By DAYO BENSON & BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE
Femi Oloruntoba is the Director of Prosecution and Legal services of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). He joined the agency in 1995 as an Assistant Chief Legal Officer and later became an Acting Director in 2001. In 2010, he rose to the position of a Substantive Director.

Oloruntoba, who has 29 years experience of Legal Practitioner, was called to Bar in 1984. He began his Legal Practice in Ilorin, Kwara State where he was from 1994 till 1995 before joining NDLEA.

In this exclusive interview, Oloruntoba explained why the N25 million awarded as damages to Nollywood actor, Babatunde Omidina (a.k.a. Baba Suwe) is yet to be paid by the agency despite an Ikeja High Court order and other issues relating to the comedian’s arrest and detention saga.

*Detention of Baba Suwe was by no means unreasonable on the part of NDLEA.

The Ikeja High Court has ordered NDLEA to deposit N25 million into an interest yielding account with the Registrar of the court, being the damage awarded to Baba Suwe following the drug allegation, what is your reaction to the court order?

Well! Ordinarily a court order should be obeyed. But if you study why we went for stay of execution you will see that one of the issues we threw up is the impecuniousity of NDLEA. And what we mean by the impecuniousity is the unavailability of the fund that we can use to pay Baba Suwe in this case. Since we did argue before the judge that we are ashamed of our impecuniousity, it is one of the reasons why the court can stay execution.

What we have attached to our application before the honourable court was a schedule to the Appropriation Act 2011. The Appropriation Act 2011 is a law of the federal government of Nigeria, which even if we have just referred to it without annexing anything, the law requires the judge to take judicial notice. She can on her own go to the Appropriation Act and find out how much is exactly appropriated to NDLEA.

If we show what exactly is appropriated, she will see that N50 million is what is appropriated to NDLEA every month for our running cost. Of course, you know the personnel cost is quite different from running cost. So one of the issues we raised is that if we are to pay N25 million from the N50 million that we are getting every month, NDLEA will be grounded. And I am sure that it is not in the interest of this country that the agency is grounded.

And we did argue that the Respondent can as well wait till the judgment of the Court of Appeal. That is the usual thing; there is no hurry in this thing. We also offered that we can get a bank guarantee, which is like insurance from the bank that NDLEA will pay the money. Perhaps, we can have an understanding with the bank and say ok, on a monthly basis, when our allocation comes, take N2.5 million. But to ask NDLEA to cough out N25 million is killing.

Why is NDLEA complaining of not having N25 million to pay, when it has been existing since 2001 and it has being enjoying foreign support?

Government budgetary allocations is the prerogative of government. NDLEA is not a revenue generating organization. Of course, no country would even allow a law enforcement agency to generate revenue. So we rely on what government gives us every year or every month.

If you talk of foreign support, I don’t know whether you listened to the chairman of EFCC when he appeared before the Senate for screening. Foreign support doesn’t come by way of cash. Foreign support comes most often by way of training.

For example, I have been privileged to travel to the United States of America for a whole month at the expense of the US government in the name of training. Imagine how much they would have expended on me. Everything was at their instance, my going, my coming, training, everything for a whole month.

They paid for it, assuming they do that for 5 directors of NDLEA, you know how much thousands of dollars they would have spent. Now what they do is put all those cost together and say that they have used it to assist the NDLEA.

Good, we are getting the training, we are getting the knowledge but the money doesn’t come, so when you are talking about that assistance, they enrich us intellectually but they don’t add money into our pocket.

NDLEA arrested Baba Suwe and after the arrest the agency was now looking for evidence with which to prosecute him?

That is exactly how our investigation goes. A distinction has to be made between economic crime like embezzlement, corruption and drug trafficking, especially drug ingestion. Ingestion is when people swallow drug which is common in this country.

So before you can investigate and fish out evidence that someone has swallowed drug, you must arrest him. And how do we start? We start by what is called the scanning machine, which we have at the Airport. Randomly, we then call on people because it is not possible to call everybody otherwise we will stampede movement at the Airport.

And on that fateful day, about 120 Nigerians were called for scanning. It was one of the documents we tendered before the court and Baba Suwe tested positive for drug ingestion. At that level, it was a suspicion and all we need is a suspicion.

On the 13th again, our scanner also picked another person. By 15th, which was Saturday, the person we picked on the 13th had excreted 50 wraps of substances suspected to be cocaine. But Baba Suwe, while he defecated, didn’t excrete anything. So what we did was to look for CT-Scan.

A CT-Scan is more exact than the test we even do at the Airport. If the CT-Scan had been negative, at that level, we would not have had any reason to detain Baba Suwe. But the CT-Scan was unequivocal; it said that substances consistent with large deposit of narcotic drug were found inside Baba Suwe.

The question we ask is that will it not be irresponsible of us to leave Baba Suwe at that stage when we have what we call scientific evidence that he had ingested drug?

On the 17th, which was Monday, we took him to our own scanner again and got a positive report. And that was why we now had to go to a Federal High Court to get an extension of detention order and the court granted us.

What we are asking is that the detention of Baba Suwe was by no means unreasonable on the part of NDLEA because it would have been irresponsible of the agency to leave a person that scanner CT-Scan has said was carrying drug. That was the basis of Baba Suwe’s detention.

In recall, NDLEA did say that if anything was not found on Baba Suwe, it was going to apologize and suddenly there was a bold face?

As at the time that statement was made, we have not done the CT-Scan. Baba Suwe is a public figure, we agree. Immediately he was arrested there was public interest and I think that statement was made on the 13th or 14th, that if nothing was found on him.

