RE: Outsourcing Justice: Time to Claim Our Profession Back!

And so, the Federal Government last week banned the not-so-Super Eagles from international competitions for the next two years. Then, the EFCC stormed the offices of the Nigerian Football Federation carting off documents. One hopes the first is not simply a knee-jerk reaction, and the latter will result in questions answered. Questions such as: how was the huge sum earmarked for the team’s preparation disbursed? Is there some truth to the allegation that shortlisted candidates for team coach were asked to inflate their remuneration and by whom? Who bungled the travel and hotel bookings in South Africa and at what cost? Were all those government officials and hangers-on who were in South Africa really necessary and were they there legitimately? Who footed the cost? If the taxpayer, why?

And when those questions are answered, culprits made to face the law.
Here's a question for President Goodluck Jonathan: would the books of the NFF have been looked into if the Super Eagles had progressed in the competition and done us proud?
Meanwhile, there are legal issues concerning government’s ban. Not surprisingly, our cover this week is on that.

Below is a reader’s response to my column of June 15:
I read your column, Outsourcing Justice: Time to Claim Our Profession Back, published in THISDAY LAWYER of Tuesday, 15 June, 2010. It is indeed time to claim back our profession. That was the pith of one of the papers delivered at the recently held IBA Regional Conference in Lagos. However, as much as we need to claim back our profession, there is indeed a bigger need, as it were, to claim back our country from the hoodlums holding Nigeria to ransom. Why do I say this?
We cannot divorce the legal profession or the judiciary from the rest of the country. The judiciary, for example, is a reflection of the larger Nigerian society. Ours is a society without any values whatsoever. We are in a country where right means wrong and wrong means right.

Why do we expect the judicial system to work in Nigeria? That is an unrealistic expectation in the circumstances. The people at the helm of the judicial system are Nigerians and they are not immune to the graft and corruption of the larger society. What about those who make appointments to the bench? Are they not Nigerians? Once a bad appointment is made either in respect of the intellectual capabilities of the appointee or the appointee’s integrity then there is a problem for as long as such a person remains on the bench.

You wrote about your consternation during proceedings at a narcotics smuggling trial. Quite a number of the prosecutors are just going through the motions. There is no zeal or passion for their work. A lot are on the lookout for a big pay day like majority of us. The narcotics smugglers brought to court are a small percentage of those involved in the trade. Majority are never caught. The authorities simply look the other way.

It is also well and good to complain about the image problems brought about by narcotics smuggling. However, those in government cause more damage to the country. When people loot the treasury with impunity and there is no punishment of any sort, then those who do not have the opportunity to loot the treasury will become drug dealers, armed robbers, fraudsters, etc, all in a bid ‘to make it’ in Nigeria.

There is not much difference between the politician and civil servant who loot the treasury, the armed robber, the drug dealer, the judge who takes bribe and the lawyer who gives, etc. The basic difference is in the opportunities available to each of them. The underlying values are basically the same. If the rogue politician did not have the opportunity to rob the treasury he will probably be an armed robber so long as he has the guts to match his sticky fingers.

There was also the point about judges taking control of their courts. At some point in your article, it appeared as if the judges were the victims. I really do not know about judges being traumatised and living under the threat of a petition to NJC. A lot of the judges behave like the Lords of the Manor.

As far as I am concerned, no fairly competent judge with integrity will lose sleep about any petition to NJC. When a judge is in control of his court both lawyers and litigants know and they will not fool around in that particular court.
The problem comes when judges have compromised themselves. The interesting thing is that after a time the word will go round that a particular judge is amenable to bribery. Of course the judge will soon be afraid of his shadow.

Some judges are so lawless and reckless it is unbelievable. Some courts start sitting by 11 am and the lawyers do not complain. It is not enough for us to talk about claiming back our profession, we must back up our speech with action. Just as we need to take our destinies in our hands to rescue Nigeria from the marauding politicians. As lawyers, we need to either boycott courts that sit at their own times or collectively lodge a complaint against such judges.

We must also confront the graft in the system. No one complains or stands up to the court workers who exploit lawyers and litigants alike. The court workers will demand outrageous sums to do the things they are paid to do. In claiming our profession and country back, we must stand up to such civil servants and refuse to be exploited against our will.

There is no doubt that once a judge is in control of his court then things will move considerably faster. The problem appears to be that some people have taken up appointment as judges when they have no business being judges. They do not have the mental capacity or the discipline required for the job.

I am counsel in a matter that has been in court since 2005. The matter is purely on interpretation of an Act. The judge who was handling the case was just not up to it. He just kept finding reasons to adjourn the matter for about five years. Fortunately he got transferred this year and we started afresh before a new judge. The matter has been set down for judgment as I write.
There is another matter that for about six years the judge had only taken two witnesses. He will fail to sit for no apparent reason. He will start seating at about 10.30 am and by 2 pm he will round up. He has been transferred and hopefully the new judge will be more diligent.

