Mazi Afam Osigwe is the immediate past General Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, A former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Abuja Branch, A notary public and a member of Body of Benchers. He is the Founder and Managing partner of Law Forte, a law firm based in Abuja. In This First Part Exclusive and no hold barred interview, He shared with Bridget Edokwe of www.barristerNG.com, his thoughts on topical national issues, Federal Government Anti Corruption War and many more.



Bridget: Mazi, You recently lost your mum and uncle, once again from BarristerNG.com, accept our sincere condolence.

Afam: Thank you so very much.



Bridget: What is your reaction to numerous regional and tribal agitations happening in many parts of the Country?

Afam: My take on it is that all the agitations are attributable to failure of government. People feeling that government has not been fair to them. Government has treated them wrongly and government has been run in a manner that pander to the ethnic origin of those in power and people feel left out, people feel that there are laws which limit their ability to maximize their potentials and they don’t have a sense of being a part of the Federation and for as long as that lasts for so long will you have such agitations. People also have an entitlement mindset that because their region is part of the country produced the President, they are entitled to benefit more than others. I think that the inability so far to forge a nation, a merit-driven nation where people get things because they are entitled to it on merit has fueled this agitations. And if we are able to build a nation where people have a sense of belonging, it wouldn’t really matter where a president or governor comes from. That will be our first step towards building a nation and that will lead to a decline of these agitations if everybody feels that they are being treated equally. If there are equal opportunities in the Governance of the country; we will go a long way in assuaging these feelings.

Bridget: There is also a loud cry for restructuring of the political framework of the country. What is your view on restructuring?

Afam: My view is that the word restructuring as being used means different things for different people but then at the end of it all, is about building a nation, not a country, where people feel that they are compelled to belong to. If people feel that they belong to a nation that cares for them as individuals irrespective of their religion or creed or their tribe or places of origin; where people are free to reside where ever they want and are accepted as part of the nation, such issues leading to clamor for restructuring will be addressed. And then again, I also think that there is also need for devolution of power to the states. We have a Federal Government that is all powerful and many states feel that the Federal Government muscles them which is why the race for the top job in Nigeria is always an ethnic and religious based thing. Many people want to get it and some people feel that if you control the center, you gain more which is why we hear “oh we want an Igbo president” or “we want a president of Yoruba extraction” and such agitations. But when we build a nation and the real politics is in the States where people are close to the grassroots, some of these issues will be addressed and there will not be any more clamor for devolution of power and restructuring. Restructuring means really, changing the balance of power between the Federal Government and State Governments. So whoever attains leadership positions at the Federal Government as President will not be seen as a person who dispenses favor but a person who governs according to law irrespective of you come from and people will have a more sense of belonging and certain items that presently fall in the exclusive legislative list will be given to the states to administer or take care of and the Federal government will be concerned with issues of defence and certain common issues are joined also and not get involved in education and setting standards of what you must do or not do in admitting people in the university even when such universities are privately funded. There are so many issues that need to be addressed really. Call it whatever name you want but these are some of the issues begging for answers and which people have to honestly sit down to address.



Bridget: What is your assessment of the Anti corruption war of the Present Federal Government?

Afam: I think it has been more of a news item, people has been convicted more in the media than in the courts. If you have been involved in some of the trials, you will see that investigations are shoddy, presentation of some of the cases are not well articulated. In a number of the cases, the charges are not well drafted and sometimes the prosecution does not appear serious or interested in diligently prosecuting the cases. So you see people getting convicted in the media with no charges filed against them; people being accused of so many things and nothing being done about it. We have not seen the will. You also see lack of coordination between the office of Attorney-General of the Federation and the prosecutorial agencies like the EFCC and ICPC. In some cases you will believe and rightly so that they are working at cross purposes and it has not helped the war. And also the fact that so many people feel that the fight against corruption is lopsided and that if you belong to particular political party or faction within a party, you may be exempt from prosecution. These are some of the things that have not engendered confidence in the fight against corruption. It has been more of a sloganeering affair than a real fight to eradicate corruption from our society because people feel that those who are close to the present government do not get the kind of attention that those who are not friends of government or those who are not in government get. The prosecution is sometimes carried out in a manner that panders more to appearance than to really securing conviction. The message appears to be: “Oh we are fighting corruption”.

