Justice Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor

Saturday Vanguard’s, CHIDI NKWOPARA, in his modestly furnished and well kept Oguta country home, Imo State single-storey building, Nsofor revealings the past, recounting why he took some controversial decisions.  But the bombshell was his resurrection of the minority report that ex president, Olusegun Obasanjo, lost the 2003 presidential  elections. EXCERPTS:

My days at the Bench

What has it been like in retirement?

Well, I am speaking for myself..  Justice never retires because when Justice retires, then there is anarchy and bloodshed. Although we have withdrawn, we are emeritus or emeriti if we are many. We have not retired. We are still in service because of Justice, because of the call of Justice.

Now speaking in line with what you have just asked, being practical enough, I have been so busy.  I have been very busy and I find time to re-read and re-educate myself. And by the grace of God, my international engagements have exposed me and I have found out that there are still more things to learn.

And being in retirement with the time at your disposal, you have time now to re-educate yourself. I have found out that there are so many things you don’t know or we never knew and we assumed that we know them.

So, it has been a happy period and I thank God that I have got the opportunity to re-learn and re-educate myself. It has been a pleasant time and besides, I have got time to look at and see that life is transitory.

The closer you are to your Bible and your God, the happier you are, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. So, it has been a pleasant time being in the house and organizing yourself and being a master of your time. So, I have found the retirement period very enjoyable.

How do you intend to pass all you have learnt in retirement to those following you?

Well, the Bible says “Seek and ye shall receive”. If the younger ones would seek, they will surely be given. Let me digress a bit. While we were in practice in those days in Port Harcourt as young practitioners, I remember we used to go to court, even though we had no matter personally or no case in court. 

We were interested in sitting in court to see how then- Barrister Oputa, now Hon. Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, or Graham Douglas or G.C. Nonyelu-how they rose, got up from their seats and canvassed their matters in court. These things are not written in books. You learn it by observation and by asking questions.

So, if the young ones would ask questions, they would be informed. The sad thing is that people do not do it these days. Even in the courts, you don’t see anybody going to court to see how the seniors get up, how they said what they said and those things that are not seen in the books.

The young ones would benefit if they are ready to learn and you are not ready to learn if you are not ready to ask questions.

And I remember what my uncle,  Hon. Justice Oputa told me when I was going to the United Kingdom to commence my legal studies. He told me,  “If you have your tongue in your mouth, you will never go wrong”.

That is exactly what Hon. Justice Ikpeazu will call “foolish pride”. If you have got foolish pride in you, you will ask questions and you will be educated and you will learn. Yes, ask and you will be informed. That is the way I want to look at it.

Are there things you would have done differently if you were given another chance?

 I don’t know how I would sound answering this question  but I will answer it boldly and without fear of contradiction: I would not behave differently or acted differently if the facts I saw those days and what I did those days, I will repeat now without more or less.

In practice days, for example, when I was in Port Harcourt, they knew me as “book no dey lie”. When I get to the court, I will tell the judge that I have told my learned friend what I have come to argue. It’s in the book. Yes, that was how I practised. There is nothing to hide.

Now, as a Judge, if you brought the judgment or an opinion I wrote in 1977, give me the same knowledge I had then, now and the same facts then, now, without more, I will give the same judgment.

No regrets. Yes, I am convinced and my mind tells me so. But if there is any addition, it would be a different ball game. Assuming there is a change in the sources, there could be a change in position but if the same facts as occurred to me then, occurred to me now and no change, I will give the same judgment. Yes, I will give the same judgment and I will be the same Nsofor all the time.

How Obasanjo lost the 2003 election

The Buhari versus Obasanjo minority judgment.  Why did you read a minority judgment?

Well, the facts are there. The truth is there. Facts never change. The witness may lie and lie and lie but facts are stubborn.

They cannot lie against facts. The truth is a fact and the fact is the truth. So, the same opinion I held then and subject to what the Supreme Court has said, the same opinion I will hold tomorrow. Yes, the facts are clear and the evidence is there.

