In this interview with Ise-Oluwa Ige, one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and erstwhile Rivers State Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Mr Chukwujinka Joe Okocha, SAN, popularly known as OCJ Okocha, spoke on various topical issues in the legal profession, including the on-going plans by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN to cause a review of the 1999 Constitution with a view to excluding those found guilty of corruption from benefitting from state pardon to deter corrupt practices and the push by the Chairman of Council of Legal Education (CLE) on making Law a second degree programme.
The Chairman of Council of Legal Education, CLE, Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN, recently advocated for Law as a second degree as a way to deepen law practice and address unemployment amongst lawyers. Do you agree with him?
No, I do not agree with him. This debate has been on for several years. Our forbears in the legal profession came from England. England does not have such system of admitting lawyers into the cadre of barristers or the cadre of solicitors because they have a second degree; that they have the first degree and now Law will be their second degree. The old barristers, some of them did not even go to university. They went through Inns of court and understudied barristers about legal practice. Now look at our forbears, the great lawyers of this country— Chief Rotimi Williams, SAN, Chief Richard Akinjide, SAN, Kayode Esho who became a Justice of the Supreme Court. We have debated this issue several times and had come to the conclusion that it was not necessary. I don’t know why anyone should be raising that matter at this time. So, I do not agree with it. And we will continue to train our lawyers first with a Law degree, a Bachelor of Law degree from a recognized university that has a recognised and accredited Faculty of Law and thereafter they can proceed to the Law School to get a practical training. What we have been emphasizing is the practical training of lawyers, not the LLB. You know some come with PhD in Law to go to Law School. Some come with Masters of Law degree (LLM). I don’t agree with the respected chairman of the Council with all due respect to him.
But one of the persuasive points he made to ground his position was that there is presently massive unemployment in the legal profession
(Cuts in) There is massive unemployment for every degree holder in Nigeria. The fault never arose from how Law programme was designed—It is not about how Law programme is designed as a first or second degree but arose from the handlers of this country. What we are saying is that as lawyers, we are professionally trained that we can set up our own company without any employment from any governmental institution or even corporation as we know them. Law is a professional course like Engineering, Medicine, etc. If you don’t get a job, set up on your own after going through what we now call tutelage. I don’t buy that idea.
Somehow linked to the first question, what is your view about the ongoing controversy sparked by conflicting positions of two Education Ministers on setting age limit for admission into tertiary institution?
I hope you heard the Minister of Education who recently spoke on this point about two three, four days ago. There is no such requirement or any provision for such. You cannot hold anybody back. There are requirements to enter a university. And the basic requirement is O/L West African School Certificate . I hear they now say Senior Secondary Certificate and all that. So long that you have the certificate that you have finished your secondary school and you have sat for JAMB. In our own days, I remember, you sat entrance examination to any particular university you want to enter. And we had four Faculties of Law then: Faculty of Law at University of Ife, Faculty of Law at the University of Lagos, Faculty of Law at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus and the Faculty of Law at the Ahmadu Bello University. Later, UNIBEN and few others started coming forward. Most of the big lawyers you are seeing today went to all these universities. No justice of the Supreme Court today studied abroad for their first degrees. All of them studied at the Nigerian universities and they are now in the Supreme Court. I do not think there was any such stipulation so long as you have the basic requirement to enter university which was O/L West African School Certificate, now they say or its equivalent. So, I do not buy that argument. Nobody should be held back because the person moved quicker than others. Children are entering universities now, going to primary school, secondary school at younger ages. I went to secondary school at a younger age of 11 in 1965. Even though the Nigerian civil war, the Nigerian/Biafran war interrupted my education from 1967 to 1970, I still came back to join Class Three in 1970 and by 1972, I had finished secondary school. In 1973, I was doing higher school certificate course in Baptist High School here in Port-Harcourt. And I was able to pass the university entrance examination to University of Nigeria, Nsukka and that of the University of Ife. But I chose to go to Great Ife because I had seen the eastern part of the country and I wanted to see another part of the country. That is, the Western region. So, I went to Great Ife. And in four years, I had graduated from Ife with a Second Class Upper Honours degree. Four of us made second Class Upper and with what they taught us at the University, all of us ended up successful. One of us became a Justice of the Supreme Court. In fact, one of us became the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen. Amina Augie, also one of us, became a Justice of the Supreme Court. She was one of the few women who got to the Supreme Court. And they are many—Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN, Victor Ndoma Egba, SAN, Awa Kalu, SAN. We all made 2:1 in Law in Ife and became successful lawyers. So, I don’t buy all these new arguments. People should not deny others the opportunities which they had. That is the basic indication of liberality of mind. If you pass, you pass. If you fail, you repeat. Don’t mind them.
