EFCC conspires with corruption suspects – Chief Okey Muo Aroh

Chief Okey Muo Aroh, a lawyer, former Vice Chairman of Association of the Local Government Em­ployees of Nigeria (ALGON), Chairman, Anambra State ALGON and former Special Adviser on As­sembly Matters and Special Duties to Senator Chris Ngige (when he was governor of Anambra state) in this interview speaks on what he calls the collusion of EFCC with corruption suspects, independence of the Judiciary, local government autonomy and sundry issues. Odogwu Emeka Odogwu reports.

Sir, as former Vice Chairman of ALGON, are you not worried that local governments are ap­pendages of the state?
Well, I have fought this battle since 1999. As a matter of fact, I participated in drafting the Anam­bra State Local Government law in 1999 to ensure that local govern­ments have some measure of au­tonomy. Despite the peaceful posi­tions of that law, former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinugu scattered the whole arrangement. He appro­priated the money meant for local governments into what he called a joint account where no local gov­ernment chairman is a member of the joint account committee. The understanding of it is that lo­cal government chairmen will be members of that committee.
It is a fight that has to be taken by all and sundry because local government system is so crucial and so critical to the general politi­cal development in this country.
If we don’t get it right at the grassroots, we will definitely not get it right at the national level and if we do not get the young politi­cians at the grassroots, giving them the basic training, they will still be novices when they come to the state and national levels. The es­sence of the local government is that, it is the government that is so close to the people.. A councilor in a ward is known by everybody but it is awkward that people start playing God or Godfathers. A situ­ation where I can be in my house here in Abatete and decide who will be a councilor in Uga because I have connection with the Anam­bra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) and I can give bribe and my list can be ac­cepted is very unfortunate.

What is the implication of that act?
The implication is that people elected in that process will just be mere decorations. There is nothing they do in the local government except the approval comes from the commissioner of local govern­ment in the state. Idemmili has over 200 million naira allocation every month and the entire money is appropriated by the entire state. Assuming, the chairman is given N1.5 million or N500, 000 to ser­vice his own pocket, he question is, how long will this continue?
Who do we blame in the woes of the local government adminis­tration in Nigeria, the constitu­tion or the politicians?
Why will you blame the Consti­tution? If you blame the constitu­tion, you are just pegging the is­sue. Is it not the people that wrote the constitution? Human beings are imperfect and therefore, can­not produce a perfect document. There is a lot of problem in the constitution. The constitution by Section 7 creates local govern­ments and guarantees its operation but said that the state will, by its own law determine the structure, funding and its other activities. So, the various states in exercise of that power decided to kill the local gov­ernment by bringing up obnoxious practices that all money that be­long to the local government will be kept in a common pool and then, they will start sharing.

Is it not ripe for stakeholders like you to press for the amend­ment in the constitution so that local government administration can start functioning optimally the way it ought to be?
That is part of it because if you look at the matter very well you will find out that it requires a ho­listic amendment. But if we do one clause amendment, and Nigeria see the need, they will rally round you for the amendment.
EFCC, recently accused senior lawyers of bribery and corrup­tion, do you agree with that?
To me the term, ‘senior lawyers’ is broad. He (the EFCC chairman) is also a senior lawyer and must have attained more than 10 years post call. EFCC is a prosecutor­ing and agency and he also has senior lawyers working for him. Rotimi Jacobs is an SAN. How many other senior lawyers does he want to work with? I wonder why he should be going about talking in this manner. Lawyers are doing their job. If you brief me to defend a client, what do you expect me to do? Fold my hands even when I see some loopholes in the case that can help me? I don’t have any business with corruption, corruption is en­demic and if we want to fight cor­ruption, we have to start by doing the needful.

Which is?
He should go to the civil service and then thoroughly reform it. President Buhari is chasing shad­ows. How many civil servants has he prosecuted? My father built our residential house in 1958 and I have very minimal needs and I have no reason to pervade the course of justice because I have only one profession and that is the law. I don’t give bribe to judges. I am privileged to have today in my class a justice of the Supreme Court, about 17 judges in the Court of Appeal, uncountable numbers of judges in the magis­trate courts.
The people who are leading the war against corruption are not thinking straight. There is conspir­acy between EFCC and those that they arrested. How can the EFCC in a criminal prosecution charge a man with a 150 count charge and bring him before a judge where a basis on which the judge will give judgment is that the fellow is in­nocent until proven guilty and the standard of proving a case in crim­inal act is proof beyond reasonable doubt? How do I now believe that a judge of the high court will try a 150 count charge and convict? In our law, for you to prove an of­fence, you must prove the actual fact and the guilty mind which is called the Mens rea. The mind must pose to do that thing because if it is done by accident, there is nothing we can do.
If one is doing a 150 count charge, there is no way he will not have repeated certain facts, and when you are repeating them, you annoy the judges because it could be that you either do not know your onions or you don’t know what to charge or you are just fish­ing and any judge can get tired of all these things and grant bail and say that the person is mad.

What do you think about judi­ciary independent?
The judiciary is not indepen­dent but the judges are. The judges have shown manifest courage and determination despite all odds. They have shown that they can stand on their own. But at the court of appeal, they did not do well because they took advantage of the fact that they are the last court in that election and didn’t look at the law in its totality. If they had looked the law objectively, their judgments would have been different.
They have passed the self-accounting law in both State House of Assembly and Ju­diciary but the governors are thwarting it. Those who are to operate it have not taken the bull by the horns. The judiciary is fight­ing shy. The Chief Judge can decide to send Accountant General to prison because he is not doing the right thing. The money meant for the judiciary was meant to be the first line charge in every state.

