18042019 - PRESIDENTIAL TUSSLE:I always beat you in every election, Buhari tells Atiku

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22 — Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019 By Henry Ojelu Mr. Uwemedimo Nwoko is the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Akwa Ibom State. In this interview, he spoke on remedies for victim of election violence, FoI Act and non custodian sentencing, among others. Excerpt How would you assess crime rate in Akwa Ibom State now, compared to when this administration came into office in 2015? There is a wide difference between Pre-2015 May, 2015 May and Post-2015 May. There is a wide difference between the crime statistics. In the Pre-2015 May, Akwa Ibom State use to witness killings and inexplicable acts. Assassinations and armed robbery were rife. Post 2015 May, everyone has the record. Communities, individuals, judges etc testified to the fact that there is a remarkable difference between the crime rate of that time and present day. It is to the credit of the current administration that has put the security architecture on ground which has turned out to be a success in term of reducing and minimizing crime. Since your state adopted the Child Rights Act, what has posed the biggest challenge in the implementation of the act? Basically, what have posed the biggest challenges for us in the implementation of the act is tradition and religion. Tradition in the sense that a lot of communities still don’t understand the basic rights of the child. So it requires a more vigorous education particularly of the rural populace to understand the basic needs of the child within the contest of the Nigerian Constitution and the Akwa Ibom State Child Rights Act. Religion on the other hand plays a major role at the centre, being that some people still hold the believes that some children are being possessed by witchcraft spirits. A lot of children are still being put through very heinous process of trials in the name of trying to remove such spirits. I want to say that the state is fighting that very vigorously. Not just in the deployment of the laws of the state but also through collaboration with nongovernmental organisations like the one being run by the governor’s wife, Mrs Martha Emmanuel. We have prosecuted a lot of church owners who still engage in such practice. In the last four years, we have brought the matter to the barest minimum. It is no longer a rampant case. You rarely find children being 08152060944 Religion, culture major challenges of Child Rights Act implementation -----Nwoko, A’Ibom AG •Nwoko subjected to such harrowing experiences again. Some states in the country are using the Administration of Criminal Justice Rules, ACJL to ensure effective justice administration in their states. What is the state of ACJL in your state? We don’t have a functional ACJL in Akwa Ibom State yet. Right now, that law is still with the state House of Assembly as a bill. The House had actually passed it and it was at the point of being assented to. But for a law like that, we needed to put it through the major stakeholders. Judges had issues with implementation. The police and other security agencies were complaining of inadequacies and logistics problems in terms of implementation. The prosecution also had issue with the law. So I discovered that if I advice the governor to assent to the bill, we may have a technical law in our hands. It may amount to having a law that cannot be implemented. Right now, the bill is still with the state Assembly. I don’t know whether this present Assembly will be able to pass it before their exit. Do you think there is need for urgency passage of the bill? Well, for the purpose of reform yes. The society is dynamic and we keep on moving forward and advancing in all facets of life. To that extent, there is the need to pass the bill into law so that we can also catch up with other states in terms of speed of prosecution. But my advice is that we should not jump from frying pan to fire. In so many cases, some states have jumped into it and are facing a lot of challenges. It is better that before the law comes in, we should be able to put in place, basic logistics that would enhance the implementation of the law. What is success level of prosecution in your state? I don’t have the full statistics here with me, but I can tell you that we have achieved alot. We have recorded several convictions for capital offences. Last year, we secured the convictions of so many kidnappers. The popular one among them is the case involving three police officers and four other persons involved in kidnapping. We followed that case through and secure conviction against them. If you also remember, there was the case of a barber who was killed and cut into pieces. We also secured theconviction of those involved in the murder. If there should be a remedy for victims of election violence, it should be packaged within the framework of INEC’s mandate Akwa Ibom State is one of the states notorious for not honoring Freedom of Information, FoI Act. Why is that so? Obtaining information under the FoI Act is a very simple thing in our state. A person applies and every application is subject to scrutiny. It is not every application that is granted. When the applications come, the ones that have merit, we grant them without hesitation. There are some applications that even when you see them, you will know that the applications are made in bad fate. You don’t just grant an application just because someone applied. That is why it is called an application. Every application must be scrutinised. You don’t just get what you requested just because you applied for it. There are certain public interests that have to be considered before any request is granted. For those who apply, we have no reason to refuse, after all it is public information. You may not know, but I can tell you that we grant more than 90 percent of applications that come through the FoI Act. Non- Constodian sentencing is gradually gaining traction in some climes in decongesting the prisons. What is your state doing in this direction? I will be honest with you, we have not put such in place as of this moment. We are still applying the criminal code and conviction is still strictly according to the law. The sentencing of convict is guided by the existing laws. In view of the need to decongest the prisons, we have made visits to the prisons a more regular exercise to ensure that