By Temidayo Akinsuyi
Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), Chairman of the
Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), in this
exclusive interview with TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI speaks on latest developments
in the polity. Excerpts:
What is your perspective on the suspension of the CJN, Walter Onnoghen by President Muhammadu Buhari?
I
have been questioned on this matter and I have said the suspension of
the former CJN by President Muhammadu Buhari is both morally and legally
valid. Morally, it is valid because as head of such a major
institution, where you are supposed to show standard of ethics and good
conduct, where such an allegation is made against you, even if you have
to defend it, you must step down. You must step down because the charges
will be heard in institutions which are headed by you, the CJN. There
is no way it is going to be a fair process if you are still sitting
there at the top and your underlings are the ones hearing the petitions
that have been brought against you. So, it is not just morally right for
him to remain there while the case is being heard.
On the legal
issue, I have two approaches, which is that a Tribunal which is a court
of law has made an order and the government is bound to carry out that
order. That is exactly what has happened. The order by the Tribunal is
that the CJN should step down immediately. The moment that order was
issued, the CJN ceased to Chief Justice of Nigeria. He became acting
because that order did not sack him but step him down from his position,
pending the hearing of the case. So, with that order, the CJN is no
longer in a position to exercise his power as Chief Justice pending the
hearing of the petition. For me, what the President did was merely
affirming an already existing situation because a court had made a
pronouncement on that issue.
My second approach is that if I were
the President, having advised the Chief Justice to step down, pending
the hearing of the case and he refuses to do so, and I know the very
grave implications of him remaining in position while all institutions
under him and presiding over his own case, I as President will suspend
him. How is that justified? If you look at Section 292 paragraph 1,
there are four points there. It says the Chief Justice can be removed by
the President on grounds of unfitness for office, either physical,
mental, on grounds of misconduct and finally on grounds that he has
broken the Code of Conduct. The President can remove him if he does all
this. Before removing him, he has to send his name to the Senate and if
the Senate adopts the proposal of the President by two-thirds of the
majority, then the President can finally remove him. Now the question
may be asked: why did he suspend him before sending his name to the
Senate? The answer is he has not removed him. He has merely suspended
him because there is serious charge against him and he ought not to be
in office. He will now send the name to the Senate and it will be
deliberated upon. If they confirm the President’s charge, then that is
when he stands removed. If they fail to confirm it, then the CJN is
restored to office. That is the second approach which has not been
adopted by the president in this case. He is obeying a court order but I
am saying if he were to adopt the court order, it will be in that
sequence- belief that the CJN has committed a breach of the Code of
Conduct, suspension from office, sending his name to the Senate and if
confirmed by Senate, removal from office.
If the Code of Conduct
Tribunal at the end pronounced that he is not guilty, he goes back
automatically to his position as CJN. There is no question about that.
Former
President Olusegun Obasanjo last year said God will never forgive him
if he supports Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate. Not only
has Obasanjo forgiven him but he is also championing for his emergence
as the next President of Nigeria. What do you make of this?
God
has decided not to forgive him and so, this present outbursts and
shenanigans he has embarked upon is a like curse from God. God is
exposing him and making him a subject of ridicule and scorn in Nigeria.
That is the punishment he is suffering from God for breaking that
promise he made that God will punish him if he ever forgives and support
Atiku. I heard he is planning to embark on foreign tour for Atiku. I
hope they will all come and vote on the 16th of February. These people
just fool themselves; they don’t know what it’s all about. To start
with, this whole Obasanjo thing is a myth. He doesn’t have any following
in Nigeria. Absolutely no following! Buhari won in 2015 because he is
popular. It has nothing to do with Obasanjo. This time, I am even glad
Obasanjo is against Buhari because the landslide will be more than the
votes he got in 2015 and it will bury Obasanjo forever politically.
What
is your perspective on his recent letter where he claimed that
President Buhari is behaving like a dictator and has taken Nigeria back
to the Abacha era?
