Immunity clause should be retained – Okonkwo

How do you assess the anti-graft agencies in the last five years? The success of an agency depends on how well it has been able to achieve its objectives. Corruption is the misuse of public power for private gain. And the constitution in Section 15 (5) states that the state shall abolish all corrupt practices […]

How do you assess the anti-graft agencies in the last five years?
The success of an agency depends on how well it has been able to achieve its objectives. Corruption is the misuse of public power for private gain. And the constitution in Section 15 (5) states that the state shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power. And the institutions that are empowered to that in Nigeria are the ICPC and EFCC. We all know that the EFCC came as a result of the inability of the ICPC to fight corruption. How has the body been able to abolish corrupt practices? What percentage of the corrupt practices has been abolished? To what extent can we say that corruption has been reduced drastically as a result of their activities? For all I know, corrupt practices as at this year are still being mouthed the way they were mouthed six years ago. The Muhammadu Buhari administration is still too young to assess  the government on anti-corruption.  According to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC government should be given 100 days of honeymoon.
How do you see the recent high activities of the EFCC?
As far as honesty can carry me, EFCC has not been lacking in prosecutions, but it has always been lacking in convicting people. In Obasanjo’s regime, you know how many people that faced EFCC. How many convictions were secured? In Yar’adua’s regime people were prosecuted. In Jonathan’s regime, you see the son of the PDP chairman in the oil subsidy; you see Ogbulafor, and lots of ex-governors being put on trial. How many convictions were secured? You see pension scheme when somebody stole N23 billion, he was practically set free because the punishment was like ‘go and sin no more.’
The philosophy behind punishment, is not in the desire of government to inflict any injuries on its citizens, but for deterrence.  So if the punishment is not strong enough to deter people, corruption would continue. We need a systemic overhaul of the entire penalty prescribed for offences; diligent prosecution and genuinely intending to abolish all corrupt practices. 
If you check the activities of EFCC by 2005 in Obasanjo’s regime, it took a different dimension because accusations were made that the House of Reps was paid N50 million and Senate N70 million to support third term, till today nothing came out of it, even when they mentioned it in the House and the people that mentioned were in the House. Any hypocrisy in the fight against corruption waters down the bite from the fight.
The public has been agitating for the removal of immunity clause for public officials in the constitution. What is your take?
Let me ask you a question: All the governors that served from 1999 and finished in 2007 how many of them have been jailed by the anti-graft agency (apart from James Ibori in the UK)? What would we have achieved by the removal of the immunity clause? Destabilisation of administrative issues. I support immunity very well. My reasons are simple: Immunity as granted the president, vice president, the governors and their deputies is not absolute. It is not absolute because the impeachment process gives the National Assembly, state houses of assembly the power to try the executive and if they are guilty of any misconduct, it gives them the right to remove them from office at any time and render them liable to face trial.
The intendment of the framers of the constitution is that the National Assembly or state houses of assembly are the representatives of the people. And if you have any offence you can prove against these people, go to them and let them seat down and check all the parameters, including political stability and see whether the offence is big enough to remove that person and make him to face trial.   
 Now, if you render these persons available to 170 million people to have the right to take the person to court in a nation like Nigeria, when do you think the person would have time to govern? In criminal offences, the accused is required to be physically present for trial. Immunity clause in Section 308 of the constitution is simply saying that criminal offence cannot be time-bound. You can try the person at any time.
Let me tell you the disadvantages of trying a man when he is in the office. One, the president and governors appoint the judges. And you want to take him to the judge he appointed and you want to secure conviction. Two, the Attorney General is an employee of the president and governors and you want an employee to prosecute his employer? Three, when somebody is in power and you want to prosecute him, he uses state resources to defend himself. And you are rather increasing the costs for the state without achieving conviction. That is why people are calling for the offices of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to be separated. So it is not wise, economically, judicially and politically for you to prosecute a man who the constitution has given the power to appoint the persons to judge him. So the immunity clause I support it wholeheartedly. With the current state of the law, it will be useless and foolish to try to prosecute any of these persons while they are still in office.  If they are involved in any corrupt practices, the legislature is there.
 What recommendations do you have to address the corruption among the present crop of leadership we have?
Why corruption is still festering among the ruling class is because the legislature has knowingly or unknowingly made itself subservient to the executive. The only body that is given the power to check the executive is the legislature. A lot of people ascribe so many powers to the executive that they do not have. They tell you that our president is the most powerful in the world, it is not true; it’s simply ignorance of the law.
Some people have suggested that the structure of the federation is responsible for corruption. What is your take?
The problem we have in Nigeria is that when a system is not working we would want to form another system as an escape route without addressing the reasons why that first system is not working, so that virus that was in that first system would now creep into the second system. Corruption is not festering because of our structure; our structure is not getting strong because of corruption. The structure of our federation addresses the issue of viability, not corruption. Let me give you an example: If you cannot pay your workers not because you are misusing the funds, but because you cannot make much funds needed to pay your workers, you are not corrupt, you are simply not viable. In the ordinary business parlance, you are bankrupt.
Why we are saying we should restructure is because it will make our component units viable not that it is aiding corruption. We have 36 states when we are not rich enough. To build a super power nation, we need to stand on a tripod: political stability, economic viability, and strong military force. These three things I will chase in my generation.
Do you support calls for merger of EFCC and ICPC?
For me the duplication of those agencies is useless. Like as I said whenever we sense any problem in an agency, rather than strengthening and solidifying the agency to achieve its purpose, you go and form another agency and the same virus in that agency will enter the other one making us spend twice what we would have spent at once. I support that the two agencies should be one. Why do we need those agencies? If the police were to be a capable agency, we don’t even need those agencies. All the powers are given to the police and we have the Ministry of Justice.