Let’s Restructure To Make Executive Arm Work For Nigerians – Barr Okoye

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Barrister Festus Okoye, who is the Executive Director of Human Rights Monitor, says any form of restructuring that is carried out in Nigeria without consideration for justice, fairness, equity and good governance, will amount to naught. In this interview with AMOS TAUNA, he says if three countries are created out of Nigeria, the people would have only succeeded in decentralizing the problems. Okoye also spoke on the cold war between the presidency and the National Assembly over the non-confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), among other burning national issues. Excerpts:

What in your opinion is the constitutional provision on the screening and confirmation of appointees of the President by the Senate, taking into consideration the controversy surrounding the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Magu?
Well, l think that the National Assembly has been given very clear powers under the constitution. They have been given the power to make laws for the peace and good governance of Nigeria, they have the power of appropriation, power of representation and power to also confirm certain appointees of the President. The controversy relating to the confirmation or non-confirmation of Magu has to do with the interpretation that has been given to the section relating to the powers of the Senate to confirm certain appointees. The challenge here is that the issue of the confirmation of the chairman of EFCC and certain categories of public officers are in the law made by the National Assembly. Now, based on that, Magu’s name has been forwarded to the National Assembly twice and on the two occasions, the Senate declined to confirm his appointment. What the presidency is now saying is that based on some legal opinions, they have the appointment of the categories of public officers like that of Magu that does not need to go to the National Assembly.
Now my worry is that you cannot in law appropriate and inappropriate. It was the presidency that submitted his name to the National Assembly the first time and equally submitted his name the second time. Now, my question is, if the Senate had confirmed Magu as the chairman of EFCC, would the presidency be saying what they are now saying? If that is not the case, they cannot appropriate and inappropriate. It seems, we now have a very serious constitutional problem.
It is therefore incumbent on the presidency to approach the Supreme Court to seek for the interpretation of the Section that said that a certain category of political appointees must be confirmed by the Senate before they can assume office and this is very important because the section of our constitution envisaged that there may be disagreement or even confusion relating to certain constitutional provisions and that is why the judiciary has been given the exclusive right and authority to adjudicate when there are issues relating to the interpretation of the constitution as the judiciary is more or less the guardian of the constitution. So, my advice is that either the National Assembly or the executive should approach the Supreme Court for us to have the interpretation of this particular provision. Now, l think that it will be dangerous, it will also be unconstitutional and against our democracy to have the chairman of an important agency like the EFCC in an acting position for a period of four years. I think that will be dangerous and not be right. So, l think that it is important for us to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and only one organ of government has the capacity and the constitutional power to resolve it and that is the judiciary.

Is there any breach If Magu is left as the Acting Chairman of the EFCC?
I believe that somebody in an acting capacity is in an acting capacity and there is a limit to which somebody in an acting capacity can go or do. So, we do not want a situation where he will remain in an acting capacity and one day somebody will go to Court and reverse everything he has done. So, it is not good for us, it is not good for our democracy, it is not good for our institutions of democracy for us to have this type of situation where the chairman does not know his stand and his status. So, I believe that his appointment should be confirmed as soon as possible either by the Senate and if he has been rejected by the Senate, he should leave office. If the presidency believes truly they do not need the Senate confirmation, they should approach the Supreme Court for the interpretation of that particular provision. Why it is important for them to approach the Supreme Court, is because the presidency willingly without convulsion submitted his name to the Senate for confirmation and the Senate declined. And since the Senate has declined, the next thing for him to do is to leave office. So, if the presidency believes that the confirmation is not necessary, they should approach the Supreme Court to interpret the constitutional provision. In my view, I think they knew that the confirmation was necessary, that was why they forwarded it to the National Assembly.

As someone that has studied different administrations in the country, can you give an insight and possible consequence of the actions of the much touted cabal in the presidency on the polity?
I am very hesitant about using the word cabal. What l know is that there are different interests within the presidency and different interests within the National Assembly. When the President makes appointments, he makes appointments in relation to what he wants and the category and caliber of the people he wants. The challenge we have as at today is that our President is not well and it is the collective wish of all Nigerians that God grants him good health so that he will return to Nigeria and continue with the work which Nigerians have entrusted to him. His appointees also have the responsibility to give all the support to the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because by the constitutional provision, an Acting President has all powers of the President of Nigeria. More ever, all the appointees of the President are one, they are appointees of the President, not appointees of the Vice President, not the appointees of an Acting President but appointees of the presidency. So, they serve one President. If the incumbent President is out, there is an Acting President pending the return of the President. But if the incumbent President is out and there is an Acting President and the officers and the appointees of the President have now group themselves in order to protect certain interests, l think that they will be doing a disservice to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, our appeal is that, at this critical moment in our nation’s history, all the appointees of the presidency must work together to make sure that the machinery of government does not ground to a halt. And also, it is our hope and prayer and our wish that they should give the Acting President all the necessary support to enable him discharge the functions of that particular office till the President comes back.

