Jonathan should be understood – Senator Osunbor

Interview: by Ahmed Usman

Former Governor of Edo State, Senator Oserheimen Osunbor, Professor of Law and member of the Nigerian Law Reform Commission, recently had a chat with Emman Ovuakporie on burning issues in the country among which are the six-year single term proposal, Islamic banking, President Jonathan’s transformation agenda and the Edo PDP imbroglio.

For a man who has been out of public glare since that infamous loss of his gubernatorial seat in 2008 – yes infamous, according to Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaders who saw the loss as a function of the fight in the ranks of the leaders.

But Osunbor has kept his studied silence. Therefore, it was not too easy to convince him to speak. But after much persuasion, this quiet intellectual opened up.

On the issue of six-year single term tenure, Prof. Osunbor says there are good arguments on both sides. But he was quick to note that four-year double tenure does not in any way solve any problem, particularly with the example of his Edo State under a particular governor. Hear Osunbor: “If you elect a bad person who will not want to do anything, he will manipulate his way to ensure that he is there for two terms and he will do nothing for the two terms”.

On the war between retiring Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu and now suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, Osunbor says the laws of the land are clear in handling all matters.

Excerpts:

As a professor of law, if the tango between Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, and now suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, were to be between simple citizens, refusing to be served court papers, what does that say and how should it be handled?

Nobody is above the law.If a court process or writ cannot be served because the defendant cannot be reached or is evading service, the plaintiff may again apply to the court seeking an order for substituted service. An example is by pasting it in his last known address or publishing it in a widely-circulated newspaper. When so advertised, that will be taken as sufficient service on the defendant.

The law and the rules of the court anticipate this and have accordingly made provision for an order for “substituted service”.

The case against Justice Isa Ayo Salami by the National Judicial Commission, NJC, is that he lied under oath. If established, should a mere apology be the necessary sanction,  that is if it is true that NJC is correct in saying that Salami lied under oath?

Perjury is a criminal offence.

Swearing to a false oath is also an offence under the Oaths Act and is punishable under the law. It does not matter whether the offender is a judicial officer or an ordinary citizen.

Judicial officers are not above the law. If anything, the office they occupy demands from them exemplary conduct.

The law, as you know, is no respecter of persons for all are equal before the law.

The single term proposal has become controversial. What is your perception of the outcry over the proposal which some persons have tagged a tenure elongation agenda?

I must admit that I was personally surprised by the amount of controversies generated on account of this suggestion by Mr. President. I am surprised because this is not a new idea. It is not something that came out of the blues. It is an idea that has been with Nigerians for a very long time.

I was privileged to be a member of the Constitutional Conference in 1994/95 and this was one of the several views that were canvassed at the conference – the issue of a single term – and ever since then, it has been in the minds of Nigerians.

Therefore, I want to think that some people have some ulterior motives in trying to twist this whole idea out of context.

Mr. President has said from the outset that he is not going to be a beneficiary of this process, so the idea of tenure elongation should not even arise at all. He is not about to elongate his tenure but he is pursuing an idea that has been informed by reasons that have been marshalled to Nigerians. We are all Nigerians and we can all attest to the fact that the issue of people wanting power to rotate has been with us for a very long time to the extent that the 1999 Constitution mentioned provisions to ensure that power is not concentrated in one place or region. It is there in Section 14 of our Constitution, that political offices should rotate among the various regions or districts in the country. The constitution of PDP also stipulates that power should rotate between North and South. This was also canvassed at the Constitutional Conference.

 So, how do you ensure that power goes round – that power rotates?

This is one issue that has agitated the minds of many Nigerians because as you know, people want to know when power is coming to their location – whether it is local government area, senatorial district, geo-political zone or whatever. So if Mr. President has his own personal view on this matter and has expressed it, I do not see why it should be an abomination and attract so much hue and cry, especially as he had made it clear that he is not going to stay beyond his four year tenure.

I think that there is merit in a President serving for one term giving the peculiar circumstances of our country and the desire by many people that power should rotate instead of being located in one area. I have not heard any argument that is able to defeat this aspiration in the minds of Nigerians.But some people have argued that where the president/governor/LG chairman comes from is not the issue but good governance.

Using your argument too, who told you that good governance cannot come from the South-West or from the South-East, South-South, North-West, North-Central and North-East?