Let me begin by saying that the status of an
ex-president is one of quiet dignity, respect, discretion, decorum,
discipline and restraint. Obasanjo does not have a single one of these
qualities. We have had a number of former Heads of State, namely, Gowon,
Shagari, Babangida, Abubakar Salami and Jonathan. All of these former
Heads of State have exercised discretion, restraint and self-discipline
in relation to their successors, but not Obasanjo.
Obasanjo’s
boisterous, aggressive and hectoring attitude towards succeeding
Presidents, strikes me as a case of one who has never recovered from the
loss of power. By his meddlesomeness, rude and uncouth attitude
towards later Heads of State, it is clear that he is addicted to a
substance called “power”, and is angry and resentful towards any other
person exercising it.
Gowon was Obasanjo’s boss from 1966 to
1975, (nine years). Not once did Gowon utter a public criticism of
Obasanjo throughout his two tenures from 1976 – 1979 and 1999 to 2007.
The same thing applies to Abdul Salami Abubakar, who handed over power
to Obasanjo in 1999. Not a single word of public excoriation against
Obasanjo was uttered by Abdul Salami Abubakar throughout Obasanjo’s
eight years in power. Abubakar demonstrated only decorum and
self-respect.
Babangida had no peace when he was in power with
Obasanjo ripping him open with sarcasm at close intervals. When
Yar’Adua was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia, his condition did not
restrain Obasnajo from launching a missile against him in his hospital
bed.
Then came the epistle of St. Matthew Obasanjo to Jonathan in
2014 It was explosive, even including the allegation that Jonathan was
training a squad of snipers. Now it is Buhari’s turn. The truth is
that Obasanjo has never recovered from his power addiction and in his
own mind, he is the President-General of Nigeria for life.
Another
strange phenomenon is Obasanjo’s capacity to launch vitriolic attacks
on his successors allegedly doing what he Obasanjo did repeatedly as
president without a thought of his own gross misdeeds; a clear case of
amnesia.First, he accuses Buhari of being a dictator like Abacha,
brooking no alternative views. What of Obasanjo? Was he himself not an
African Hitler?
Perhaps the most blatant display of Unclad
fascism and violation of the Constitution, by Obasanjo, was his removal
or attempted removal of State Governors which Prof. Ben Nwabueze
describes, as coups d’ etat! The method used by Obasanjo was simple and
brutal. The EFCC (under Ribadu) moves into the State of the targeted
Governor in full force. It arrests all the State legislators and takes
them away for detention in Lagos or Abuja. Whilst in detention they are
offered incentives to sign already prepared notices of impeachment of
the victim Governor. Once sufficient signatures are obtained, the
Legislators are ferried under armed guard back into their State capital
and taken straight to the House of Assembly, already secured by heavily
armed police or military personnel. Once inside the Chambers of the
House, they follow a tightly prepared script, involving a compromised
Chief Judge who pursuant to a resolution of the captured legislators,
appoints a pre-selected panel of partymen with the single mandate of
finding the Governor guilty of misconduct. Without giving the Governor
any hearing, the panel finds him guilty as charged, and the hostage
legislators are rushed in again to accept the report. In 5 minutes,
it’s all over, the Governor is removed and by a strange coincidence, the
EFCC is there on standby to arrest the ex-Governor and take him away to
detention.
This is exactly what happened in Bayelsa, and in
Plateau States, except that Dariye slipped quietly away whilst the EFCC
was playing its power games to remove him. In Anambra State, Obasanjo
actually used an Assistant Inspector-General of Police to arrest the
Governor (Dr. Ngige) and compel him under duress to sign a letter of
resignation. In Oyo State, the strong man of Ibadan, Lamidi Adedibu,
was the one used in the purported removal of the Governor Ladoja in a
beer parlour. The removal of Governor Fayose of Ekiti State followed
the same script, except that the ambitions of the Speaker, of the State
House of Assembly and that of the Deputy Governor, to be the Acting
Governor, clashed and resulted in a distortion involving equally
compromised and shameless members of the Judiciary.