Now, if I may be more specific. Paragraph 4 of the statement of the petitioner says the results were forged and the figures were so, so and so. The two respondents denied this paragraph 4. They claimed that the figures were not manipulated and the results were not forged. Immediately, there was an issue of fact.

Evidence was led. The petitioner called for the results from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the documentary evidence of the results.

Counsel wrote to counsel to produce the results. Served subpoena to INEC, an order of court, to produce these results and INEC and its officers refused to obey the order, the subpoena. Counsel refused to submit to counsel the results and disobeyed the order of court to produce this. Then it is clear as a matter of law, the Evidence Act, Section 149, if I may remember.

Evidence that is withheld, suppressed, the law presumes that if that evidence was produced, it would be against that person who was suppressing it. So, if INEC brought that result from which it announced the figures scored by the petitioner and the other candidates, that result would show that the petitioner was telling the truth that the figures were manipulated.

So, on that ground, the petition must succeed and the respondent must lose. That is a question of fact. So, if the figures were falsified, there was no election and General Buhari should have won and he won by my own assessment and my own appraisal of these facts.

Again, there were allegations of violence and so forth. Somebody was dragged out of a police station and killed in the premises. Police came and took the photographs and that was the end of it. If there was violence, how does it affect the people? It affected everybody anyway and you are thinking about 100. How many people will come to testify?

In Rivers State, they said “carry go”. No, no, no. There was no election and I still hold that opinion till today, although the Supreme Court has taken a decision on it and I am bound by that decision. So, without the Supreme Court’s decision, if the matter comes before me again today, I will give the same judgment without fear or favour.

Why was there this glaring, if not palpable disagreement, among the presiding judges?

Well, we are all individuals and the facts to the actions and the facts to evidence are personal. And it’s just how I looked at the facts.

Again, two or three of us may look through the window and somebody will ask to describe what we saw. Invariably, all of us will not say we saw one thing but we were looking through the window and seeing the same thing. So, it is a question of impression of how you appraise the facts and how it affects you and your mental reaction to circumstances and their statements.

Didn’t the judges have any conference on the matter?

Well, there was a conference. I am sorry to say this but I will say it. There was a conference but if 20 say that one and one is 11 and only one person says one and one makes two, the 20 or 100 others that say one and one makes 11 cannot be right. It is not the majority that is always right. You may have foolish majority, nonsense majority, an intelligent minority. Yes, that is the impression.

As a Judge, you used to lash out at people who, in your opinion, weren’t properly dressed.

Personally, I like fine dressing. I like good dressing. And if you read old English by Chaucer “The Canterbury Tales”, he was describing the characters by their appearances. Again, you are in the court of Justice.

You are a performer on the stage. The jury you want to talk to during trial must look at you, assess you before you open your mouth. If you are shabbily dressed, you become repulsive before you say whatever sense you have.

Outward appearance is a sign of inward grace. So, I believe in good appearance and if I may digress and say a popular saying of Owerri people. “Onye gba efe nkirika, okwu ya di nkirika” (a shabbily dressed person expectedly comes up with shabby thoughts).

You are defending your certificate, your association, your profession and your person. Again, we are talking now and I believe we are all sane. Now, if in our opinion that we are sane and right in this room, the temperature is high and you want some breeze. If you remove your trouser and shirt and go naked, people will simply call you a mad man. The difference is clear.

Is it true that some Judges in the temple of Justice compromise their offices?

I won’t say it is not a fact. Yes, we are human beings. We have our faults. If a man has a bad character before he came to read law and if he is intelligent and passes with distinction and eventually he is on the seat, as people lobby now to be appointed judges, that position will not make him an honest man. He will still retain his character. In other words, he is what he is. Nemo dat quod non habet (You cannot give what you do not have).

But there are some good ones, some very honest ones too. Yes, I agree. Yes, it is a fact. People have been disciplined for varying reasons, including compromising their positions and perverting the cause of justice. I have had occasion to say that anybody who is a judge in any capacity is acting for God and must be upright.