those who ordinarily shouldn’t be there are removed from the facilities. About two months ago, I treated a case file when I discovered that two persons were remanded in Ekot Ekpene Prisons, for allegation of stealing a goat. When I treated the case, I found that the men have not been charged to court. That was since September 2017. Immediately I finished treating the file, the following day, I call the Director of Public Prosecution, DPP. I personally drove to the prison, made all necessary preparations and got them released. There was actually no point keeping them in that place. There was a clear mischieve in that case which I had instructed should be investigated. Someone is accused of stealing goat and he is remanded in prison for over two years without arraignment in court. There was also the case of a minor detained in the prison. Obviously somebody went and manipulated the age of the minor from 15 to 25. Morally and legally, that was a very wrong thing to do. I went to the prison personally with my team and ensured that the minor was released. This is the kind of spirit that this government works on because the fundamental rights of indigenes of this state are of high priority to the governor. We don’t joke with such situations. What would be the focus of your ministry in the next four years? By the grace of God, we intend to bring in more innovations. I hope I should be able to establish the Public Defender Office within the office of the Attorney-General so that in peculiar cases, government should be able to provide lawyers for indigent accused persons as is done is some other states. This will ensure that the rights of such accused persons are not trampled upon. If we have all the basic things we need, one of the things we plan to set up is a crime data base so that it will be possible to track down people who are disposed to criminal activities. With that, we should be able to know who is a 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd offender as the case may be. This will also help us to set up a forensic laboratory to identify criminals possibly by their finger prints and other means. These are some of the things we hope to do. For the ACJL, we hope to effectively put that in place so that we will be able to catch up with the rest of the world in term of fast tracking the criminal justice system in the state. How would you describe the last election in your state? Let me begin by saying that one of the saddest things that still happens in this country, is election violence. Election is supposed to be a very simple and seamless process where people who aspire to serve the state or the country should just go out and seek the approval of the people. I don’t see why it should be a do or die affair. Unfortunately, that is what we have in this country. Now, as for Akwa Ibom State, I can say that we have about 90 per cent peaceful election. That does not mean that we did not have pockets of violence. We had few cases which were clearly indentified. I don’t want to start mentioning names because the police is still doing their investigation but we had cases where even the primaries of the opposition party in Akwa Ibom State was violent. Two young people were killed during that primaries. But generally, the last election in the state, was peaceful. What remedy would you suggest for victims of election violence? Unfortunately, there is no such remedy anywhere. It is something that should have been provided by INEC or the Federal Government because election is organised by INEC. If there should be a remedy for victims, it should be packaged within the framework of INEC's mandate. There should actually be a way of compensating people who suffered various forms of violence during election. C M Y K
Vanguard, THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2019 — 23 NIGERIA: Lady Justice has fallen By Awa Kalu, SAN I struggled to find an appropriate title for this brief article. The competing titles were: “Onnoghen, what manner of Justice?”; “Lady Justicia and her imbalanced scale”; and the one I eventually chose- “Nigeria: Lady Justicia has fallen”. The reason for choosing the current title arises from AsiwajuAdegboyegaAwomolo, SAN’s lament over the confusing signals from the trial of the Chief Justice of Nigeria at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT. It was the necessity to abide by the age old tradition, of avoiding commentary on pending trials that compelled me to reject the title- “Onnoghen, what manner of justice” so as not to prejudge the outcome of the trial of the learned Chief Justice of Nigeria. For the avoidance of doubt, when Lady Justicia falls, the signs are ominous. If you paid a visit to the headquarters of the Federal High Court in Abuja, or the Oyinkan Abayomi Road premises of the same Court in IkoyiLagos, you would find the statue of Lady Justicia. Similarly, the headquarters of the High Court of Enugu State, in Enugu, has the bronze statue of Lady Justicia in its premises. In addition, whenever you’re in the Abia State Judiciary headquarters in Umuahia, God’s own State, you would find proudly mounted the statue of Lady Justicia. Without a shred of doubt, the statue of Lady Justitia is an assurance that ‘Justice’ can be found in those premises. This is because Lady Justicia is universally considered the symbol of justice. She usually stands erect, blindfolded, robed, holding a balanced scale of justice and wielding a sword. All these represent impartiality, objectivity and enforcement of the law. I say she has fallen in reference to the cinematic film ‘Olympus Has Fallen’, a film with a plot narrating terrorist attacks on the White House in the United States of America.In this film, the bodyguard of the President was removed from his job against his wish and for no reason of any legal wrong doing. He ends up saving the President and his son in a terrorist attack, by entering into the White House amidst the chaos and without the knowledge of the security officials. Indeed, Lady Justicia has had a terrorist attack but in her case in Nigeria, this terrorist is injustice.Injustice, if you don’t mind, has crept into the very fabric of what we have always known as Nigerians in our economic and financial transactions, our electoral process, our communal life, our religious and social life and behold, our judicial process. Yes, Lady’s Justicia’s scale is imbalanced and an imbalanced scale does not signify or indicate justice. The concept