Elder statesman and revered constitutional lawyer, Chief James Ezike, has taken a swipe at recent developments in the country, especially the renewed attacks by Boko Haram insurgents and the debate over Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s defection from the PDP to APC, hinging the problems on the absence of a system of social beliefs. He spoke to Bertram Nwannekanma.Recent political developments in the country
There is nothing strange about the happenings in the country because if you recalled the first interview, I granted The Guardian, I stated that Nigeria had not yet been created. It is after Nigeria has been created, that you can begin to talk about principles.
The real problem is that we have politicians without ideology, and those who have ideology trade it off very easily.
The result is that not a single politician in the country has ideology. What do they stand for? Is there any difference between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ideologically?
The same goes for the judiciary. I have always wondered how our judges, particularly appellate courts judges, manage to write their judgments, considering the volume of materials they have to go through without ideology?
I keep asking; what keeps them awake at night? You cannot be a judge without ideology. It is impossible but in Nigeria, it is happening.
I belong to American Bar Association (ABA) and I do know what is happening there; the same is happening in Germany and everywhere else in the world and it used to happen here in Nigeria.
If you go to court and meet somebody like Justice Aniagolu, you can be sure that his judgment will be based on equity; or Justice Uwaifo and Justice Ayoola, too; you can be sure that their judgments will be based on scholarship. So is Justice Eso.
And, of course, if you are talking about jurisprudence, you have to talk about Justice Obaseki. Nobody can ever forget Justice Idigbe; he was versatile. So, when you bring a brief to them with voluminous records, they will give judgment if you said within two weeks. They will read all those things because they have ideology and they know what they are looking for.
If you have ideology, the speed with which you will go through those documents will be incredible; it will be supersonic because you believe in something.
The same issue of lack of ideology affects the judiciary
About four months ago, a lawyer, who was acting as an amicus in the United States of America (USA), went to the Supreme Court of USA and did what our Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) do regularly here. He cited a case and began to read from it.
The judges were mad. They felt insulted because they are not bound by the opinions of the judges of the Supreme Court or any other persons’ views. They just want him to argue his brief and make his submissions simple because they have their own belief system. That does not happen here.
Here, it is like memorising for examination and so it is not surprising that you have a lot of judgments based on technicalities. We even have a governor, who had never won an election and yet he is finishing a second term — everything on technicalities.
Where you have ideology that cannot happen. Is it a secret that the governor of Rivers State has never won an election? It is not a secret. The one people remember was the one of 2007. What of the last election in 2011? Did he win?
Elections were held in only nine out of the 23 local councils in Rivers State. The result that his lawyer tendered in court was only in nine local councils.
And so, we have a situation where all technicalities were deployed. We challenged that and won in the Court of Appeal and the matter was sent back for retrial. We have 90 days but the then acting President of the Court of Appeal (Justice Adamu) refused to give us judges to hear the case, after so many supplications and applications.
They waited until the whole 180 days had passed three times before they got judges, who initially agreed that we could continue but eventually changed their minds.
Now, we have a very nosy governor, who had never won an election. All these could not have happened if there was ideology. If the acting President of Court of Appeal had any ideology, he could have acted on our application to get a date.
If the Supreme Court also had ideology, they would not have found themselves bound by the 180 days because the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights supercedes the provisions of our Constitution just like the Treaty of Rome binds the whole of the Europe.
The same Supreme Court also decided it in 1999 in the case of Abacha vs. Fawehinmi. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights gives us right to fair hearing. Do you get fair hearing when the court is the one delaying the case?
So, there are so many technical issues. People, who have ideology, would not say 180 days had passed, the Constitution was amended, and then you are out of court. What errs the polity errs the judiciary: lack of ideology.
Year 2015 as make or mar for Nigeria
I DID not accept that 2015 is going to be the end of Nigeria. I did not also accept that America said so as such. What happened is that Tribune Newspapers reported what various agencies said about the various parts of the world and they mentioned one about Nigeria.
When Alhaji Shehu Shagari was sworn in as president of Nigeria, Times Magazine reported that the chances of Nigerian surviving did not exist. They gave reasons as to the culture, the religion and the rivalries but they do not live here with us, and they did not know how ignorant our people are, how subservient our people are.
