By Abdulwahab Abdulah
M r. Adekunle  Ogunba, is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN. In this interview, he examines the workload of  the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and concludes that there is the need to decentralize the apex court to facilitate speedy dispensation of justice in the country.

He also reiterated the call for the independence of the judiciary, adding there was need to appoint more qualified judges to our courts to reduce the number of cases pending in our courts at all level.
Excerpts:

Will you say that the country is developing?

There are certain indices, we should look at to determine, whether a nation is developing or not. In 2010, we are still a nation that is dependant on generators for our power supply, we still run our private homes and businesses with generators, which has increased the cost of living and cost of doing business. After 50 years of independence, it is unfortunate that we can take electricity for granted.

Adekunle Ogunba SAN

That is one major index for development that you can look at. Apart from 1999, what is the average statistics of people who have access to telephone?

Thank God for GSM, though, it is not even working, it is epileptic and costly too because of electricity problem.50 years down the line, the judiciary is not well funded. We still have judges, who write with long hands, the courts are not enough. So many issues, such as policing have remained problematic. The other day, there was an argument as to whether the police road blocks should be abolished or not, and I was amused because, it is a relic of colonialism, and those who brought that manner of policing have since abandoned it.

You don’t go to advanced countries and see road blocks, yet their policemen are effective and  response to crime within 5 to10 minutes. These are indices you look at to determine whether a country is developed or developing. We are just way back.

What is your reaction to the suggestion that the Supreme Court should restrict itself to constitutional issues, so as to reduce their work load and also speed up justice delivery system?

I do not support the view that the right of appeal should be limited, because when something is inadequate, you start to ration. That view, I believe is propelled by the fact that the Justices of the apex court are few and the cases are many.

So in such a situation,  you look at a way to reduce the number of cases that get to these Justices so that they are not over worked. To me, I believe that the panacea is to break down the Supreme Court within the geo-political zones, the administrative head will still remain the CJN and then you have as many Justices. Probably,  in one jurisdiction, there will be ten Justices, so that the cases can be taken more expeditiously.

I know also the proponent of that kind of suggestion will say the fact that in the interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeal should be the final court and that interlocutory appeal should not get to the Supreme Court.

All these are permutations, the real issue and the problem is the fact that the Justices at the Supreme Court are over worked. I support  the innovation by the current CJN to appoint more Justices so that they can be at least 21 for a country of over 150 million people.

It is appalling and unbelievable that with the level of commercial activities,  we have only 13 people to adjudicate on civil and criminal matters not to talk about political matter, disputes between different level of governments, disputes between states and Federal Government, among others.

You cannot expect them to do it fast. When we are talking about the Supreme Court, we are talking about 13 people  to sit down on these issues. If your case is slated for hearing, the least you get is six months adjournment, which is not right in a country like ours. In my own suggestion, more Justices should be appointed and the Supreme Court decentralized, just as they have done it in virtually everything.

With that, there will be speedier dispensation of  justice and all the permutation of whether there should be right of appeal would be solved. I have seen in a situation where you lose at the High Court, the Court of Appeal does not agree with you and the Supreme Court agrees with you.

When that is abolished,  the right of appeal will not be there. Justice demands that if anyone is aggrieved, he should be given the unfettered right to ventilate it and the system should not coerce or try to  say  at this point,  that you have no right of appeal.

In your view, how will you rate the performance of the judiciary in the past  years?

Of all the arms of government in the country, I will tell you the judiciary has performed so well. If you look at it vis-avis, the level of financial exposure that each arm of government got, you will agree with me that the judiciary stand head and shoulder high above the other arms of government.

The judiciary has also been a rallying point in our nation’s history by making landmark pronouncements and decisions within the past 50 years.

I don’t want to be self serving, but I do know that the judiciary has really fared well. Of course, there may be some few bad eggs, but it is being addressed particularly with the kind of leadership we have in the present Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kastina-Alu, you can see a little bit of transparency and innovation in the judiciary. Don’t forget that the judiciary work under very stringent and excruciating conditions, because most of the Judges practically write in long hands.