There is only one God. He only can acquit or discharge. Who are we to pass judgment on our neighbours? However, if you are made a judge to pass verdict on your neighbours, you are acting for God.

God is not daft. God is perfect. God is just. God is honest. God is integrity. God is everything. You must be God-like. So, you must be acting for God.

A judge must be upright. But in the 12, there was Judas. There are some bad eggs among us. That is true. We can’t deny it.

Is the National Judicial Council (NJC) doing enough to check the rot?

 I cannot say really if the NJC is doing enough or not because I have not worked there. But I don’t know what you mean by enough; enough in what circumstance? You must be specific.

Why has NJC failed to fish out judges with questionable antecedents?

Well, the NJC is made up of people of honour. And one thing with majority of us is that we easily make these allegations and when they call you to come and substantiate them, you start dragging your feet. NJC members will judge by only what is before them. They are not God. They deal with what they have. To that extent, they are doing enough. But if you stand out and defend your allegation(s) and NJC does not take action, the world will definitely ask questions.

My appointment by air is an insult

Imo State government named you Chairman of the Visitation Panel charged with the responsibility of critically probing the sordid happenings in Imo State University, Owerri, but you are not there. Why?
 Well, now that you have raised this issue, I will speak my mind easily and comfortably. I will tell the story as it is.

A gentleman came here (his residence in Oguta) to tell me that the Secretary to State Government (SSG), Chief Cosmas Iwu, would want to see me over something. I agreed.

I have never gone to the State House. I don’t have any business with Government House or those occupying it. I have nothing to do with it or with them. On the appointed day, I followed this gentleman and he escorted me to the Government House and he introduced me to Chief Iwu, the SSG. And he told me that they have been waiting for me to tell me that they want to appoint me as a member or as the Chairman of an enquiry into the Imo University.

I said well, thank you for waiting for me. I told him it was a big honour and that I have been away from the country for quite some time on international engagement. I congratulated him and thanked him for that honour because during the governorship of Chief Sam Mbakwe, he appointed Hon. Justice Ojiako, then of the High Court of Imo State and myself as co-commissioners into chieftaincy matters enquiry.

I was then serving in Mbaise. I drove to Imo State High Court Owerri the next morning and went to Hon. Justice Ojiako. I told him what I heard on the radio.

Governor Mbakwe did not appoint me a judge. No, no, no. But even if he did, he was performing his constitutional duty and I never lobbied to be a judge. Not in the world. Nobody will ever say that I asked him to recommend me to be a judge. So, it was a calling by God and as I said, I was elected, not appointed.

I told Hon. Justice Ojiako that I was interested in chieftaincy matters and I came back from the West Indies to thrash the Oguta chieftaincy issue, as I promised to do if the people wanted me.

And in any event, my only contact with the world was through my Chief Judge. If the government wanted me to be a commissioner into chieftaincy matters that information should come to me through my Chief Judge. And my Chief Judge did not tell me so. I was not under Governor Mbakwe. No. So, I told Justice Ojiako that I would not serve. He suggested that we should see the governor and I told him I was not going to see the governor.

I left Ojiako and went to my Chief Judge and told him what I heard. ‘It did not come from you and you are the only link between me and the world’. So, I told them that I wouldn’t serve because it didn’t come from the right quarters.

If any such should come, it must come from my Chief Judge. Eventually, within two or three weeks later, the SSG, Professor Enoch Anyanwu wrote to me apologizing. And they appointed Hon. Justice Uche in my place. But before the commission was inaugurated, Hon. Justice withdrew and Justice Ojiako became the sole commissioner.

Now back to the Imo University issue. I thanked Chief Iwu for giving me that honour. To cut the matter short, I asked for the terms of reference. He showed me what he termed the proposed terms of reference. Again, I asked of the members that would serve with me. He brought a list of names and I saw my name underlined with red ink. He told me that the Governor said I would be the Chairman.