Unserious, shoddy or half-hearted prosecution will almost always fail. Courts deal with evidence presented in the course of trials. When there isn’t enough evidence to convict, they must acquit no matter how much noise has been made in the public space. In any case, it’s has not been all bad news. I must acknowledge that there have been some excellent investigation and prosecution. Some have resulted in convictions while some trials are ongoing. . So I am of the firm view there is need for better coordination. There is also need for those involved in the fight to show more dedication to it. Be more focused and not to unduly politicize it or seek to get millage in the media. The efforts should be concentrated on the real war which relies on forensic investigation and spade work, so that by the time matters are taken to court, they will be able to have a water-tight case with a huge chance of resulting in a conviction.



Bridget: Notwithstanding the dramatic way Judges and some Judicial officials were arrested, the Federal Government is yet to get a conviction on any judicial officer. Is this a proof that the Judiciary is free from corruption?

Afam: No arm of government is free from corruption but focusing on the Judiciary as if it is the problem of the fight against corruption is like trying to find a scapegoat so that one arm of government will appear like the saint while the other will appear like the devil. While there need to root out corruption whether in the Judiciary or the Executive, we must call a spade a spade. Like I said earlier, the Judiciary deals with facts presented before courts during trials. It does not go out to fish for evidence. No matter how a judge feels about a case, if the facts and evidence placed before him do not tend to show that there is ground for conviction, the judge must acquit. It is not about the issue of morality, it is not about the issue of “I feel and believe this man is guilty”. The evidence must bear that out beyond reasonable doubt. If the government is serious, there must be a coordinated fight between the investigative and prosecutorial agencies. Nobody should blame the Judiciary for the acquittal of people charged with various acts of corruption and or financial crimes. A court must not convict simply because the government wants a conviction very badly or because the court of public opinion favours it.

Courts deal with facts. In criminal matters such cases must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. And I say this also bearing in mind that some conviction secured at the High Courts were recently upturned by the court of Appeal. One may refer to the acquittal of former MD of Nigerian Ports Authority and a number of cases that have gone on Appeal. Sometimes, these cases are not well investigated like I said earlier and or are not well prosecuted. The evidence is not there and sometimes the charges are not well drafted to secure conviction and the government could also make use of the plea bargain procedure contained in laws to secure more convictions. The idea is about securing conviction and recovery of assets. If you make noise and you are still not able to get there, then there is something wrong with the fight against corruption.

It is in our best interest that the fight against corruption is seriously waged because it is our commonwealth that is being frittered away. When people steal these monies, they steal what belongs to everybody. They are thereby responsible for that woman who dies at childbirth because the drugs is not there or the doctors are on strike because they are not paid or the roads are not fixed and should could not get to hospital in good time to be attended. They are responsible for that child who is unable to get education because the school is not there or because there are no books and the teachers are not motivated to teach. They are responsible for every bad thing that happens in our society. They are also responsible for the insecurity in our society. So it is in our collective interest that we wage a successful war against corruption. But in waging this war we must focus on the real issues and be result-oriented and do the right things and not seek who to blame or seek to always say we did our best but somebody sabotaged it. That kind of mindset must be discouraged. We need to weed out corruption if we don’t totally do that, we must reduce it to the barest minimum so that the cost of doing business will be reduced; so that there will be more public confidence in government; so that people will have a fair view and good perception of government; so that people will no longer see government as a bazaar where you go to get as much as you can. We must do the right thing so that people will spend less and less in getting things done; so that people will have access to health care, education and so many other things that make for better living and which so many of our people run away to foreign countries to get. And unfortunately too, as laughable as it is, those who steal these monies, when they are sick run abroad. When they move, they move with so much security because, as is said, ‘the rich man cannot sleep because the poor man is hungry’. At the end of the day we are all casualties just like JP Clark will say. We are all in it. No matter how much you get as ill-gotten wealth, you still suffer the same discomfort everybody suffers. So why don’t we ensure that the money remains in public coffers for the good of the society.



Bridget: Can it be said then that the federal government is not using its best hands to fight the war against corruption?

Afam: Well it is a mixture of the two. Sometimes when government makes it look as if, if this fight is not fought by Mr A, then this fight cannot be won. When we promote strong men, sometimes we may bypass the people that can actually do that work better than others because we have a fixation on a person or maybe we want to put our own person there not necessarily a person that has a track record. Public appointments in Nigeria is bedeviled by appointment of wrong persons either based on party patronage, tribal patronage or religious patronage. So most times these people don’t do the right thing, so ultimately the system does not work.