But on the 15th, when we now took him for CT-Scan the CT-Scan was unequivocal that he was carrying drug. It was a case of sticking to what the rule was. And the rule was that we cannot allow a person who we have avalanche of evidence to show that he was carrying drug to be released into the public.

But it is in law as well that when an allegation of crime is made, you need to substantiate with evidence for you to prove it. But in this instance, there is no proof of evidence whatsoever that Baba Suwe actually ingested drug?

There was evidence. I told you before of the CT-Scan. The CT-Scan of 15th, the CT-Scan of 27th October. They were all evidence to show that he had ingested drug. If you say that yes he did not excrete drug, that is a different ball game.

Not excreting drug was the reason why we did not charge Baba Suwe for committing crime. Let us now ask ourselves what evidence is? Evidence is information emerged. The information we emerged against Baba Suwe as at the time he was in our detention was that there was drug in his system.

If you say now that he did not excrete drug, we are now agreeing that he did not excrete drug and that was why we did not charge him to court because for us to charge Baba Suwe to court there is what we call real evidence. Not just real evidence, there must be what we call ‘Forensic report’.

Had it been that Baba Suwe had even excreted like 50 wraps and we now take everything to the Lab and everything is now negative, we wouldn’t have prosecuted him.

We have had reasons to arrest people and by the end of the day, the excreted drug tested negative and we have to allow them to go. But if that thing (Scanner) is still beaming in their abdomen we won’t let them go.

How does the whole scenario make the agency feel despite the public attraction the matter got? I asked this question because there is the perception that NDLEA did not handle the matter well.

The agency does not feel anything bad. In all situations, there must be different perception. If the scenario repeats itself, we will still do the same thing. If our scanner shows that somebody is carrying drug and the CT-Scan confirms it for us, we will not because of what public will say and allow the person to go.

We would rather err, like it is now, and be sure that there is absolutely no drug in the abdomen of such a person than to follow public opinion and release such person so that he will now go and defecate the drug in his quiet time and get away escape justice.

And don’t forget, it was reportedly said that the Respondent (Baba Suwe) did not go home immediately he was released from the court. Yes! I read it in the paper, he did not go to his house. Around that time was Sallah break. The journalists went to see whether he was enjoying Sallah in his house, in Ikorodu but he was not there. Although we were not following his movement but I am just telling you this.

What are you actually trying to say?

It could be anything. It could be that since he had succeeded in beating the NDLEA then he can go and do the needful. But I want the public to be a little bit patient when it comes to the issue of drug. In all jurisdictions, issues of drug should be treated very carefully and the public should be ready to tolerate the drug enforcement agency. Especially in our style where drugs are ingested. Now if the allegation had been that Baba Suwe was carrying drug in his luggage it would have been different.

There was a picture seen in a publication, in which Baba Suwe was defecating, don’t you see this as a violation of his human right?

We saw the picture. It is not from NDLEA. Infact, we investigated it and saw that it was an internet thing. The Chairman of NDLEA called for investigation and we discovered that what happened was the wide technology that has been in place, where people can put another person’s head untop of another person’s body.

And that was exactly what happened. The environment in that picture did not reflect what we have in NDLEA. Also, the dress he was purportedly wearing was not part of the dress he had. We did not think it was necessary to start issuing a rejoinder because we might be giving whoever did that picture undue popularity that was why we kept our silence.

Even though NDLEA was performing its statutory duty in the arrest of Baba Suwe, don’t you think that in the process his reputation was injured in the eyes of the right thinking members of the public?

If you look at what drug trafficking has done to Nigerians in the committee of nations, you will see that whatever is done locally to prevent drug trafficking should not be seen too much by Nigerians. We have stories of how ministers have been stripped hands down outside this country because they were suspected to be carrying drugs. It should not be that bad! We know how citizens of Nigeria are treated when they get to some jurisdictions: dogs will be leached on them like animals.

Once an aircraft comes from Nigeria, if you are a constant traveller, you can see that it is not as bad as it was. This is because of the measures we have been able to put in at this level to ensure that we are not embarrassed outside. There was a time was when virtually everyday they were picking Nigerians in London, Heathrow, Amsterdam etc, but it is not like that again.

Talking about the damages the court awarded, don’t you think the agency should have thought about the implication of its action in its bid to prosecute Baba Suwe?

When we work, the overriding interest that is paramount to us is the interest of this nation. We will not allow any drug courier to go into the street with one wrap of drug in his belly. We will not allow it. That a courier is not allowed to go even with one wrap of drug in his belly is more crucial to us than what the public will say or even the damage. Come to look at it, if we are able to get that drug, it has more economic and social values to this nation.

All we are just saying in Baba Suwe’s case is that he should allow NDLEA to go through all its constitutional rights. At the end of the day, if the court say go and pay the damage, then we will approach our employers. We will go back to the Federal Government and say we have exhausted all our constitutional rights and let us pay. I am sure that the Federal Government at that level will be ready to pay.

What we are saying is that Baba Suwe is not going to loose anything if he tarries a little for the Court of Appeal to say the award of damage was right or was wrong. Not only have we sent our record of proceeding, we have filed our brief of argument. So, we are waiting for the Respondent’s lawyer, Mr Bamidele Aturu and by calculation his time will lapse on the 21st of this month (March); then the appeal will be ready or ripe for hearing.

All we are saying is that when the Court of Appeal says the Lagos High Court is right, then of course, we would have exercised our constitutional rights. Then we shall start thinking of what do to do because the Supreme Court is as well there.