraud, credit card fraud, etc. Because Obasanjo strengthened EFCC and EFCC became very powerful, you now have that hangover up till the present day. People who should be tried under ICPC Act, once you arrest them you ask the EFCC -which is to me like an attack dog - to go after them. When EFCC goes after them and does all the brigandage and now goes to the hallowed chambers of the court, it is confronted with reality. Its substantive provisions do not support the prosecution. We know that in Nigeria we have this interagency rivalry, so what they do is now to go to the penal code, a 100 year old law, because they cannot use the ICPC section. The question will now arise: why is ICPC not prosecuting? These are the fundamental issues.

From investigation, ICPC should come in. They have enough laws to prosecute. EFCC is not important. I said it when I was AG. The President has said it. The fundamental problem of Nigeria is corruption. The most corrupt people in Nigeria are civil servants. The President said it, everybody knows it. How many politicians? I can show you the budget, they bury N5 million all over, by the time you add it, it will be about N500 million. ICPC is there and we are pushing EFCC. The prosecutor shouldn’t have prosecuted under the Penal Code. Why Penal Code? Penal Code that allows you to impose a fine of N150 for somebody who stole N1 billion, when we have ICPC law that doesn’t even have option of fine?

While in the House, I undertook a tour of all the existing prison services across the country to ascertain the condition of prisoners. I then mapped out a plan to decongest the prisons, give the structures a facelift, and change the conditions of the prisoners with the aim of making them better persons at the end of their jail terms. The tour assisted me to set a new agenda for the prison services in the country. Administration of Criminal Justice Bill is meant to change the condition of the prisons and tackle the awaiting trial syndrome in the country. It has up to 500 clauses and several schedules and has been described as a revolution in the justice sector for its innovative provisions. The Administration of Criminal Justice Bill was passed by the House in December 2013, supported by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Attorney General of the Federation, and the legislature.

The Administration of Criminal Justice Bill aims, among others, seeks to address the issue of prison congestion through a robust system for reporting detentions and a mandatory monthly visit of detention facilities by magistrates. Other measures include limiting the number of adjournments and moderating rules on plea bargain and compensation or restitution to victims of crimes.

When the Administration of Criminal Justice Bill becomes implementable, it is expected that criminal trials that hitherto lasted about 12 years would no longer take more than a few months to a year or two to conclude.