They did not know that our concepts are different and that nobody has any ideology concerning anything. So, they were wrong and it did not happen and I did not see it happen.
Nobody can use force, whether as Boko Haram or any other thing, to divide Nigeria. If a reformer does not emerge, you will just wake up one day and see that Nigeria has disintegrate. You will look around and say, where is my country?
It has disappeared; you don’t see it anymore unless a reformer appears. And from what I am seeing in the firmament, there is none.
Reaction to warnings by former President Olusegun Obasanjo against a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket
In this country, religion is a sensitive issue in so many respects. In the first place, no country talks more about religion like Nigeria and yet, no country is more irreligious than Nigeria.
However, when you look around, everything is done illegally. One man was given monopoly of importing and selling seven essential commodities for more than two decades, and yet, nobody sees anything wrong with it.
What they are seeing is where somebody worships or does not worship but it is a matter of personal decision.
I did not say that balancing the ticket makes sense; the difference it makes is prolonging the evil day. Until there is a reformer, no amount of balancing of the ticket of presidential candidates can make the difference.
There must be reforms. What they are even saying so far is to make changes, but it is not every change that is reform. What we need are reforms.
Role of the judiciary in such reforms
The judiciary has the capacity of saving this country but so far, it has not done well in that direction.
I will call on the judiciary to go on strike now. They should go on strike to secure their independence, and let us see how the politicians will get their election matters resolved without the judiciary.
Why do I want the judiciary to go on strike? I want them to go on strike to improve their conditions of service. I want them to go on strike on behalf of all other parts of the country because they have the advantage of making the government to sit up.
Every judge should be paid a living wage. Every where else in the world, people do not go on strike anymore to ask for more money; people go on strike to improve the condition of their service.
Why don’t they go on strike anymore for more money? It’s because they are being paid a living wage. If you get a living wage on which you will retire, it will be index-linked to the rate of inflation.
In other words, if you are earning N1 million a year as a judge at a rate of 10 per cent inflation, then it is required that you will be paid N10 million and you shall be able to live on it. That is what is done everywhere.
Where wages are index-linked, even the lowest of the civil servant will continue receiving the same amount even when he retired and their pensions will also be index-linked.
The judiciary should go on strike to get their pay and other civil servants index-linked so that there will be no more temptations to take bribes. The number of judges may be reduced but they will be more efficient.
They (judges) may not do it because somebody will tell you that judges do not go on strike, which is a lie. In England, during the days of Tony Blair, the government wanted to reduce their salaries. They said all right; if you do that, we will go back to our practice.
In Nigeria, we have stupid law that says they could not go back to practice, but like I said, the African Charter on Human Rights supercedes any law. They have the right to go on strike.
In other Common Law countries, they have gone on strike in India, they have gone on strike in Pakistan and the lawyers supported them. They should come out and we will follow them, and they will reform the judiciary and the whole country. That is where the elite can make a change for the good of all.
But if you are waiting for the so-called politicians to change anything, it will not work because they cannot change anything. The changes we can bring in Nigeria should come from sectors like the judiciary.
They should go on strike and say we are not going to sit unless we are going to be paid a living wage, and it should be index-linked to the cost of inflation.
They can live on it and when they retire, they can, for the first time, go on holidays with their families. The money will be enough to pay school fees for those who are still paying school fees.
Most of them die prematurely because they are not earning enough and so, the temptation to take bribe is too high. Protect the judiciary and you end up protecting the country.
They have no excuse; let them tell us that judges don’t go on strike, which is hogwash. They have the right to go on strike. It is their fundamental human rights. By so doing, they can save the country.
Lack of ideology plays out in Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s defection
It goes without saying that the Speaker has been trading parties over the years. A person that is ideological cannot keep moving from one party to the other. If he did, he would have honourably resigned but there is no ideology.
So, people do not see anything wrong with it; it is a matter of honour. If there is no honour, a man should not live; that is what makes you a man.
When I said a man that includes a woman. If you have no honour, you have no right to live.