of justice is a universal language, despite its varying practicality from country to country. In fact, in the normal scheme of things, it should motivate every aspect of the legal system in any country. This is because it knows no class, no creed, no ethic group, no gender, and ought to be served equally, in line with Thomas Aquinas’s reasoning that ‘Justice is in subjects as well as rulers’. It is indeed a concept that permeates many aspects of human life. Those who practice Christianity, will know that injustice was indeed one of the reasons God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In the broader perspective and beyond religion, justice connotes the rule of law and the idea of fairness. It is fuel to the progress of a nation. Therefore, when a country wallows in the quagmire of injustice, it is no surprise that poverty, crime, lawlessness and so on, will inevitably be the result. Consequently, Asiwaju Awomolo, SAN, in a much publicized press statement has said of the trial of the Chief Justice of Nigeria that “the case has clearly shown that Nigerian Judiciary is very weak, vulnerable and not independent. The security of tenure of a judicial officer is a mere wishful thinking.” This is notwithstanding the several laws that govern the appointment, removal, remuneration, pension plan and even retirement age of judicial officers. The supreme law of the land, that is, our Constitution provides that appointment and removal of a judicial officer particularly, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, shall be by the President on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (subject to confirmation of such appointment by the Senate or removal by the President acting on an *Onnoghen address supported by twothirds of the majority of the Senate) as the case may be. In addition to this, even the remuneration of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and all other members of the judiciary are protected by law as the Constitution provides that the amount standing to the credit of the Judiciary shall be paid directly to the Judiciary. It is this writer’s view that what has happened to Onnoghen, contains a recipe that would in due course be tried on many other high functionaries of the judicial branch... But just as the traducers are not at this time smelling of roses, it may be scientifically speculated that in due course also, 'what goes around, will come around' It is clear that this is to ensure the independence of the judiciary. However, the fact that public funds are controlled by the Executive begs one to ponder on the true independence of the Nigerian Judiciary and even the legal profession as a whole. It is not farfetched to think this way because as Awomolo, SAN pointed, “it is unthinkable that the head of the Judiciary will be treated the way Onnoghen was treated and not a whimper came from the body of men and women of highest distinction in the legal profession.” As stated above, the National Judicial Council indeed plays a key role in the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria. Therefore as Awomolo queried: “Is it not dangerous that the President can appoint a Chief Justice without the recommendation of the National Judicial Council, NJC? Whereas political matters and election matters were treated with dispatch, and judgment delivered within hours, the appeal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, six weeks after argument, was ordered to be kept away in the file. There is no association of Nigeria Judges to speak a word. […] Nobody knows who is next, a precedent has been laid. The Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation seems pleased.” From the foregoing, it is obvious that many stones have been thrown at Lady Justicia. It is to bring heavy, the wind of injustice that has brought Lady Justicia to the ground. Continuing the lamentation from the bar, the well-respected Senior Counsel, further stated that: “Men, who sit in judgment over fellow human beings are representatives of God on earth and everyone shall face the Almighty God, on the last day, to give account of his stewardship. On that day all secrets shall be laid bare.” “The Bar Association has” Chief Awomolo continued, “by reason of personal leadership ambition, been rendered ineffective, divided and weak. It is unable to speak boldly to secure the independence of the Judiciary.” With no less than 80 branches in the Federation, not one single branch of the Nigerian Bar Association made a categorical statement all through the saga. “Elders of the Bar and men of goodwill should rise from their deep sleep. People, who must sit in judgment over others, must be men and women of character, learning and maturity. The mental status and background of such judges must be certified approved.” Awomolo further said that: “the experience of Onnoghen’s trial has brought to the fore the urgent need for institutional reforms to ensure that agencies like the CCT was made independent.” It is this writer’s view that what has happened to Justice Onnoghen, contains a recipe that would in due course be tried on many other high functionaries of the judicial branch and probably, on other persons whose category maybe unknown at this time. But just as the traducers are not at this time smelling of roses, it may be scientifically speculated that in due course also, “what goes around, will come around.” Apart from a few, each Nigerian hides in the cocoon of his comfort zone when sinister things are happening in quarters that seem distant. However, democratic ethos if followed, are the best guarantees of the brand called democracy. Justice Walter Onnoghen was taken out of office beclouding the real substance of the war of corruption not being fought in a tight manner, further spreading the perception of apparent injustice. If in the end, the public opinion is in favour of what the Federal Government has done, then the war against corruption will gain additional momentum but if doubts remain as to the transparency of the whole process as well as the validation of the facts, then the war will continue to create doubt about Lady Justicias’s scale, balanced or imbalanced. EDITORIAL Innocent Anaba ( Head) Ikechukwu Nnochiri Contributors: Henry Ojelu, Onozure Dania C M Y K
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18042019 - PRESIDENTIAL TUSSLE:I always beat you in every election, Buhari tells Atiku

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