Remember
Alamieyeseigha, Governor of Bayelsa? Obasanjo got him arrested in
London a few days after a surgical operation. Blood was dripping down
from his wound as the British Police arrested him at London Heathrow
Airport at Obasanjo’s request.
Some pathetic details of what
happened to Governor Alamieyeseigha needs to be exposed. When Governor
Alamieyeseigha managed to escape from London back to his State Bayelsa,
Obasanjo ordered the EFCC then under Mr. Ribadu to move in on members of
the House of Assembly in Bayelsa and arrest all of them. Following the
collective arrest, they were all relocated to a prison in Abuja where
they were threatened with dire consequences if they did not sign an
impeachment resolution prepared by the EFCC on Obasanjo’s instructions.
Whilst
all this was going on, Obasanjo closed down radio Bayelsa and ordered
the banks in which the Bayelsa government had accounts to freeze those
accounts. This paralyzed the Bayelsa government, and led to starvation
of public servants.
After this, the Assembly men were brought
back to Yenagoa were they proceeded to complete the process of
impeachment under duress.
Immediately after the brazen illegal
impeachment and removal of Alamieyeseigha, he was arrested by soldiers
who had already taken over the whole of Bayelsa for trial and
imprisonment.
In Plateau State, Obasanjo using the military force
of the EFCC and Ribadu got Governor Dariye of Plateau State removed by 5
members of the House of Assembly, in a house composed of about 28
Legislators.
The declaration of States of Emergency by the
Obasanjo Federal Government in Plateau and Ekiti States, were prime
illustrations of Obasanjo’s gross subversion of Nigeria’s federal
system. Not only did Obasanjo fail to comply with the conditions
precedent for the declaration of a State of Emergency, even if the
declarations were valid, the exercise of power under the declaration was
grossly ultra vires the Federal Government, unconstitutional and
illegal.
A state of emergency can only be declared if as stated
in section 305 (3); (a) the Federation is at war, or (b) in imminent
danger of invasion, or involvement in a State of War, or (c) there is
actual breakdown of law and order and public safety in the Federation or
any part thereof to such an extent as to require extra ordinary
measures to restore peace and security, or (d) a clear and present
danger of (c) above, or (e) there is a disaster or natural calamity
affecting a community or part of it, or (f) threat to the existence of
the Federation, or (g) request by a State Governor for such a
declaration over his or her state, as a result of a situation similar to
(c) and (e) above.
The infringements of the Constitution in the
two declarations of emergency, are legion. In the first place, the
factual situation that must exist as a condition precedent, did not
exist. There was no breakdown of public order and public safety at any
time in Plateau or Ekiti States, “to such an extent as to require
extraordinary measures to restore peace and security”. Infact the whole
tenor of section 11 of the Constitution, (which is the section
containing all the powers exercisable during an emergency) shows that an
emergency declaration is intended to be a cooperative endeavour between
the Federal Government and a state Government whose organs, Governors,
House of Assembly and Judiciary, are fully functioning. Section 11(2)
provides that nothing in that section should preclude a House of
Assembly from making laws in respect of the maintenance and securing of
public safety and public order, etc, in an emergency, just like the
National Assembly. Section 11(4) prohibits the National Assembly from
performing the work of a State House of Assembly, as long as the House
can hold a meeting and transact business. The same section prohibits
the National Assembly from removing a Governor from office at any time.
Nowhere is power conferred on anyone to suspend a Governor or House of
Assembly.
Thus, the removal of Fayose (Ekiti) and Dariye
(Plateau) by declaration of a State of Emergency was blatantly illegal
and unconstitutional. President Jonathan complied with the Constitution
when he declared a State of Emergency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States
in 2013. The positions of the Governors and State Houses of Assembly
were not affected. But Obasanjo, the great Dictator swept away
Governors and State Houses of Assembly when he declared his States of
Emergency; Law or no Law, Constitution or no Constitution. Obasanjo was
higher than both Law and Constitution.
Source:- Independentng
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