BY SIMON EBEGBULEM

Since the legal battle of 2008 which ousted him as Edo State governor and saw the emergence of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as his successor, Prof. Osarhiemen Osunbor has been calm on the political scene of the state. Even though he lost the governorship, Osunbor, also a two-time senator when he represented Edo Central, has not stopped serving his fatherland, as he is the incumbent Chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission.

Penultimate week, some youths from the three senatorial districts of Edo State, under the aegis of Edo Visionary Network, honoured him with an Award of Excellence at his Iruekpen country home.

After the ceremony, where the youths equally called on the former governor to make himself available again for the 2016 contest, he broke his silence on his next political moves and some national issues.

Excerpts:

How has life been since  you left Osadebey Avenue as governor of Edo State?

It is many years now since I left Government House but life has been good. As you know I am currently the Chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission. So there has not been any dull moment. I am still very useful to the country, useful to the society courtesy of the role I am playing as Chairman of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission. We thank God for the opportunity to serve.

Nigerians, most times, seem to get confused about court judgments and counter judgments. Again, we have been talking about the constitution’s amendment. How long will this take?

* Senator Oserheimen Osunbor

Let me say that no constitution is perfect, that is why, in every part of the world, people continuously strive to improve on their constitution.

You known that the constitution of the United States of America has been amended 27 times since about 1873 when it first came into force. The constitution of South Africa came into force in February 1994 I think, already it has been amended 16 or 17 times. In Nigeria, we have had the 3rd amendment, the 4th amendment is hopefully going to come about soon. So it should not worry us that we are amending the constitution in Nigeria. Constitutions are amended to reflect current realities. Society is dynamic, that is why the constitution itself in Section 9 recognizes that it can be amended from time to time, it can be altered.

And this is not going to be the last; in future, Nigerians, if they feel there is the need to revisit the provisions of the constitution for the purpose of amending or altering them, that will happen.

Secondly, on judgments of court, again in a federation like Nigeria, this is expected. You may find conflicting judgments by state High Courts for instance, even the Federal High Courts in different parts of the country. The constitution has in-built mechanism for narrowing down these conflicts and for arriving at a common position. And that is through appeal. So if you have conflicting judgments from state High Courts or Federal High Courts, you can appeal to the Court of Appeal. Of course the Court of Appeal  also has different divisions across the country. If there are conflicting judgments from different divisions of the Court of Appeal, then the Supreme Court is there to resolve the matter once and for all. Once the Supreme Court has decided, that now represents the position of the law in Nigeria. So it should not worry anybody that there are conflicting judgments or decisions of the court. But what should worry people is the

question of the integrity of the judges themselves. The issue of corruption, the issue of some judges not deciding, in accordance with the law as they ought to but deciding according to some other extraneous considerations, influence or factors, that is really what will threaten the independence

and integrity of the judiciary. The view that I have always canvassed is that this will

threaten the very foundation of our democracy because the courts, as they say, represent the last hope of the common man. So if the common man and the general public cannot trust the court to deliver justice in accordance with the law, the next thing you see is that people will take the laws into their hands. And I have always urged that those judges who are compromising may not be the ones to suffer it, it may be other generations of judges. So it is the collective duty of all of us, to impress it on the judges that they must respect their oath of office. They must continue to sustain the integrity of the judiciary. Some people say, after all, judges are Nigerians and if there are corrupt policemen, corrupt lecturers, corrupt Customs officers, we should expect corrupt judges. I don’t buy that argument. Judges are a special set of people. They have power over life and death.

Like I have always said, not even the President of Nigeria can condemn some body to death. Not even the Chief of the Army Staff or the Inspector General of Police can say that this man has to die. Only a High Court judge or judges of superior courts can pronounce a death sentence on a human being and his life can be taken. So, do you equate that kind of person with a corrupt Customs officer or a corrupt lecturer or police officer? They are a different kind of people and they must uphold that integrity. Even the Holy Bible expects certain standards from judges and pronounces a curse on judges who compromise. There is no where in the Bible where a curse is placed on corrupt police officers or corrupt lecturers as far as I know. But judges have a special responsibility. So judges should not be equated with others.

It is by choice that people decide to be judges; so once some body has taken up that responsibility, he must ensure that he does justice to all.

On 2015 general elections

There is a lot of activities across the political parties. The various political parties have rolled out their programmes and agenda.