 Who said that if power rotates among these geo-political zones that a good President cannot emerge from any of them. Once it is the turn of the North East zone we can ensure that the President that would emerge will be a good candidate who can ensure good governance . No geo-political zone has the monopoly of good people who can provide good governance every geo-political zone has the ability to produce somebody who can be a good President.

 But there’s also an argument in favour of two terms?

Let’s also say something about the argument in favour of two terms or second tenure. People have argued that if it is only one term, political office holders will come in to do what they like, steal public funds and end up doing nothing in terms of development. But there is no merit in such an argument because if you elect a bad person who will not want to do anything, he will manipulate his way to ensure that he is there for two terms and he will do nothing for the two terms.

We’ve seen it in this country and it can still happen. On the contrary, if there is a man who is going to do well, he will do well even if he is going to be there for one year. He will do well even if he is going to be there for only one term. So, we lose nothing through a single tenure.

 But some say it means the man will loot the treasury for six years and go away?

In that case, what will the members of the National Assembly or the state House of Assembly be doing while a president/governor is looting for a whole term of six years?

There are impeachment provisions and if there is a president/governor who is misbehaving, the representatives of the people are in parliament to call him to order. If they cannot call him to order, the parliament can strengthen the powers of prosecution in EFCC and ICPC acts as well as the Criminal Code to ensure that when he leaves office and no longer enjoys immunity, he will be held to account for the six years that he despoiled his state, local government or the country as the case may be.

 Some people see the proposal as diversionary and have argued that there are other pressing issues such as power and insecurity that should have been given priority attention at this time.

Well, there are many people who think that a President can only pursue one issue at a time. But you know that is not correct. You know that Mr. President is right now pursuing so many other issues of national importance. It is untrue that the President has been diverted from the key issues of governance and has now become solely preoccupied with the so-called tenure elongation.

People are deliberately misinforming the public. Who says that if there is a constitution amendment going on in the country that the issues of insecurity, unemployment, bad roads and power generation cannot be tackled simultaneously?

Who said that five or eight important issues cannot go on at the same time?

Unknown to some Nigerians, there are so many things going on in line with the transformation agenda of the present government. I was watching a television programme few days ago, in which I saw some people installing new power transmission lines linking somewhere in Benue State with parts of the South-East. Even if you travel on the Abuja/Lokoja highway you can see some of the new transmission lines that have been installed recently.

The new Minister of Works has been going round the country and right now the roads that have been bad in Lagos have begun to receive some attention. Who says that while constitutional amendment is going on that good governance and these other priority issues cannot be handled? They are not mutually exclusive and I am happy that the President is pursuing this with determination; with full understanding and without distraction to ensure that he fulfils his electoral promises.

 Penultimate week, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, Central Bank of Nigeria and the Assets Management Corporation took over some banks in the country and nationalised them. This has led to huge outcry from some sections of the public. What is your view on the takeover of these banks?

First and foremost, I am not fully conversant with the circumstances of those banks other than these general statements which are being issued to the effect that they lost a lot of their capital and were not able to re-capitalise and so on and so forth.

I know that our laws made provisions for nationalisation or rescue of failing banks under the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA); the NDIC Act and may be CBN Act. These laws do exist but as to the peculiar circumstances of those banks that necessitated their nationalisation, I am not too conversant. But on a general note, the current leadership of CBN appears to be engaging in a lot of things that are controversial and generating a lot of concern among our people. I do not think that that is the best for a relatively weak economy like ours. It is not healthy that we should be having these issues which are generating so much controversy. There seem to have been a measure of policy inconsistency in the banking sector today.

 That is exactly what some people are pointing out because CBN appears to be issuing directives whimsically.

Initially we were told that once the CBN injects bail out funds into these ailing banks, they will be able to stabilise. The bailout was injected and the management of the banks were even sacked and replaced with new teams but these banks did not stabilise and we are now being told that they need to be nationalised and they have now been nationalised and new funds injected into them. But from what I hear, new investors are being invited to come and buy up these banks.

Islamic banking has been generating a lot of concern. In my view, this matter is not being handled well by the CBN authorities.

What the law provides for is non-interest banking so why don’t we produce guidelines on non-interest banking. CBN claims that non-interest banking is allowed by our laws but the very next sentence they make is about Islamic banking.

So what really are we up to?