If you look at the life pattern of an average judge, you can see that he starts sitting by 9.00am and ends between 2 to 3.00pm. To other public workers, that might be the end of the assignment for the day, but if you look inward, you will see that a Judge will take the file home, he has a ruling to deliver the next day, more often than not, he skip nights to ensure that his judicial functions are performed.

If you juxta-posed this with what is happening with the executive or the legislature, you will see that a judge, who virtually does everything without  personal assistants, works harder. Nobody to research for him, if he wants books, he has to search it by himself and if he wants to write, he does it by long hand, if you compare it with the executive, for example , our Governors, who have aides in virtually every areas apart from numerous commissioners, then I think that the judiciary has done very well and it is commendable.

With this scenario, what is your reaction to the complaint of slow dispensation of justice being levied against the judiciary as well as high cost of litigation in the country?

What I have just said is that the judiciary has fared well, but I am not saying that we have a perfect system.

There is really room for improvement. Looking at the environment in which, the judicial workers had to work, by and large, they have done a great job. First, on the issue of congestion of cases and the fact that cases take longer time to be heard or dispensed off, I had said it earlier that the judges are inadequate.

If you look at Lagos for example, they have about 60 judges vis-à-vis the number of cases, if you do a statistical analysis of the cases that are filed in a year and the cases they have dispensed with as well as the return they are being made to the National Judicial Council , NJC, you will see that they are trying even in the face of difficult environment.

Sometimes, the courts don’t sit because there is no electricity, you get to court sometimes, you see a judge having 60 cases. He is human, how many can he take? So basically, I believe there is room for improvement, the turnaround of cases need to be improved.

We need to address the issue of poor funding and ensure that the judiciary is financially independent and not to be tied to the executive apron. In many states, there should be judicial autonomy so that they can run their affairs in the best way they could. There is need also to appoint more judges. There is of course no gain saying the fact that we had few bad spots, but some of these allegations were over-bloated, unsubstantiated and not realistic.

Chief Judge of the Federal High Court , Justice Dan Abutu had challenged Nigerians to always substantiate their argument of corruption with facts and figures to ensure prosecution. How can people do this successfully?

Under the conditions within which the judges work in Nigeria, I know it is bit stiff, but by and large, I think, they have done fairly well in the last 50 years. In fact, in the last 10 years, there are more courts to cater for. In solving our municipal problems of courts’ congestion, more judges are also being appointed even though, there is still more room for improvement.

Another important point is that we should decentralize the judiciary, now we have more states than we have before, in terms of the lower rungs, you see that there are more judicial divisions. If  you look at the Supreme Court, it is one.

I don’t see any big deal about for example, having one Supreme Court at each of the six geo-political zones. For now, the Justices of the Supreme Court are over worked. People complained that it takes a minimum of three years to hear an appeal, but look at it, there are 13 Justices in the Supreme Court to hear appeals from all parts of this country.

If you even take the ratio of Appeal Courts’ Justices, they are over 80, and then you have 13 Justices at the Supreme Court to hear appeals from cases arising from the Courts of Appeal.  In the course of the day to day jurisdiction not to talk of fundamental issues such as election petition cases that are outside of  their normal judicial process.

So, if we want to do more, we should break down the Supreme Court, with one Chief Judge of Nigeria in charge. I understand that there are now clamour for Justices of the Supreme Court to be increased to 21 from the present situation. That is ok, because the work load of the Justices is cruel and killing.

Nigeria recently celebrated its 50th independence anniversary, do you think that the country has anything to celebrate at 50?

In my opinion, I think we don’t have anything to celebrate, because we are not where the founding fathers of Nigeria projected that we should be. In 50 years, I believe basically the bane of Nigeria is leadership. We have been unfortunate, with so much accrual from oil, we still have nothing to show for it. If you look at Nigeria infrastructural, you will see that not much had happened. So many of the infrastructure that we have today, some of them date back to the colonial era, nothing has reflect the current trend globally.

So for me, it is a sad tale of a country at 50 that is not able to raise its head high in the comity of nations. Even politically, you will see that we only had a semblance  of a stable government maybe from 1999 until now, when the military boys became tired of the uniform and decided to come back to rule us through Agbada.

They have always been calling the shot even as at this point. So for me, there is really nothing to celebrate, we should really rejuvenate ourselves and focus on the task at hand, because the task of nation building has been left rather in a vacuum.