By Innocent Anaba

Justice Tajudeen Odunowo, retired from the Federal High Court bench, after sitting for many years.
Even after retirement, he had been involved in a number of arbitration matters. In this interview, he spoke on the role of the National Judicial Council, NJC, in addressing issues relating to judges welfare, discipline and  many other national issues.
Excerpt:

Having been a judge and understanding the working of the NJC, are they really in charge with regards to handling matters relating to the welfare and discipline of judges in the country?

In my view, I think they are. The most recent step taken by the NJC, to me is a proof that they are living up to their job. Until a few years ago, the pension of judges, I mean judges on the federal judiciary was nothing to write home about. But through the effort of the NJC, the pension was reviewed upwards and there are quite a number of other things they have done for judges. And when it comes to discipline, unless people don’t forward complaints to them, I believe they have been doing their job. Look at the General Sani Abacha’s era, when he set up the Justice Kayode Eso panel, you will note that nothing was done until the Nigerian Bar Association’s visit to President Olusegun Obasanjo during his administration, because the report was suppressed.

The NBA complained about it and Obasanjo said, if the report can be made available to him, that he would do something about it. It was sent to him and the NJC. A committee was set up.

Justice Odunowo

I know much about the committee because I gave evidence against one of the judges and the judges were dealt with. It is correct to say that some judges escaped because of the gap between when the report was made and government’s implementation of the report,  being that some of the judges died, while some retired. But those who were still in service were sanctioned. Some were dismissed and a few others retired. I don’t see what complaint any body would have against the NJC. If you don’t put evidence before them, there is nothing they can do and they cannot initiate matters on their own. If you complain to them, they will look into it.

You will remember that there were some cases involving some judges in the East, who sat on election matters. They were accused of collecting money. The three of them were dismissed. The other judge who gave an order stopping a Governor from doing his job was also dismissed. So you can see that the NJC is doing its job. I don’t think one would expect them to do more than they are doing. Unless you have specific instances where they were suppose to act, but failed to do so.

You were a judge for a long time and a good one for that matter. In your opinion, what are the causes of corruption on the bench?

A lot. Before independence, you don’t lobby to be made a judge. But when we took over, I mean we Nigerians, people started going through the politicians to be made  judges. We have instances of people, who are not suppose to be there, who are there. And when they get there, when it comes to pay back time, I mean the politicians who made them judges would have no inhibition to say, look I have this matter before your court. Secondly, before independence, you will hardly see any body with plural wives being made a judge, I mean having more than one wife.

The reason then was obvious, because your pay is called personal emolument, you were not expected to keep marrying wives. With one wive, unless with considerable prudence, there is no way you can exist on your salary without strict discipline. But the moment you keep marrying many wives, trouble comes in. Temptation sets in. That is my own view. If you look round the country today, you will notice that is only those of us with one wive that were exception to the rule. There is no limit to the number of children they have with its implications. These are some of the factors in my view.

What about the process of appointment?

That is what I am saying, the process today is dominated by politics. You see Minister A wants somebody from his place to be made a judge. A Governor want his wife to be promoted from one cadre of the judiciary to the other in preference to people who are more efficient but have no backers. Some body who helped you to a position, there is no way he has a case he is interested in that he will not march up to you.

And it will be very difficult for you as a judge to refuse. You can also not run away from the fact that many of the people today are not endowed with what I will call spirit of contentment. You have a friend who is in business and drives a Mercedes Benz, you are a judge, if you are not the discipline type, you will say, he is my class mate, after all, I should use the kind of car he is using, them he begins to look round on how to cut corners to buy the car and when any person comes his way with anything, he easily succumbs.

On the election petition matters, I remember that a few years ago in Jos, Plateau State, a case was before this judge, which shouldn’t be. The judge in Jos granted them a bogus order, and some of the politicians from that area kicked against the order by holding a press conference, accusing the judge of collecting N5million. The matter was reported to NJC. They investigated the matter and found that it was true, but the irony of the matter was that even the judge did not enjoy the money, because it was discovered that he kept the money in his house and over the night, armed robbers raided his home and stole the money. Now, how do you expect him to report the matter to the Police, that as a judge, when you are not a trader or an industrialist,  kept  millions of naira in your house?