I told him that why I was asking to know who the members were was because we ought to work as a body. The SSG asked if I knew any of the names and I said I didn’t know any of them. Again, I told him I was engaged internationally under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration (ICA) and we have been sitting in Paris and London. I also told him that I had a part time teaching appointment with University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).

The young man, Chief Iwu said the issues I raised did not matter. He also told me it was a preliminary discussion and that the Governor would invite and talk to me. That was fine with me and I told him so.

He asked for my mobile telephone number. I confessed I did not know it off-head. So, he gave me his call card in order to phone him so that he would know my number.

I came out, got home and phoned him. The phone would be ringing but nobody would pick it up and this happened on many occasions. I went back to the gentleman, who came to me, Mr. Francis Dike, a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and presently teaching in Imo State University. I told him what had happened. He took my number, promising that he would call Cosmas Iwu and give him my number.

I never heard anything again. The only thing I heard was one evening, one of my younger brothers came to congratulate me on my alleged appointment as Chairman of the panel, adding that it was announced in the news. I told him that I have not seen the Governor and I have not been written to and nobody had notified me.

He said the news would be repeated. He stayed with me until 8 o’clock that evening and it was repeated. Well, that was the end.

Then I had this engagement in Paris, France. On the 14th of April, 2008, I went and paid for my flight ticket to travel on the 17th of the same month. On the 17th, which was a Thursday or so, I went but I was late to catch the plane. I paid N2,000 extra as penalty, making a total fee from Owerri to Abuja N20,000.

On my way, as God will have it, I drove down to the Customary Court of Appeal, Owerri, to see an Old Boy of Stella Maris, Port Harcourt, Hon. Justice A.B.C Egu. I showed him my ticket. He congratulated me and told me that the panel I was supposed to head would be sworn-in the next day. I told him I was travelling and backed it up by showing him my ticket, adding that I only missed the flight.

I said well, I don’t know how they appoint people over the radio and television. I said now that you have seen my ticket, I will be the tongue in your mouth to tell them that you told me. So, on the 17th I travelled. Nobody wrote me a letter and I didn’t get any call from the government or from the governor for that matter.

I will refer to the Bible again. Romans 13 verse 1, says all authority comes from God. So, if my governor tells me to kneel down, I will. But after the governorship and so on, I think I am older than he is.

He ought to treat me with some respect. And there must be an insignia of authority. You must have an appointment. No parliament sits without a mace. How can he appoint me over the television? No, no, no, I won’t take that.

It is an insult to me. It is an insult and I reprobate it. I reprehend it. At my age, I ought to be treated with respect. That announcement on air was a great disrespect to me.

There must an appointment paper and the SSG said the governor would see me and I agreed but the governor never saw me and never wrote to me.

Up till now (October 21, 2008), I have never seen a letter. No, no, no, I can’t take that rubbish and I am speaking my mind and that is me, the vintage Nsofor for you.

What advice do you have for those coming behind you?

 I don’t really want to advise (laughs hilariously). The advice I have for them is exactly what I have for myself. If you want to be a judge, an ideal judge, water and oil don’t ever mix. You cannot be a good judge and a good social man. No, no, no, the two cannot work together.

As the Hon. Justice Oputa said in one of his lectures, when he was the Chief Judge of Imo State, “No society man can be a good judge. So, you must live a sort of ascetic life. In fact, throughout my stay in the judiciary, I never attended any government party.

Not that I don’t like partying. I don’t socialise. It is better to avoid your possible enemy so that conflict will be minimized. So, as long as you keep yourself sacred for the job, for which you have been called, you have sacrificed yourself for the cause of justice, for the cause of right.

Then wait for it. Let the beacon of justice  shine unimpeded. Then you are through. And as late Hon. Justice Ikpeazu told me, if your hands are clean, no judgment is difficult. And throughout my stay and before I went to the court, I always read Psalm 121. God will tell you what to write because God is with you.

If you are out to deal with issues without fear or favour, you must isolate yourself from the areas where you will be contaminated or infected. But you cannot be a good social man and a good judge. It is not easy, in my own perspective.

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