‘Free, fair elections ‘ll reduce judicial intervention in electoral process’

updated: Monday 30-03-2009

Rotimi Akeredolu, (SAN),In the opinion of Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, (SAN), the President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), the attainment of free and fair election in the country will only be feasible if our election managers are transparent, honest and unbiased. In this interview with YEMI BANJO, the NBA boss also chided the citizenry for encouraging corruption by celebrating people who looted the treasury when they were in public office.

What is your reaction to the reversal of many election results by the courts since last year?
The reversal of several election results that we’ve witnessed in the recent past is a confirmation of the fraud in the election of 2007 and the whole world, several observer groups, several monitoring groups, European Union, everybody condemned the election. So the fact that we now have our courts coming out in a number of cases to reverse those elections is a victory for democracy and the rule of law and it is only a confirmation that the election was in fact, as stated by the whole world, a fraud.

How do we tackle this problem, I mean electoral fraud?
There are a lot of many problems with our electoral system, the major problem we have, has to do with the managers of our elections. Those who are put in charge to manage our elections. In this instance, I will call them INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission). From the chairman of INEC to everybody that is there, down to the several electoral others in the states and all those that are responsible for conducting free and fair elections. So if they fail, it is not just condemnation, there must be a wholesome change, give other people an opportunity whether they can really conduct a free, fair, election, an election that would meet up with the standard expected in the world. Problem with our election managers is one and there is problem with us, ourselves, the electorate. We are not sincere people, that is the problem and we are not a group of people who are prepared to sacrifice. We must be prepared, if we are sincere, to protect our votes. We must be prepared to fight for our votes and ensure that our votes count. We must have a stay-in power, to protest, we must be able to guard ballot boxes, so that nobody carries them away. So those are the issues that have to do with us. We need men ot integrity to manage the electoral processes and we need the people that know their rights and are ready to fight for them.

There is a current debate on reduction of salaries and allowances of political office holders, should it be extended to judicial officers?
My own position on this matter is very simple. I stand by the fact that we all live in the same society, if there is going to be salary readjustment or restructuring across board, it should be done across board, there should be not exemption, we all live in the same society. So I don’t see any problem with that. When you have restructuring of salary it should be one that people who are responsible for it must look at it vis-a-vis what people are earning now. It is not just selecting a section of the society and cut their salary, that would not be right. So if there is a restructuring across board that is affecting everybody, there is nothing wrong in it.

One of the highlights of the electoral reforms is that hearing of petitions against declared winners must be concluded, before they are inaugurated. How feasible is this proposal?
You see, what is being comtemplated is being viewed vis-a-vis, the conduct of a free and fair election.

If we have a body managing the election and it is free, fair and unbiased, we may end up having no petition or the petitions will be reduced to the barest minimum. So those ones can be determined within six months and everybody who feels aggrieved is settled and everybody know where they are, before they are sworn in. But as long as we continue to have fraud being perpetrated by those we put in charge of election, for that long we’ll continue to have piles and piles of election petitions and those ones might not be things you can conclude on time, but the basic thing is that there must be, first of all, an election that is free and fair, that is credible. So if an election is credible, but we have one or two errors here and there, then you can ventilate and you can ask for the errors to be corrected in a tribunal, so in such circumstances, determining an election petition before inauguration will highly be feasible, but where you have in every unit, there is fraud, in every ward, there is fraud, in every local government, there is fraud, what do you do about that? It is not every easy, so we must have a credible process to allow for lesser and lesser reduction in judicious interventions.

Are politicians ready to accept defeat easily?
They will, everybody will accept defeat easily. And I can assure you, you see I was one of the Commonwealth election monitors in Ghana, what I observed there, and why they are able to accept defeat easily is that every agent in so many polling units which I visited, every agent there whether you are winning or you are losing signed the result slips. Everybody signed freely and I was made to understand that it is because they saw a credible process, there would be no reason for them to refuse to sign. You were there, when the elections was conducted, you sat throughout and everything was counted before you and at the end of the polls you now say that something happened, what would you say is your problem? You must sign beecause it is credible. But where for instance you’re there and somebody carried the ballot box somewhere, he stuffed it with ballot papers and returned it, you wouldn’t sign. So where there is a credible process, I am telling you, I’ve said so, I’ve been part of several elections and nobody has quarrelled with such elections because they are credible. Once you are able to put credible processes in place, I can assure you most people won’t even go to court if you’re defeated, it means you’re defeated, you will now think about the next time to contest, because it is credible, but the reason why we have many people going to election tribunal for judicial intervention is because of lack of credibility.

