N10bn private jets: No court can stop us from investigating Alison-Madueke – Rep. Ahmad

You are chair of the House Committee on Justice and you just concluded work on the administration of criminal justice bill, can you tell us the import of the new legislation?The bill is not an amendment; it is the complete overhaul of the criminal justice system. It is described as the revolution of the criminal […]

You are chair of the House Committee on Justice and you just concluded work on the administration of criminal justice bill, can you tell us the import of the new legislation?
The bill is not an amendment; it is the complete overhaul of the criminal justice system. It is described as the revolution of the criminal justice sector and we are awaiting Senate concurrence; and the Attorney General of the Federation is interested in the passage of the bill. He’s been part and parcel of the processes that culminated in the passage of the bill and he said Mr. President will sign the bill. And once signed a lot of mess that is there in our entire judicial system will be history.
We have started with the criminal justice system which deserves to be given priority because it has effect on the lives of the people. It deals with life and death and once it is signed I am very confident that all these troubles we are having will be over. You can think of anything, is it the awaiting trial, delay in prosecution, nonchalance of lawyers, the frivolous appeals, all those have been completely dealt with in the new law.
For example, in South Africa the trial is ongoing of Oscar Pistorius. Once the police finish with investigation you must be ready to go to trial, not that you go today and the judge will look at the document and adjourn for six months to see whether that document is admissible or not. Once trial begins it should finish between three and six months. We are looking at three months for ordinary cases and six months for big criminal cases like that of Pistorius. It is normal time and not just because he is a celebrity. That is how their judicial system works.
What about the civil aspect, will you also amend it?
The entire judicial system is in a mess. I was happy the other time president of the Nigerian Bar Association was saying government officials are going round the world calling for investors to come to Nigeria but nobody will come. He said if you want investors to come, go and clean up your judicial system, they will come once they know that their money is safe; if there is problem an investor goes to court and within few weeks or months he gets judgment. But now no investor will come. So, once in this 7th Assembly we are able to get done with the criminal justice system and wherever we stop on the civil aspect, the next Assembly will continue with it. The civil justice system is also in a complete mess. We have started consultations with people like Professor Orji Osita ( SAN), Queens Council who is alarmed by the mess. I can name 100 aspects that are terribly bad and people take advantage of this.
Can you give us some examples?
The one that readily comes to mind as a legislator and something I could not imagine is the current suit instituted by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, challenging provisions of sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution which vest in the National Assembly powers to investigate any person or institution in Nigeria with a view to exposing corruption.
I have not heard of it where a sitting government official, even a minister for that matter, is taking the parliament to court because she does not want to be investigated. You could be a private person and take the assembly to court to challenge their investigative powers. This is an aberration. It is just like taking the United States Congress or the British parliament to court that they cannot invite you. Or that they cannot investigate you or you go to court and challenge the powers of a state governor or the President that he cannot summon meeting of the federal or State Executive Council.
All a legislator does is pass the law and investigate; so if you don’t want to be investigated, you resign. That is what we are saying. You blame our civil judicial process because the lawyer is paid, he can do anything. We will look at these things holistically and we are coming up because the NBA is not doing anything to sanction its erring members who go about instituting frivolous cases and especially appeals in courts.
This law will have two faces, it will have the aspect that regulates the practice of law by lawyers and even the judicial office by judicial officers because even if a lawyer is crazy and brings one frivolous case, the judicial officer should know that because I can go to court, can I sue president that he cannot summon the Federal Executive Council or he cannot swear in a minister?
Are you saying that under sections 88 and 89 of the constitution the minister of petroleum does not have the locus standi to sue the House?
We all know the game, we are all Nigerians. There is no court in the land that has power to stop the National Assembly from performing its functions under sections 88 & 89. No court can say National Assembly cannot investigate anybody in Nigeria or summon anybody because that power is given to us by the constitution. But do you know what they are doing? This is what we call abuse of judicial process. You try to use the judicial process and at the end they know this thing will take six months or more but at the end no court can make that pronouncement in Nigeria, but just to delay us and stop the investigation since they know every assembly has a life span.
Why then do you think judges are entertaining these kinds of cases?
The legislature has been too respectful of the judiciary because we believe in the judiciary and we try to reciprocate that but we can summon anybody including judges under section 88 and 89 of the constitution. So after the judge has done his bit we can summon him to come and explain to us why he even entertained this case.
Is there any intent to do that?
Well, that is why we are saying that they should thread softly. They can do whatever they want to do on the field of politics but they cannot destroy institutions like parliament. The same thing when an attorney general will go to court to stop an investigation. The office of the AGF is sacrosanct. So, these politicians should not bring down our institutions. When legislators start summoning judges for cases that they have had, we have the powers but you see our deference to the judiciary has not been reciprocated. We have said that once a case is in court we won’t touch it but the judges and the courts should reciprocate that by saying that if a case is so glaring they should throw it out. They should tell the lawyers having been paid not to use their offices to draw them into this.
There are house committees now that want to start investigating the courts and the registries about the money they are making and how much they are remitting to the federation account. If you open up that place it will be very bad for them. I call on the NBA to call its members to order. Because we have our powers and if pushed to the wall we will use it. We have been respectful to the judiciary but if they continue this way, we will start summoning judges to come and explain how they arrived at some judgements or even why they entertained such cases which ultimately they know they cannot take. Justice delayed is justice denied, they want to delay us from investigating her for the next six months or more when the life of this assembly must have terminated.
Do you think that is the intent?
That is it. There is no court in the land that can stop the legislature from investigating or inviting anybody. Everybody knows but the tactics is to delay us since they know that we are always respectful of the courts. If anybody is afraid of being summoned he or she should resign and be a private person. But so long as you are occupying a position on behalf of Nigerians, we as the true representatives of the Nigerian people will come after you and this is the position of the house whether APC or PDP. You have to see the outrage on that day during our sitting but the judge is a complete gentleman, he went out of his way to issue a pronouncement to say he didn’t make that order. It can create problem for the judiciary. It is good the judge clarified.
There are members that are now saying that we should review our rule which says that if a matter is in court we cannot talk about it, it is our rule and we can change it any time if they continue to behave like this. I hope that day will not come.