So at this stage of our democracy, every four years, you expect this heightened level of political activities. And what we see now is really not different from what we have seen in the past. It is only unfortunate now that we have added the problem of insurgency and insecurity;

I think that is the only thing that I see that is different. It is worrisome and very disturbing and we do hope that our security forces will do every thing within their powers to bring this insurgency to an end. It is very disturbing, almost a shame that a country as big as Nigeria, that as many as 15 local governments are now under the control of militants. I urge government, security agencies in particular, to bring this insurgency to an end.

Since judges were beaten up in Ekiti, Nigerians have not heard about any sanctions against the perpetrators. Don’t you see this endangering our democracy?

The only thing I can say is to reiterate that when things are going wrong in our society, it behoves on all of us, particularly the elders, the mature people to recognize that and stop it because, if you don’t, you never know who will be the victim in future. When some judges decide to compromise and do some thing which is not in accordance with the law, they may not be the ones to suffer the consequences, it could be some other persons. Some of you particularly in the media, when you see some thing going wrong, check it, let it be corrected. You never can say whether five, ten years from then, you will be the victim of impunity. That is all I can say.

Defections

First of all, the constitution has something to say about one leaving his party under which platform he was elected to another party. There are situations where it is permitted, there are situations where it is not permitted. For the executive, there is no such provision as far as I know. But the court has since pronounced on this matter before, I think in the case of Gov.Yuguda. I also know that with respect to governors who changed parties recently, the matters are also in court. So let us wait for the judiciary to come with a clear position. I don’t think the Supreme Court has had occasion to decide on this matter.

Perhaps when the Supreme Court does get the opportunity to pronounce on this matter, then we will know, once and for all, what the position is. As I said before, both the cases of the National Assembly members who changed parties and the governors are before the court. So the opinion I may offer now may not carry any weight when the courts make their pronouncement. So let us just wait and hope that the process hastens up.

We heard you say you are joining the Edo governorship race come 2016. What do you want to accomplish?

As I just mentioned to this Edo Visionary Network that paid a courtesy call on me, I have been getting a lot of calls from people both within Edo and outside the state saying they want me to run for governor again, to complete the things that we embarked upon but didn’t. I have been quite reticent to the request particularly when 2016 still appears distant but not quite distant anymore. Very soon, we will be in 2015 and, in another year, we will be having the governorship election in Edo. So I think the time is now appropriate for me considering all the calls that people are making, that I should make myself available to serve the people of Edo. So, yes, I will run by the grace of God for the office of governor of Edo in 2016.

What I want to accomplish

Governance is all embracing and it takes the personality to make things happen in the various spheres of governance. But the people of Edo will determine the priority of government, and you will recall that when I was there, the priority of the people was road development and, as soon as we came in, we decided to tackle it. First of all, the roads in Benin City, we started carrying out emergency repairs within the first month or two; at least they became motorable and, subsequently, we improved on them and extended the development to other senatorial districts of the state. I am happy that, today, you can drive across the various parts of Edo and see the legacies of what we were able to achieve in the area of road development then.

The area of human capital development is another matter. First of all, the civil service was revamped, for the first time offices had computers. I supplied the first computers to offices because when I came in, they were bringing memos to me typed with manual type writer which was quite a shock. We supplied motor vehicles to civil servants. Edo Line was revamped, Bendel Brewery was producing again, students got bursary; school renovation and development commenced. Yes, we did a few things with the Ministry of Education budget because, at that time, we could not access the UBE funds because we did not have SUBEB in place in Edo. But I constituted the SUBEB about six months before I left.

Grass roots development through local government councils is also something we did. I charged the local government councils through their chairmen to ensure that whatever allocation came to the councils was utilized for physical development.

I believe that across all the local government areas in the state, you will see projects executed during my time. In Esan West, a lot of roads were constructed, the local government council secretariat, the new one was started during my time and completed subsequently. And through the local government councils, allocations reached traditional rulers. If you go to the palaces of some traditional rulers across the state, you will see what they were able to do with the allocations that reached them through the councils when I was governor. So I can continue going on and on. Like I said, we will bring to bear the kind of zeal, the kind of determination and vision which we demonstrated between 2007 and 2008; and I am sure the people of the state will be happy that the days of Edo for Excellence are back again.