Bridget: Is the sensational Arrest of some Judicial officers and the manner the Federal Government has carried on its anti-corruption campaign affecting the relationship between the Executive and the Judiciary?

Afam: I will not be in a hurry to say it is not affecting it. It may be a natural consequence because there are those who believe that raid was intended to make the Judiciary look bad. Now, that operation was called a sting operation but from emerging facts there was no sting in that operation because my understanding of sting operations is that you have credible information that there is evidence, more like a smoking gun and then you move in to catch those persons with the requisite evidence required to secure conviction. When you look at the totality of it, you will have your doubts for Example, the house of honorable Justice Dimgba was raided and nothing was found. His case files were taken away and it turns out that it was because he had a face-off with the SSS over a matter in his court. Honourable Justice Okoro’s house was raided. The Judge gave account of how the money in his account was acquired. He was never charged to court. The house of Honorable Justice Muazu Pindiga was raided weeks after the petition written against him by the SSS was dismissed by the NJC and nothing was ever heard about that yet he was arrested in the “sting operation”. The house of Honorable Justice Umezurike was a week prior to that day recommended for compulsory retirement by the NJC was raided. And presently he is standing trial not on account of anything found in his house (as nothing was found) but for what have been in public domain leading to the petition against him that parties before him gave him money in a manner that was contrary to code for judicial officers. When you look at the whole cases, the SSS also said they wanted to raid the house of one Justice of a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt but they went to a wrong house. Till date, the same judge it claimed is a distributor of bribe from parties in suit to other judges has never been arraigned in court. I am not aware if he was ever invited for questioning. When you look at the whole thing, you want to strongly believe that that particular operation was intended to smear and paint the Judiciary in a bad light and not really intended to weed out corruption in the Judiciary. Should the corruption in the Judiciary be weeded out? It should by all means. Should it be done in good faith? For Sure!. Has it been done in good faith at this time? I don’t think so. And that’s my worry about that. And if you look at the number of them and Honorable Justice Ademola, that was acquitted, if you look at how the trial went, it would appear that the exonerative evidence that led to his acquittal came from an SSS witness. It makes you really wonder what this was all about. I don’t want to address the issue whether SSS should be involved in such raid. They should not. They should restrict their activities to matters of internal security. It would also appear to be the wrong use of security agencies to do a job that has become questionable. That has actually been more lampooned than praised.

Bridget: Some of the Judges were arrested in the middle of the night and their houses searched by DSS operatives. Was the timing of the Search and Arrest wrong?

Afam: Well, the ACJA would appear to have moved the law, a lot further. A search can be conducted at any time of the day and day in this sense does not mean the technical day in the criminal code or Penal code. If you have credible evidence that a man has something in his house, rightly thinking, you shouldn’t wait for day break because that evidence could be disappeared. I have nothing with the timing but I have everything against the modus operandi. The credibility of the information that led to the raid and the manner it was carried out as well as the sensational way news items emanating from it were being planted in the media and at the end of the day, there are only two prosecutions going on. And the raid was supposed to have taken place with credible evidence, smoking gun in those homes and now there are not enough charges in court to justify the media blitz that followed the raids. I worry more about that.

Bridget: APC Led government has been accused of human right abuses and disrespect to valid court Orders. What is your take on this?