What is your reaction to the brewing political crisis in Ondo State over the dissolution of local governments?
The crisis now to me, is one that being created by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party at the national level. Why I say so is that there is no way local government chairmen, whether rightly or wrongly dissolved by the governor can have police protection to force them into office. They have taken the right step, they have gone ahead to sue. So why don’t they allow the legal process, why dont they allow the judicial process to determine whether or not the action of the governor was right or wrong. It happened in Oyo State here, (ex-Governor) Ladoja had an election, by the time (Governor) Akala came in, the local governments were dissolved, the chairmen were sent packing because he said there was no proper election. That matter is still in court till today, we happened to be the lawyers representing them. The local government chairmen that were elected in an election, organised by Ladoja, and who are supposed to spend three years are still in court because they are saying that the dissolution or nullification was wrong. They are still in court. The matter is now on appeal. If that matter is still there, why didn’t they give those ones plice protection to force their ways into office and remain in the local governments. It is not right. So you cannot do one things here and do another thing there so now that the shoe is on the other leg now, let them follow the court process. If the court says what Mimiko has done is wrong, I am sure he would have to abide by it. He said he won election, he went to court, the court declared him the winner, the person who was there left, If the court now says what he did was wrong, he has to agree, there is nothing he can do, that is the point.

What is the cause of constant criticism or unfriendly disposition of one of your members, Ms Carol Ajie to the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) under your leadership?
The NBA has a focus, it wouldn’t allow itself to be distracted by an irritant, Carol Ajie is a mere irritant. The NBA is not bordered about her, the NBA is far above pettiness and self-projection. She is somebody who is suffering from defeat syndrome, since she’s lost elections consistently, that has created a big problem for her and I don’t think the NBA wants to be concerned with somebody who is an irritant, she is of no consequence, so the NBA does not want to get concerned over somebody who is of no consequence. I can assure you that my own administration will not be distracted by somebody of irrelevant status at the bar. I don’t really see her as a threat. She can write what she wants, she can continue to do whatever she wants to do, it doesn’t really border me. I have a focus, I know what I am doing. She is not a member of National Executive Council (NEC), of NBA she doesn’t know what is going on at NEC meetings, she doesn’t have facts. Her write-up on the NBA case against the CJN was based on imagination. Like I said, she is not a member of NEC anyway, she wouldn’t know when NEC took decisions, she has not read NEC resolutions any and you see her reference to it that Akeredolu wanted to make substitution, that has no basis because I never sent names to the NJC in anyway and I recollect that in a number of our meetings with the CJN, one of the things he always say is that this is one of the problems he inherited, it never started from me, so how can anybody say I started it.

What’s your reaction to the call for the abolition of the title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria by young lawyers and even older ones who are not members of the inner bar on the ground that it’s being used to oppress lawyers who are not Senior Advocates?
I can assure you that the title of Senior Advocate will never be abolished anyway and I must say that it should never be abolished. Nobody should ever contemplate it. If there are misgivings, these can be sorted out among ourselves. I don’t see how the holders of that title are oppressing anybody. They have privileges, if there are few among the rank of SAN who have conducted themselves in a way that people or other members see as oppressive, this can be addressed at any given time. We’ll look forward to see how we address such behaviour so that we can talk to our members or members of the rank to see what they can do so that we’ll cultivate our brothers. We are all brothers, the fact that you belong to that rank doesn’t make anything special of you, except for your privileges and there are a number of our members who are not Senior Advocates but who are as brilliant as Senior Advocates, if not more brilliant, so there is no problem. But like I said, the rank should not be abolished it is part of the history of the profession, the QC (Queen’s Counsel) has been and would forever be, so also Senior Advocate has come to be and would forever be, I know that.

How do we tackle the problem of corruption which has been seriously impeding the development of this country?
What the law can do in respect of corruption is simple. It is for us to be firm and ensure imposition of adequate sanctions and until we are able to make people pay for corruption, then it will not go away because if people who have looted the treasury when they were governors were allowed to go away with the money they took and nothing is done to them, if people who have committed electoral offences are not prosecuted, those coming will do it again. The governors coming will continue to perpetrate corruption, they will continue to be fraudulent because those who were there before, have not been sanctioned. That sanction is lacking. In the country today we don’t impose adequate sanction against those who are caught to have committed offences, particularly corruption. Those who commit corruption in Japan, before they are arrested for prosecution, they commit suicide because they know that there would be sanctions and there would be public opprobrium, the public would resent them, what has happened to this country is that we have lacked good leadership, we have also not been blessed with the desired followership that can force the leadership to change. The followers we have in this country are those who are prepared to celebrate corruption. People steal and you give them chieftaincy titles, everybody will be there to engage in merry-making with them.

They are given the pride of place as if they have done things that are so good. So if those you are bleeding or those you’ve stolen from now see you as a Messiah, you will continue to steal. That’s one of the problems we have. I know that leadership is a big problem, but the followership we have in this country today will continue to throw up bad leadership because the followers are not prepared to sanction them. If we are not able to resent and show that with your money, your ill-gotten wealth, you’re nobody. We’ll continue to keep corruption within the country. Until there is high class trial of governors, deputy governors commissioners and other public office holders, who engaged in electoral malpractices in 2007, it will happen again in 2011.