Islamic banking is not the only form of non-interest banking. So if your interest is on non-interest banking, come out with guidelines on non-interest banking so that if a Christian wants to engage in non-interest banking he can set up his non-interest bank; if a Muslim wants to set up a Muslim/Islamic non-interest bank he can set up his non-interest Islamic bank and if somebody who is neither a Christian nor a Muslim wants to set up a non-interest bank, he can set up his non-interest bank. But so far the only form of non-interest bank CBN appears to be promoting is Islamic banking and we are beginning to see a lot of controversies surrounding it. This controversy ought not to have arisen if CBN had come out with guidelines on non-interest banking so that whoever is interested in non-interest banking can obtain licence to operate one. The guidelines should not be discriminatory and tilted to favour a particular group and you wouldn’t have to set up a special department or council of Ulamas in CBN to regulate non-interest banking. What CBN should have done is to set up a unit of non-interest banking and not a religious unit to be funded by money that belongs to all of us. Once we do this, the controversy will come down and non-interest banking will be available for whoever is interested in setting it up and for whoever is interested in taking the services that are on offer by those banks.

President Goodluck Jonathan had promised to run a transformation agenda but a lot of people do not seem to understand the details of this agenda. Some even say it is a ruse. As a member of the ruling party, what exactly does this agenda mean?

I think that Mr. President explained it elaborately during the campaigns and I am sure that you followed the campaigns. You know that the word transformation means a radical change. We want to change and depart radically from the way we’ve been doing things before in order to give Nigerians a new lease of life. The campaign slogan was – a breath of fresh air. Let Nigeria have a breath of fresh air. We’ve been doing the same thing in the same way for so many decades in our country but he wants to introduce new ways of doing some of these things. He laid special emphasis on power. We want to be among the top 20 countries in the world by 2020 but we cannot boast of electric power to drive our industries and Mr. President has targeted power generation and distribution as one of the priority areas of his government. You can’t beat that.

The issue of education is also on course. He has established nine new universities across the country and he is the first President to organise an education summit which he attended for the two days it lasted. This is to show his concern for the resuscitation of the education sector.

The issue of insecurity is paramount but we have not experienced the kind of challenges we are faced with today but you will also agree with me that the kind of insecurity we have today is of international dimension. Look at Norway, one of the most peaceful countries; look at what terrorism has done there. So, our President is being faced with this new kind of challenge on a different scale that we have ever witnessed before and he has challenged the relevant law enforcement agencies to tackle the issues. He is supporting them and we are beginning to see them moving into the flash points and tackling the issue with seriousness. Terrorism is an emerging form of insecurity and I do hope that with time the country will witness a new lease of life and be transformed under this administration.

 What is your take on the current crises in Edo State PDP?

The crises in Edo PDP dates back to 1999 when, in breach of an understanding that Hon. Matthew Egbadon would occupy the position of Speaker of the House of Assembly, some leaders, in a clandestine move conspired to make Hon. Thomas Okosun Speaker. This exacerbated the mutual suspicions that were already there and set in motion a chain of impeachments of PDP leadership in the House of Assembly, the latest being in February 2010 after I left office. In my opinion, the underlying incompatibility among the top leaders of PDP at the time sowed the seed of instability which the party has not fully recovered from.

 What do you think will lead to an enduring peaceful reconciliation of all the factions?

Two things: Internal democracy and sincerity, especially at the various leadership levels.

As a former governor, what are you doing to resolve the lingering crises?

I wish to place on record that without any prodding, I started off the process of reconciliation two weeks after my removal in November 2008 when I met with Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia here in Abuja. There were further discussions in an expanded group with Admiral Okhai Akhigbe, (rtd) Senator Uzamere, Deacon Domingo, Barr. Alimikhena and others in attendance, after which, it was agreed that we should meet with the other group. This led to our meeting with Chief Anthony Anenih at his residence on December 4, 2008 and follow-up meetings in Dr. Ogbemudia’s residence in Benin in January and February 2009. I also sponsored a fuller meeting of members of both groups in Abuja in July 2009 where the terms of harmonisation and reconciliation were agreed. Other efforts followed after this.

Although, the process is not yet hundred per cent successful, I am happy that the process is continuing and many people who felt aggrieved by what happened to me and left PDP in protest or were at the verge of leaving, have now seen the need to remain especially since, I, who ought to be the most aggrieved have remained in PDP and working for its victory in future elections.

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