I have a personal matter, which I commenced by originating summons. Final addresses were adopted in the matter more than one year ago. But as I write, the judge has failed to deliver judgment to my utter frustration. He has been transferred and the news is that he went with the file and so no one knows what will become of the case. Such a judge has every reason to fear appearing before the NJC.

Even with our challenges and limitations, it is not difficult to speedily resolve disputes. A judge should not skip court except for ill health or for some serious emergency. At the beginning of a legal year all the activities for which a judge should be involved in should be noted in his diary and cases must not be adjourned to such dates. But what do we have? We have a situation where some judges routinely skip court. There are judges in the federal courts in Lagos whose families are outside Lagos. Some of them travel out every Friday, but rather than come back on Sunday, they will come back on Monday, with the attendant consequences to the litigants in their courts.

A judge should only have on his list the number of cases he should be able to take in a day. Why have sixty cases on the cause list if it is not sheer mischief? Once trial is opened in a matter, it should proceed from day to day or in the worst case there should not be more than two weeks adjournment at any time up until the case is concluded. In delivering judgment, same should simply be summarised and copies of the judgment made available to the litigants on the same day. There is really no need for a judge to spend, for instance, two hours of precious judicial time reading a judgment in court.

Being a judge takes common sense. The appellate judges generally behave like gods. Motions with their exorbitant costs are routinely struck out for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. The courts are meant to do justice to the parties and not a classroom where motion papers are scrutinised for typographical errors and for other inconsequential errors.

On the whole it is critical we claim our country back from the hoodlums holding the country hostage. We need a country where the representatives of the people will truly represent the people and not themselves, a country where people will go into public service to serve and not to loot. That way we would have a judicial system we shall be proud of.
•Ikenna Okoli, FCIArb., Legal Practitioner & Notary Public, Surulere, Lagos

Let a Quartet Drive Africa?s Development

Man was made to improve his environment and that is why on a daily bases, the secrets of nature are being discovered by the intelligent ones leading to the advancement of humanity. These would come in forms of new research discoveries, inventions and innovations.

Stagnancy is not the way of nature and man must abide by this principle or sink to the level of animal where he once was.
The world is progressing faster because of legacies left by intelligent and wise ones like albeit Einstein, Socrates, Michael Faraday and many others but Africa seems to be left out in this progress.

I have devoted much of this column since we were given the go ahead by the Editor-in-Chief of this great media to the cause of Africa because during my earlier days in journalism, a mentoring editor told me to concentrate on Africa as a foreign correspondent because that should be the region bordering us.

This fired my passion and made me to look around me to see whether the continent is truly helpless as often portrayed by the foreign media but in my quest I was elated to learn that the continent has tremendous resources but has an amazing deficit in leadership.

Now, what of the power of its critics within? I discovered that the critics within look at the continent using the same lens as the foreign media they read and one can neither blame the foreign media nor these critics because the mind can only regurgitate what it has sipped.

But oftentimes, the critics do not offer any solution believing that the leaders they lampoon cannot entertain alternative reasoning.
Any person who has been in any type of leadership position must have realized how tasty some leaders are to advice and guidance and how charlatans exploit this lacuna.

To this end I would call on critics of African leaders to be ready to offer solutions as well to make sure that this our great continent comes to realise the God ordained function of leadership it must assume in the years to come.
My suggestion is that rather than three countries as proposed by former foreign affairs minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, four countries, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Angola must come together to form a quartet to map a way to the emancipation of the continent economically.
Of course, that does not mean that other countries would be left behind but their efforts would help to propel other countries like, Equatorial Guinea which often prides itself in a funny way as Spain on Africa and the likes of Egypt which does not wholly identify with the continent into action.

South Africa has an edge because its economy is strong and in 2008 it ranked fourth on the Ibrahim Index of Good Governance and has been acclaimed by various informed categorizers as organized.
By UN classification the country is has abundant supply of resources, well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors, a stock exchange that ranks among the top twenty in the world, and a modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centres throughout the entire region.

Nigeria is the most populous country on the continent with 150 million people and the sixth supplier of petroleum worldwide. Its major inhibition is bad governance but it has practiced consistence democracy for more than a decade now thereby signaling stability. The economy is one of the fastest growing in the world. It is a hegemon in West African sub-region.
Ghana has demonstrated that it can recover fast from the shock of backwardness that lasted for more than a decade. It is well endowed with natural resources and has twice the per capita output of the poorer countries in West Africa. It has recently discovered oil in large quantity.

Angola is the only major competitor with Nigeria in oil supply on the continent.The economy is the fastest growing in Africa and one of the fastest in the world. The country pulled back from disarray caused by a quarter century of civil war into a period of transformation in recent years.
Now, with these success stories, who would say that there is no future for a continent where there are surplus natural resources.
Rather than acting solo on their countries, it may work better for these emerging economies to come together and map out a way for the other countries to fall in line and the strategies, I would write on this column in the days to come with consultation from experts.