The Attorney General of the Federation, on Monday disclosed that at the next available opportunity, he would cause a constitutional amendment to block presidential pardon for corrupt leaders/politicians in the country to strengthen the fight against corruption. He said he wants president and governors not to exercise their prerogative of mercy in favour of any convicted corrupt politician. Do you agree with him?
A: You see, by the constitutional provisions, the prerogative of mercy is granted to the President for those who are at the Federal level and to the governors at the various levels of state. And they usually set up a council for the exercise of the prerogative of mercy as provided in the constitution. So, unless the constitution is amended, nobody should begin to discuss that issue. That is an inherent right of any Head of State and for any governor as our constitution presently is. Come to think of it. What is the difference between corrupt practices and stealing. What is the difference between corruption and murder, which perhaps, has the highest punishment by death or kidnapping? What offence is higher than those ones? Corruption is stealing. Yes, we are trying to fight corruption. We set up ICPC, we set up EFCC. But how far have they gone in dealing with corruption? At some point , they were being used by some heads of state as political tools. So, I do not think that is the way to fight corruption. To fight corruption, we must put proper rules and regulation in place. And at the very inception of corruption, you detect it and you deal with the person who has engaged in it. So, I don’t buy that argument with all due respect to the Honourable Attorney-General that excluding convicted corrupt leaders can deal with corruption in this country.
With the recent law increasing the salaries of judges in this country by 300%, how do you think NJC should handle cases of corruption in the judiciary if it recurs again?
NJC has already put in place rules and regulation for dealing with corruption in the judiciary, particularly with respect to judicial officers who are from the high court up. Even the State Judicial Service Commission and the Federal Judicial Service Commission all have rules in place in dealing with corruption. Corruption is not just restricted to high court judges, or superior courts justices. It also affects the magistrates and also the customary court judges. Those rules should seriously apply. If they are seriously and faithfully applied and proper sanction is put in place, you will see that corruption will disappear. Now, they have increased the salaries of judges and other judicial officers. I heard that they are also planning to increase the salaries of magistrates and other lower adjudicators. Good. This is because one important thing that we say is militating against corruption check is not to pay the judicial officers well. Pay the magistrates well. If anyone who, after receiving that kind of salary, goes to commit corrupt practices, then, we would know there is a good reason to say that the person is really a bad person and should not find himself or herself in the position in the first place. That’s where you start from. What is the character of the person you have appointed to serve as a magistrate? What is the character of the person you are bringing to serve as a judge? Some of them started as magistrates and ended up at the Supreme Court. Justice Aloma Muhktar who eventually became the Chief Justice started as a magistrate. My classmate, Amina Augie started as a magistrate and ended up at the Supreme Court. So, also Justice Bello and many of them. So, we need to put our law enforcement agencies in proper position to fight corruption in the judiciary and throughout all levels of government.
How do you react to the abduction and last Saturday release of Justice Haruna Msheila after staying in the custody of Boko Haram elements for over three months even though the family members are still with their captors?
It is very unfortunate that Nigeria, with all the security agencies that we have now, from the Police, the Civil Defence, the Department of State Service, the Military Intelligence, the EFCC, the ICPC, will still allow this kidnapping syndrome to continue in this country. We have communications now that are driven by the Internet, mobile phones and the rest. We have security surveillance equipment with which you can actually detect the particular location from which a phone call was made to demand ransom. You know this nonsense started here in my home state when they were kidnapping expatriates and demanding huge ransom from oil companies. I told them then because many of our friends relocated from here to other parts of the country because of kidnapping. But then, they were kidnapping expatriates. Now, we started kidnapping ourselves. It is something that I hold totally the security agencies complicit. They collect the ransom to deliver to the kidnappers. They escort the people paying ransom. Traditional rulers have been killed. Judges and justices have been kidnapped. Some of them leave the custody of the kidnappers and we say we cannot fight that syndrome. They kidnapped all over the world. But what is the effectiveness of the law enforcement agencies or a country driven by awareness that you must fight such crime. It is to arrest the people and deal with them appropriately. So, we are not serious. When we are serious, kidnapping will stop in this country.
Vanguard