What is your take on the incessant killing of IPOB members especially now the gover­nors are keeping mum?
IPOB is doing a good thing in the wrong way. I don’t think the governors should keep quiet. I believe the governors should really come out and condemn it because the people being killed are human beings. The governors may keep quiet because they don’t believe in IPOB. If they believe in it, IPOB would have offices in government houses in the South East. They would have been given red carpet in every occasion but the governors are not interested and I don’t think the promoters of IPOB are doing much to recruit more people.

What is your view on Buhari’s adminis­tration and the future of Nigeria?
President Mohammadu Buhari, with all due respect, does not know and does not want to know. He is not teachable. He lacks the basic understanding and appreciation of economics and the person he brought from Ogun State has not shown any manifest competence because the policies they are bringing out vis-a-vis the naira is crazy. Bu­hari would have devalued naira much earlier than now. The situation now is that the policy unto which the banks operate is putting a ter­rible pressure on our foreign reserve and be­cause of resource scarcity; the exchange rate is on the increase. If he had devalued naira, it would have been better. Look at our cur­rency, the black market operators has chased naira to almost 205, but if we boycott buy­ing the dollar for sometime, the price will crash. If you have ten million dollars in your account today, your village will worship you like God. But few years ago, if you have 10 m dollars, it is almost 10 million naira.

What is your take on youth unemploy­ment in Nigeria today?
Youth unemployment is a global phe­nomenon but Nigeria should not be talking about that because Nigeria economy is so large that if developed, we can employ all Nigerians. Do we have the database of the youth unemployment in Nigeria? So, for me, I don’t believe in theory. I believe in doing something in the right way. If we want to ad­dress the youth unemployment in Nigeria, we will stop paying lip service to agriculture. We will take agriculture serious and make it attractive. In Anambra State alone, we have enough arable land that when developed will take people out of the street. Nigeria has the capacity to develop sports academy. We have all it takes to do medium skill and others. Ni­geria education should be tailored towards vocational and technical school because the problem we have is that most of the youths are unemployable and have no skill.

Don’t you think what you are saying is worst in the legal field?
We don’t even have enough lawyers in Ni­geria. I cannot vouch for the quality of the product of the present law school. It ought to be better than what we have because they have a more decentralized environment. In our days, it is only one law school in Lagos and thousands of people crowd in that small auditorium for nine months.
Is that why many law graduates nowa­days resort to being house agents instead of going to court?
What you called house agent is practicing property law. The business of Housing and Accommodation is too serious a business to be left to touts. No property deal will be com­plete without an agreement signed by lawyer.

Governor Obiano extended the tenure of the local government chairmen as Caretaker committees, is it right in law?
My take is that Willie Obiano neither has the capacity nor the competence to extend the tenure of the elected local government chair­men. Although, the section of the amended Anambra State local government law says they can appoint Caretaker Committees but all those things are aberrations in the face of what is written in the constitution. There is no way anybody can do anything like care­taker committee and bring it under constitu­tion. So, the State Assembly has no business passing such law.
What is your call on the State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano regarding the conduct of Local government election?
My call is that the governor should go and conduct local government election for the current tenure in the 20 local government council Areas and conduct in the last tenure in Ihiala local Government Area as ordered by the court. There is an existing order of court that local government election be con­ducted in Ihiala and if it is not conducted, somebody will go to jail.

You mean the governor?
Obiano has immunity but somebody will go to jail for him which will probably be his Attorney General.
Are you still a PDP member?
I am a card carrying member of PDP and I have no business with any other party. But note that I am a full supporter of Hon. Uche Ekwunife. However, the fact that I support Hon. Uche Ekwunife does not make me a member of another political party. My take was that I will support Uche Ekwunife even if she defects to APC and that was the state­ment credited to me recently and I will stand by it.

Don’t you think that such open comment will amount to an anti-party activity?
I am ready to subject myself to the disci­plinary committee of my party, PDP to state the reason why I was ready to do an open anti party activity. But that has become bye gone because if Uche Ekwunife wants to con­test an election, she will contest in PDP. The Supreme Court has over ruled the basis of the judgment against Uche. It is just that the judgment should have come before now. The same case of Uche is the same case in Dariye and Ortorm’s case. A non-participant in the primary election cannot challenge its out­come in an election petition. The person who has right to sue Uche is Sylvester Okonkwo, Annie Okonkwo and others who contested election with her not a meddlesome inter­loper like Victor Umeh.
So, on that note, the basis for the nullifica­tion of the election is no longer there and I believe that INEC, having gone for the inter­pretation on the issue of Oguebego should also gone on an interpretation on that judg­ment. Let the judgment of Uche Ekwunife and nullification of that election be juxta­posed with the judgment in Taraba State. There is no need for Uche to suffer the injus­tice, because the basis of the nullification no longer exist in Law. So, conducting an elec­tion in Anambra State, is an aberration.

Do you think the actions of PDP and APC are in line with due process in the dem­ocratic set up that we are in?
The court said that PDP does not have a formal executive and now the PDP has a for­mal executive and wanted to do the correct thing and INEC is saying that the time of the election and filling of nomination has passed. It was stated in law but some consequences have taken place. The court has now ordered that certain actions should be done. What ought to be done is that the party should put their house in order and face the election.

Are you saying that Hon Uche Ekwunife still has the right to contest under PDP after dumping the party to APC?
The dumping of PDP by Hon. Uche Ekwunife is there on paper and was never communicated to INEC. INEC is saying that only those who participated in the election should be there. That there is no need for any further nomination – that is actually the po­sition now because the basis of the fact that the judgment of nullification of that elec­tion cannot stand if it is challenged in the supreme court. Therefore, Uche Ekwunife’s nomination is still extant.