Every administration is obligated to fight corruption –Ladan

Professor Muhammed Tawfiq Ladan is a professor of Law at the ABU Zaria. In this interview, he speaks on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war, Dasuki/ El-Zakzaky and sundry other issues. Although later debunked, we heard reports that former President Goodluck Jonathan has gone on exile. What will be the implication if a former president is […]

Professor Muhammed Tawfiq Ladan is a professor of Law at the ABU Zaria. In this interview, he speaks on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war, Dasuki/ El-Zakzaky and sundry other issues.

Although later debunked, we heard reports that former President Goodluck Jonathan has gone on exile. What will be the implication if a former president is arrested?
I think in the first instance, we need to clarify two issues. A sitting president, vice president and governors, deputy governors are the only two broad categories of political office holders or public officers that the constitution says enjoy immunity while in office.
And therefore you cannot start any legal process against them while they are in office so that you don’t disturb them in the discharge of their constitutional functions. From this platform, any president, vice president, governor, and deputy governor that has left office does not enjoy immunity anymore.
Any individual, not just the law enforcement agencies, can proceed to institute legal processes, either for a civil action or criminal charge against such individuals. So, if you take this foundation as a basis in law, you will discover that once you are out of office and you belong to the category of these four persons that Section 308 has conferred immunity on,  the constitution implies that a day or even a minute after leaving office, anybody can take legal actions against you.
If a law enforcement agency wants to actually go against a former president, provided sentiments and emotions are completely detached from the process, from the point of law, it is legal. What is important as a nation is that we must not be carried away by emotions that some categories of people are above the law. Section 14, sub-section 2 (part b) is very clear on the primary purpose of government in Nigeria; that anybody in administration at all levels is in that particular office for two reasons: to promote the security and welfare of all people (not just Nigerians, but all people).
Therefore, you are not in office to enrich your political party, private or public institutions, or friends, even if you claim not to have enriched yourself. You can even corruptly enrich someone by an abuse of office or a misuse of power, this is where Section 16(5) comes in. This section has been present in all our constitutions. So, neither Buhari nor Jonathan started the legal foundation for combatting corruption. Ideally, if any administration in power decides not to abolish corruption and abuse of power, we should go to the street and protest that the administration is not discharging its constitutional obligation. So, once you are out of office, any law enforcement agency can go after you. What is important is that there should be no abuse of the legal process.
On the abuse of legal process, some suspects are still being held even after the courts have granted them bail. What is your reaction to this?
In the first instance, I think any administration in power must understand that we are operating a constitutional democracy. In a constitutional democracy, there must be respect for the rule of law, there must be respect for human life standard.
These two are non-negotiable, which means if the constitution provides a procedure laid down by law to be followed, all law enforcement agencies must follow it. Secondly, unless the person is of a security risk in such a way that any effort to grant him bail will jeopardize the legal process then there is a further requirement that the grant of bail of such a person may be refused.
 But there must be justification for that refusal. If you take Dasuki for instance, there are two critical security problems. One, as a former National Security Adviser, he was implicated in the misuse of $2.1 billion meant for the procurement of equipment for defence and security; that part of that money was diverted into campaign funding of the Jonathan administration.
Now, if the assessment of the law enforcement is that such a person is holding so much money and so much information that is of a security risk, you have to justify that in the court of law for the grant of bail to be denied as many times as possible, unless he gives an assurance to the court on a particular condition.
Once the conditions are set out and met: you ask him to drop his passport, he complied; bail of N2 billion, he complied; then you cannot refuse to grant him bail unless there is another charge.
 In Dasuki’s case, it appears the intelligence communities are not bringing out all the charges against him, they are bringing them out intermittently. So, as he meets bail conditions for charges A,B,C, fresh charges come out. As such, many public audience members do not understand why he is being re-arrested and bail refused in terms of his applications.
 But one thing is clear, once bail conditions are set and an applicant meets the conditions, then within our constitutional process, he must be granted that bail unless fresh charges are produced against him, which he has to present new defense against. So I think people should be able to draw that distinction.
For Nnamdi Kanu, his is about a preferred charge of treasonable felony which is not yet in the stage of treason. One point is clear, if he is associated with a security risk and the threat is so high, the law enforcement agency and the Ministry of Justice can make a case for grant of bail to be refused but they must provide justification for that denial. Unless there is a fresh charge, bail must be granted; or unless the applicant refuses to meet up with the conditions of the sought bail.
Are you saying in these two cases, government is not in disobedience of any court order?
In the first instance, there is one complication that I know of. Dasuki’s case did not necessarily reveal why the prosecuting agency and the investigative arm of government could not actually prefer all the charges against him at a go, so we will now determine once and for all whether he has met the bail conditions. So, the way they are filing the charges against him is confusing. He is granted bail today and he is rearrested with fresh charges against him. That is the problem of Dasuki’s case.