Afam: My take on it is that every government that wants to fight corruption must also show an excellent respect for the rule of law. For the courts because the executive needs the courts to fight the war. The trials must take place in court and the same federal government goes to court to secure orders to detain People. So where the same court has given order that persons be released, the government must comply. El-Zakzaky and Dasuki are two sore thumbs in this regard. Detaining people for long periods of time without charging them to court, putting up news items, damaging people’s reputation, never apologizing, never charging them to court, to my mind are obvious cases of abuse of human rights. It speaks of the government as one that has scant regards for human rights of its citizens and a government must engender confidence in its ability to treat all manner of men fairly as well as its readiness to respect the rule of law. The government must respect the rule of law. If the government is not able to do that, it may also trigger a corresponding lack of respect for the law by the citizenry. And at the end of the day, the government will be the bigger victim of it. There may be break down of law and order. It may explain why people are continually taking the laws into the hands, meting out jungle justice, threatening the unity of the country, breathing fire and brimstone and engaging in all manner of brigandage. An unwillingness on the part of any government not only to respect the rule of law but to enforce it, ultimately leads to break-down of law and order. You her such things as ‘No election will be held in this state, and nobody dares try to conduct elections here”, “Oh, we will expel you from our own part of the country, if you don’t leave, we will do this”. And watch out, there may be killing associated with such things too because people feel that the government is not doing the right thing to stem the tide of lawlessness or to do the lawful thing. People lynch alleged thieves or kidnappers, communities go to war against one another, herdsmen kill people etc: nobody is investigated, nobody is brought to book. People feel that we are approaching the hobbesian state of nature where man has become wolves unto another because the government has not shown a firm commitment to fight this malaise in our society. So they are worrisome signals. Whether it be at the States. Not only federal government, so many states are also guilty of it. If you criticize them on Facebook, or social media, they trace you in any part of Nigeria and bring you to the state and arrest you, calling it all manner of names: Cyber Stalking, Criminal Defamation, and we should watch it because the level of intolerance by those in positions of authority is increasing. Even recently extending to an alleged order by a speaker of a state house of Assembly to his orderly to shoot Road Safety people on duty because they dared stop his wife’s car to book her about an alleged traffic violation. It is increasing and it can only get worse.



Bridget: What do you think is the way forward in the War against corruption?

Afam : If we fight a genuine war aimed at rooting out corruption from our society, we do the right thing, we put the Judiciary to very good use, we do lifestyle audit for those in public office, if your earning is one million Naira but you fly business class that cost millions of naira, your children attend schools where they pay thousands of dollars and it seems from your lifestyle, from your pay that you cannot sustain your lifestyle, it is a good starting point and we do this without fear or favour of who is involved and have an even-handed fight against corruption. We dwell more on the media mileage we get by talking and talking and pulling down institutions and if a court discharges and acquit anybody, we criticize it and make it look as if the judges have taken bribe, are deliberately sabotaging the war against corruption, lack a good knowledge of the law or are even “stupid”. Even in the absence of clear evidence to sustain such views, we criticize the judiciary for being the weak link in the fight against corruption. No person acres that proper and thorough investigation to sustain the charges were not carried out. Proper and thorough investigation should be carried out. Prosecutors should never rush to court until they have built up a good case. If we continue the total reliance on alleged confessional statement by suspects without doing a corresponding investigation to back up whatever statement were obtained, building up a case that can be sustained beyond reasonable doubt, increasing the forensic ability of our investigating agencies regarding this, we are wasting time. Of course you have to have the political will too, to appoint the right persons and give them institutional support and insulate them and fund them very well and make sure that those who also risk their lives in either investigating or prosecuting these cases are not only well remunerated but there is security of their lives as well as that of their properties.



Bridget: President Buhari has been away on medical vacation for more than 3 months. What is your assessment of the Acting President so far?

Afam: Well I think in the circumstances, the Vice President has done well but the uncertainty as to whether the president is returning any time soon we know will ham-strung him and it appears there are vested interest bent on seeing that the Acting President does not fully exercise the powers of that office. As I don’t want go into the realm of politics and I would rather wait to see what happens in the coming weeks. I think the president has been away for too long and if he is no longer capable of discharging the functions of his office, then something should give so that the nation will move forward. I don’t think it serves the society any good for us to have governors trooping down to London take pictures with the president just to prove that he is alive and well. If the president is really healthy as he is made out to be, the President should release a video recording speaking to Nigerians. We all get sick and some sicknesses may take longer than others to heal. If that is the case with the President, we want to know but if it is such that the President cannot discharge the functions of his office either as a result of old age or infirmity of the body or the mind, especially of the body, then the nation should not be held down. We should be able to move forward because having an Acting President means that there are certain decisions he may not want to take without clearing with the President. And if it is in doubt whether the President is in such a situation as to discuss these problems and be able to proffer solutions and reach an agreement with the Acting President, we will also have a problem in that regard because it means that some of these decisions may not get taken or some persons may purport to be conveying the position of the President actually be exercising presidential power by proxy notwithstanding that we have an Acting President. This is also a very big problem and could give room for mischief and will slow down governance. There is no way an acting President who finds himself in this kind of situation would be able to do much or would be able to at least do as much as he would do if the extent of his powers are fully utilized.