How would you describe the Bill on Amnesty for Treasury Looters?
Well, an administration that wants to fight corruption must have a strategy and one of the strategies is to do an in-depth analysis and audit of sources of corruption in Nigeria. In other words, the regime must look at areas where we have leakages and block those leakages so that a public officer does not just put his hand in the public treasury and remove money from there. So, that is part of the strategy.
The second strategy is to also empower the institutions of democracy, the law enforcement institutions so that they can investigate properly and part of that empowerment will also give them good training, good equipment and good logistics to fight corruption. The third is also to empower the judicial institutions to ensure they understand the incident of corruption and the sensitivity of corruption, and the need to fight corruption. The next one is prosecute people who are found to be corrupt or abuse their offices. The next one is to also look at the balance and ask the question if a public officer is said to have stolen one billion naira and decides to return 80 per cent of what he has stolen, is it strategic to continue with his prosecution or is it strategic to grant him amnesty so that he can return what he has stolen and ask to go and sin no more? So, l think that amnesty for those who return the funds of this country should be part of the strategies of fighting corruption. It is a give and take approach. Fight them to a standstill and let those who want to return what they have stolen, return what they have stolen. Then caution them and ask them to sin no more.

There have been different definitions of the concept ‘Restructuring’. What is your own understanding of restructuring or how would you want the country restructured?
The challenge of this country revolves around our people’s anger to the lack of justice, lack of fairness, lack of equity in the Nigeria Federation. That is the challenge we have in this country. The second challenge we have in this country is the lack of empathy by the ruling elites towards the ordinary people.
Fundamentally, the poor people in Kebbi have no issues or challenge with the people in Imo State, have no problem with the people of other parts of the country because their challenges and pursuits are the same. Now, whether you divide this country into 100, if there is no justice, fair play and equity, we would continue to have problems. If you restructure this country into six geo-political zones and we don’t have justice, fairness, equity and good governance, we will still have problems. If you create three countries out of this country, what you have done is also to decentralize the problems of justice, equity and fairness and if you don’t have leadership that is ready to work for the people of the country, no matter the type of restructuring you do, it remains at the surface and there will be no impact.
For me, the Nigeria people are saying give us fairness, justice and equity. Govern with the fear of God, distribute the resources of this country equitably so that everybody will have the share of the Commonwealth. When the elites are talking about restructuring, they are talking about creating small chiefdoms for them to govern, when the elites of this country are talking about restructuring, they are saying that some of them have been schemed out from the sharing of certain forms of resources. So, for me, people, who are talking about restructuring are not being fair to the majority of the people of this country. People, who are talking about restructuring want to corner the resources of this country for their own personal use or they want to corner the resources of the country for their families and their own friends.
The type of restructuring l want to see is to let us know how we can restructure the executive so that they can work for the people of this country. How do we restructure the National Assembly so that they can work for the people of this country? How do we restructure the Central Bank so that an individual would not go there and dip his hands into the resources of this country for his personal use? The type of restructuring l want to see is a situation where the farmer in every part of the country will have access to fertilizers and tractors in order to be able to put food on the table for his family. How do the people who are in the riverine communities’ fish with less hazard and how the people of the Niger Delta will be in a position to send their children to school despite all the pollution they are experiencing? That is what Nigerians need. Nigeria does not need to restructure the country into six ethnic nationalities or six geo-political zones. Even if you do that and you don’t solve the problem of injustice and other social vices, our problems will still remain. Even if you create additional 80 states in Nigeria and if you don’t stop the problems of equity, fairness and justice, our problems will still remain. Even if the whole resources of this country is given to one ethnic nationality without solving the problems of equity, fairness and justice, our problems will still remain. The only thing is that we must not on any account decentralized injustice in this country because the type of restructuring the elites are talking about is that they want injustice to be decentralized and we are saying we don’t want that type of restructuring. For me, solve the problems of equity, fairness and justice and our problems will be minimal.

Within the perimeters of the law, can a journalist be sued for a story considered to be an offensive publication without the medium and editor that published the story?
The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has granted every individual in this country the freedom of expression and the freedom to hold opinion without being intimidated, without being molested and without being afraid. Secondly, the penal laws of Nigeria have also set up in very clear terms what l consider a line which no individual can cross including journalists. In other words, if a journalist or the medium commits an offence, it is the law enforcement agency that is supposed to take action against them but what we have now is that some State Chief Executives have become so intolerant such that they consider every criticism of government as a personal attack on them. Every story that they don’t like, they consider it a personal attack on them and they order the arrest of these journalists and l think that our democracy cannot grow, our democracy cannot flourish when members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm do their work with fear and in silence, looking at their back because they don’t want to go to prison. It is dangerous for democracy and freedom. So, my appeal is that Chief Executives in the various states of the Federation must be broad minded and see journalism as a profession where people have been given the duty to work for the good of the people.

 

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