What is your reaction on the human rights record of President Muhammadu Buhari, as it relates to the Zakzaky’s case?
There are two issues. In the first instance,  Zakzaky is known to be a leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) that engaged in a clash with the Nigerian Army in Zaria. The army claimed that  Zakzaky and his followers tried to block the passage of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and there was a threat to the COAS’ life, and therefore his act and that of his followers constitute an act of lawlessness because you cannot block a public highway; even if you are having a public procession of your programme the highway can only be blocked by half and not its entirety.
So, within the three days clash, over 300 members of Zakzaky reportedly lost their lives, with the army also leveling all buildings belonging to the group. In this circumstance where there is an accusation of someone being a security threat and there was reference to the fact that this similar event happened at the same venue in 2014; one issue is that whatever accusation was leveled against Zakzaky, in a constitutional democracy, you must be able to allow right of access to counsel and right of access of family to that person.
 And the idea of arresting him and making him incommunicado should not have arisen in a constitutional administration. So the most this administration could have done is to prefer charges against him because already about 85 of his followers are being prosecuted in Kaduna State. So, if his followers are being charged under the Kaduna State criminal law, why not same for Zakzaky?
 The problem, therefore is in holding him in detention for a long period of time without a charge and without prosecution. This is not a good human rights record for an administration that promised to live up to legal and human standards.

Many have said the anti-graft war by this administration is vindictive, one-side. What is your overview of President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war?
We need to go back to the constitutional foundation for that, and that is every administration is obligated to fight corruption. For anybody to say this anti-corruption war is selective is absolute nonsense for two reasons. Section 15(5) of chapter two of Nigeria’s constitution places a constitutional obligation on every administration in Nigeria to put legal, institutional, administrative, judicial measures on ground to abolish corrupt practices and abuse of office. And the constitution did not say this is how you should start or on whose head you should/should not start; which means any administration can decide to start from anywhere.
So, for people to now begin to say the war is vindictive and selective is not right. The question to ask is if you are in the shoes of President Buhari, where will you start the anti-graft war? When the attention is on a PDP member, they say it is vindictive.
 What of when the attention is on the No. 3 citizen of the country who is of the same party with the president, is that also selective? Our problem is that we are so much obsessed with sentiments and emotions that we see some categories of people to be above the law. We can’t even allow one case of high profile to reach a logical conclusion.
 When you say this anti-corruption war is selective, where are you starting from? Is it the president that is selective or the law enforcement agencies or the party as an entity? It is a big mistake to assume that once someone belongs to a ruling party, such is immune from prosecution. The war against corruption, to me, is on course. But there must be consistency in the focus of the law enforcement agencies and the prosecuting authorities in the sense that whether they are seen as being selective or vindictive, they must make sure that none of them operates above the law.

Any other appeal you want to make?
For one year in office under Buhari’s administration, one thing I believe that the administration should remain consistently focused on is how to really invest in the youth of this country. This is because how do you explain having about 14 million graduates roaming around the streets unemployed. This did not start with this administration or the immediate past one. This is an accumulated problem.
 According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the implication of this high rate unemployment among the youth is that without social nets programme for them, the country is sitting on a time bomb.
The implication is on national security. And it also presents a picture that we are so insensitive as administrators or government that we don’t even want to quickly address the plights of the younger generation. Investment in the youth of this country should be on the forefront of our national development agenda.