How in your view is the NJC fighting corruption on the bench and are they doing it well?
I have just listed some matters handled by the NJC, unless you have specific cases you feel the NJC failed to act on or investigate. I know some of the people that have headed the NJC and some of the members. They are people of integrity and unless they don’t hear about the matter, there is nothing they can do, but if they do, they pursue it to its logical conclusion. I believe they are doing their job well. That is my personal view.

On the election matters, how is the NJC able to resolve the issue of conflicting judgements from different panel of the Court of Appeal, particularly on the same subject matter. In the Celestine Omeha’s case of Rivers State, the court held that it was the party  that won an election, irrespective of who flew the party’s ticket, but on the issue of decampment of the Bauchi State Governor, the court held that it was the person of the Governor that won the election, and not the party he won the position on. The courts are being accused of taking a position based on who induced them the most.

That may be the reasons, but I don’t have any evidence of that. Again, it may be due to lack of knowledge on the part of the people. But I don’t agree that anytime anything  happens, it must be due to corruption, I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with some body saying, because Mr A did this, he may have been given some money without any evidence to prove it. Anybody can make allegations, but the person has to prove it. Mind you, I am not saying that it cannot happen, but it has to be proved. You cannot say because court verdicts are in conflict, the next inference is corruption, I don’t agree. Remember, if there is no possibility of mistake, their will be no appeal and if the Court of Appeal is regarded as omniscience, then there will be no Supreme Court.

It is because of the possibility of error that we have an appeal and the intension is that if there are errors at the lower court, it would be corrected by the court above but if after appeal,  parties are not satisfied, its too bad because their must be an end to litigation. If the issues are not addressed properly in court, you leave it for political action. In that case, the lawmakers may need to amend the law to correct some of the concerns raised.

Is it feasible to have a time frame within which to conclude election matters?

Certainly yes. If you remember the National Party of Nigeria, NPN,  time,  I think they had a time frame of three months for the resolution of election matters and they made use of a combination of serving and retired judges. It all depend on political will. If you say three months, you don’t have to wait for all the evidence to be given orally. If you say once the election ends, the decision must be given within three months, the shortest way to achieve this is to say, you ask the parties to put whatever they intend to rely on in the form of an affidavit within say a period of 14 days and the other side would be given the same 14 days to reply and give extra seven days either way. If there is any need for cross examination, you give an additional three days for counsel to address the court, you can finish all that within two months and adjourned for two or three weeks for judgement. So you can see that its possible if the political will is there.
What about a situation where a person knows that he lost but would deploy all manners of antics to delay the matter. What is the way out?

The solution if for the panel to be firm. It would be obvious from the affidavit evidence that these people are just praying for time, then you put your foot down and order that if the party fail to finish  all it want to say within 14 days, the court will give judgement. After all, he is not going to bring the witnesses from the moon.

The NBA recently accused judges of being responsible for the delay in the trial of corruption cases involving some former top public officer and some bank chiefs. Do you agree?

It can’t be the judges. I am not saying this because I am a retired judge. You cannot really attribute the delay to the judges alone. You must realise that it is the lawyers who bring the cases to court.  Judges don’t ask for adjournments. The only area I would blame the judges is that they should not be too indulgent when counsel ask for adjournment and they should explore the reason for the adjournment.  No judge would want matters to keep hanging in his court without getting to judgement. Lawyers as far as I am concern share more of the blame.

According to NBA, for a simple bail application, a judge adjourns for two week to hear them and adjourns for a month to rule, when ordinarily, the judge would have heard and rule on the applications immediately.

