28th January,
2019
PRESS RELEASE:
DON’T INSTITUTIONALISE CORRUPTION: MURIC TELLS
NBA
Members
of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) today resolved to embark on a two-day
warning boycott of courts in protest against the suspension of the former Chief
Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen. The ex-CJN was
suspended from office last week by President Muhammadu Buhari on allegations
bordering on graft. However, NBA rejected the suspension claiming it did not
follow due process.
The
two-day warning boycott will begin tomorrow Tuesday, 29th January, 2019 and
will continue on Wednesday, 30th January, 2019. The NBA announced its decision
at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja.
Reacting to the boycott, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) advised the NBA not
to institutionalise corruption. The Islamic human rights organization told
members of the legal profession to avoid taking sides with a man who has
already admitted that he committed an offence.
“This boycott is sheer hocus pocus. It is poor Nigerians
who will suffer from the NBA’s boycott. They have allowed their emotions to run
away with them. The problem with our lawyers is that they see every
problem, including political, as a legal problem. They do not look at other
angles or think of other possibilities and solutions. They tend to corroborate
an African proverb which says, ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend
to see every problem as a nail.’
“We are
talking about a man who sat at the helm of our judiciary here. This man has
admitted that he ‘forgot’ more than a billion naira in his bank account. That,
to us, is preposterous. It is alarming. Unfortunately those who know better
because they are ‘learned’ are the same people staging a boycott to protect the
billionaire Justice.
“Why
can’t it happen here if it can happen elsewhere. Just last year, on June 20,
2018 to be precise, a judge of the Supreme Court in West Virginia, United
States of America, Justice Allen Loughry who was accused of using his office
for personal gains was suspended. His offence involved $363,000 worth of office
furniture, having expensive office furniture taken to his private house and
using government vehicle and gas card for personal use.
“That
happened in a sane society They have lawyers there too and his colleagues did
not identify with the wrongdoer. So we need to ask ourselves if we truly want
to sanitise this society. Perhaps it was this kind of sentiment that made
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to conclude that, ‘To fight corruption
in a corrupt system, you don’t follow due process, you follow the necessary
process.” Vladimir Putin
“We are
tempted to ask, ‘Where is the human face in the practice of law in Nigeria? We
know the thief. He confesses to us. But we are the same people who will tutor
the thief to change his confessional statement. We tell him to claim it was
made under duress. We are the same people who appear for the Evans and the
Oyenusis yet we go to the mosque on Fridays and attend church on Sundays. Do
you think God is blind?
“MURIC appeals to the NBA to put humanity on the front
burner in matters like this. NBA should not wish away Justice Onnoghen’s
offence. It should be Nigeria first. No single person is bigger than Nigeria.
Crimes like the one the ex-CJN is accused of are what turned this country into
a wild jungle and NBA must join other patriotic citizens who are presently
working day and night to return Nigeria to the comity of sane
communities.
“We
further appeal that the NBA creates an enabling environment for ordinary
Nigerians to have access to justice. We should not be seen protecting the rich
and powerful all the time, particularly a powerful man who has already admitted
that he is the owner of incriminatingly humongous bank accounts when poor
Nigerians are sentenced to long terms in prison just for stealing one tuber of
yam. Ayn Rand has a strong message here, ‘When the law no longer protects you
from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you, you know your nation is
doomed’.
“It was the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who said,
‘Any wealth accumulated on a selfish basis, at the expense of the state in
defiance of social justice helps to create a disorganized society in which
everybody will eat everybody, and no one person can be safe.’ Do the respected
members of the NBA want to support the creation of such a chaotic society?
“MURIC
has taken the ex-CJN to the court of public opinion and he lost woefully.
Nigerians are flabbergasted that the ex-CJN has N1,131,684,554.00 (one billion,
one hundred and thirty-one million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, five
hundred and fifty-four naira) in his personal accounts and still counting. It
is appalling, repugnant and nauseating.
“We
advise NBA not to pursue vested interest. Nigerians see the Onnoghen affair as
a struggle between those who fight corruption, those who despise it, those who
embrace it and those who benefit from it. If NBA will not stand up to be
counted among those in the first group, it must not be seen to identify with
the third and fourth camps. The second rank is a safer ground for the purpose
of posterity.
“We
appeal to the NBA not to resume its boycott of courts soon after the two days.
This is because it is poor Nigerians who suffer each time there is a boycott of
courts. The legal profession is sine qua non to the
dispensation of justice anywhere in the world and that is why lawyers are
respected by all.
“Resumption
of boycott is unnecessary because Justice Onnoghen himself in a separate case
in 2013 acknowledged the special powers of the CCT. In the case of AHMED V
AHMED & ORS (2013) LPELR – 21143 (SC) delivered on 12th July,
2013, the ex-CJN held that, ‘The CCT has exclusive jurisdiction to deal with
all violations contravening any of the provisions of the Code of Conduct
Bureau’ and that ‘the provisions expressly ousted the powers of ordinary
regular courts in respect of such violations’. He further concluded that ‘Any
allegation that a public officer has committed a breach of or has not complied
with the provisions of this Code shall be made to the Code of Conduct
Bureau’.
“As we
rise from this session, we remind honourable members of the NBA that law is a
noble profession and a good number of our lawyers, both senior and junior ones,
are men and women of integrity. This profession is for the bold, the assertive
and the man of decency and candour. We advise NBA to think outside the box.
Onnoghen appears to have dragged its name in the mud. What NBA should do to
reclaim its good name is to step aside and allow the ex-CJN to defend himself
at the tribunal.
Professor
Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim
Rights Concern (MURIC)
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