There is no excuse for that. One thing I noticed about the delay, from what I read in the newspapers, is where somebody is charged for stealing N500million and bail is granted for N100million, while sureties must swear to an affidavit of means and have landed property in Abuja, Lekki, Victorial Island and the rest.  I think that is nonsense in my view. The essence of bail as I know is for the accused person to present himself in court to face the charge against him and not to recover the stolen money. When you tell somebody, who does not know anybody in Abuja to present a surety,  who owns a property in Abuja, this will take time and before you know it, it is these professional sureties, who all they do is stand for surety for a fee that would be hired. These are all unnecessary.  Bail is to ensure that a suspect present himself in court to face the charge against him.

Do you subscribe to making corruption a capital offence?

No. My  view on how to fight  corruption, which I had suggested some years back is, assuming a public officer stole N5million or corruptly received N5m and he is found guilty, the law should be such that the minimum period he should spend in jail is the number of years it would have taken him to earn the said N5m and the maximum sentence should be life imprisonment. In order words, somebody who stole N5m and he earns N1m yearly, the person will not spend less than five years. You can give him 10 years, but it will not be less than five. That is not all, in addition, the  court make a mandatory order of forfeiture of all his assets to recover the money involved. That in my view is better than locking him up. In order word, it will serve as a punishment and as deterrent to others. So there is no getting away if you are caught.

Some have argued that the so called war against corruption is selective?

The argument that the war against corruption is selective depend on who is looking at it. From the records, all those that were selected, don’t they have a case to answer?  Where they were framed? So to that extent, that is an achievement. And those that you feel should be tried that are not being tried, send the evidence in you possession to the anti-corruption agencies and where they fail to prosecute the person,  you can make an issue out of it.

But many groups have petitioned both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission concerning some of these former public office holders, yet nothing has happened to them.

That is very dangerous then, but if EFCC fails to do something and you have sufficient evidence, you can go to court to direct them to perform their statutory duty.
Most often, our courts would rule that the plaintiff has not lucus standi to bring that kind of action.

If he is a tax payer, why would a court say the person has no locus, when it is public money that had been stolen. If you have evidence that you pay tax, then you can complain of how public money has been spent or stolen. I don’t think any court will today say you don’t have locus. In the past, courts held so, but today,  when it comes to public money, any tax payer in my view can take it up in court.

How do you see the current political developments in the country?
With the way things are going, I hope we don’t hit a brick wall because it is the ethnic dimension, such as zoning, which by the way is not in the constitution that is giving me concern. If the current President, is on the same ticket with the late President, I don’t see what should be the problem.

Fortunately, somebody from the same part with the deceased President was made the Deputy Governor, I don’t see what else should be the problem here, but everybody has ambition to be the president, irrespective of where he comes from and whether he is  competent or not. It is the ethnic dimension that is the problem. I personally don’t care where the person comes from, so far he is competent. This is a problem we never had during the military era surprisingly. Under the military, when things must be done, it is done, but with civilians, you debate and debate before people agree on things to be done. But for the elections, with the preparations so far, we have not seen much progress.

The voters register is not in place, parties primaries are yet to take place. For the voters register, there would be claims and counter claims, which has not happened and the staff to carry out the jobs have not even been recruited. I think the time is not on their side. I am still surprise that they insist that the hand-over date is May. I don’t think it is realistic. The National Assembly can pass a law so say, let the elections take place say in June and the handing over shifted to October 1, to coincide with our independence anniversary. Then in future, they will ensure that elections take place six months before the handing over date, so that we have enough room for the resolution of election petitions.

If the hand over date is shifted, that will still create a problem, as the constitution didn’t make provision for interim government, as the life of this administration is suppose to end on May 29.

The National Assembly will address that by amending the constitution. The constitution is made for man and not the other way round. So I don’t see the big deal, if the will is there. They can stay extra three months, so that between May and August, everything would have been concluded for handing over on October 1.

Is the Independent National Electoral Commission prepared for the elections they way things are today?

I have not seen the sign of that, except that they are holding retreats. They said voters registration will start January from what we read in the newspapers, maybe between now and then, they would recruit their staff for the exercise,  train them and arrange security for the exercise, but beyond that, I have not seen anything yet. Maybe, we need to wait and see.