Nigeria can’t develop without strong, independent judiciary –Mahmoud

A.B. MAHMOUD (SAN) is one of the major aspirants for the 2016 NBA presidential election. In this interview, he speaks about open suffrage universal system, corruption and other issues. Excerpts: You had some nominations to the Arewa Lawyers Forum and your major competitor for the NBA Presidency, J.K. Gadzama (SAN) wrote a protest letter that […]

A.B. MAHMOUD (SAN) is one of the major aspirants for the 2016 NBA presidential election. In this interview, he speaks about open suffrage universal system, corruption and other issues. Excerpts:

You had some nominations to the Arewa Lawyers Forum and your major competitor for the NBA Presidency, J.K. Gadzama (SAN) wrote a protest letter that two of those nominees – J.B. Daudu (SAN) and Yusuf Ali (SAN) – were not qualified, how has this been resolved?
The Arewa Lawyers Forum is one of the three similar fora; we have the Eastern Bar Forum and the Western Bar Forum. Basically, these fora are not really formal structures within the NBA system, but they emerged during the period of our crisis and became sort of accepted and accommodated within the platform of the NBA as informal platforms where consensus is supposed to be built around the interests of segments of respective forum. Generally, when elections come up, they try to meet and promote their own interests. So this is the context.
We are supposed to build consensus and try to uphold the collective interest of the North; whether it is Gadzama or Mahmud that gets elected we are all from the North and we are all capable of projecting and protecting the interest of lawyers from the North.
So the consensus in Kaduna was that let us try and set up a committee that will ensure a consensus on which candidate to adopt. In fact, the committee was to discuss and ascertain if there is going to be a consensus or not and the committee was supposed to report back to the forum. That committee was to be made up of seven  persons: three to be nominated by Mr. Gadzama, three to be nominated by me and one person to chair the committee will be nominated by the executive.
 So I nominated my three people: Mr. J.B. Daudu, Mr. Yusuf Ali and Dr. Garba – all of them very senior and respectable lawyers. Mr. Daudu, a former president of the NBA has his office in Kaduna and Abuja, he is from Kogi State. Mr. Ali is a very senior and respected member of the Bar, he has his practice in Ilorin and Abuja, although I’m told that originally he hails from Osun State but as far as I am concerned, he practices in Ilorin and for all intent and purposes, he can also be categorized as a northerner.
So, I sent out this nomination, then I received a communication from the chairman of the forum through the secretary saying that my opponent, Mr. Gadzama has raised objections on two out of my three nominees. According to him, this objection has merit therefore I should substitute them. I told him that before you come to the conclusion that it has merit, you ought to have shown me the petition sent in by Mr. Gadzama so I can see the reasons for his petitions but you did not do that, you concluded that without hearing me. And you have not also given me the nominees of Mr. Gadzama. As I speak to you today, I don’t know who Mr. Gadzama nominated for the committee. I don’t even know them not to talk of raising any objection if I had any. So I said, this is not the way to go about it.
The Arewa Lawyers Forum is supposed to be a platform for building consensus and harmony and creating common approach to things so as to promote interest in the NBA system. So, I said I need to see the petition and I need to know who is nominated by Mr. Gadzama so I can respond. This is where things stand at the moment. They have not responded to my request and they have not said anything. So by all intents and purposes, that process seems to have stalled.
At the moment, there appears to be deadlock as far as the Arewa Lawyers Forum is concerned. They are yet to come back to me on the issue and in fact no further communication on that.
This year’s election is going to be one lawyer one vote and it seems this is a new development as it has always been through delegate system. What is your take on this?
In the past, before 1992, every lawyer who was up to date with commitment to the NBA was entitled to vote. The last election we had in 1992 in Port Harcourt was where we had the crisis and as part of the effort to revive the NBA we devised the system of delegate conference where elections are conducted at delegate conference and branches select delegates. It’s the delegates that are now entitled to participate. But over the years the delegate system has been much abused so the process was no longer democratic; it has become corrupt and monetized and there was a lot of bad influence among candidates who now keep jostling to fund delegates and it becomes almost non-distinguishable from normal national party politics.
There is no harm if we decide to use an open suffrage universal system. This is the first time we are trying it in many years and this is also the first time we are trying an electronic voting platform where you can be anywhere and go to the website and cast your vote. What we are hoping is that the system will be robust enough and will be secure enough to guarantee the fidelity of the process. It gives everybody a voice and a chance to participate in the affairs of the association. I think it’s a good initiative, we’ll see how it works and hopefully it will turn out well.
Over the years, you have established yourself as a man of integrity. Do you see this as an advantage or disadvantage for your push for the bar’s presidency?
I think the legal profession is about integrity, high values and high professional standards. All lawyers try to aspire to that in their dealings with their clients, in their dealings with courts and in their dealings with ordinary citizens. We want to live up to the standard that when you say you are a lawyer it is a representation of certain qualities and that is the only way that lawyers can be having high regards which traditionally they had and still would be having the future. So, when you train and offer your services as a lawyer, you are offering yourself as able to uphold certain standards in your professional dealings with everybody you come across. To the extent you said uncompromising, yes it is uncompromising so long as we are trying to meet up to those requirements of the standards. Is it a disadvantage to my push for the bar’s presidency? Well, I sincerely hope not. I don’t think it should be a disadvantage. It should be, in fact, an advantage and this is what we are trying to do: to rebuild that image, that high regard that ordinary people/citizens hold the legal profession and I hope that we can work to restore that glory of the legal profession together with our colleagues now. It’s not good if people see the legal profession negatively; if we are seen as undermining the rule of law; if we are seen as undermining ethical standards or cutting corners in what we do. This is something every lawyer should aspire to and we will continue to endeavor to uphold these standards because otherwise we will be undermining the same institution, the same values we are supposed to uphold. So, I don’t see it as a disadvantage.
What is it that you cannot compromise on to become the NBA president?
I’ve always said that being an NBA president is not a life and death matter. One of the first things I did when I decided to contest the election was actually to visit my brother, J.K. Gadzama in his office. I have made it clear that election, whether at professional bodies or at national/state party politics, is not a do or die affair.
Your major opponent in this election has been described as a people’s person. Do you think this might give him some edge in the race?
Our campaign for this election has been on our ideas, programmes, visions and missions for the bar association and indeed for the country. Our initiatives and ideas, in my view are people-oriented, aimed at raising the quality and standard of the legal profession; redeeming the image of the bar; creating more opportunities for teeming its members, especially for the young members of the bar; and keying into the key issues of national development.
 In my view, there can be no better people-oriented programmes and ideas than this. Being a people’s person for us is not by how we conduct ourselves but in the quality of the ideas we have for the people. Some of us are by nature more reserved in the way we conduct ourselves. But that is by no means a yardstick for measuring the content of our ideas and programmes and we hope that people will vote on these issues and not personal styles which sometimes might not be of any substance, in my view. Without deriding my brother, J.K. Gadzama, I am sincerely hoping people will be able to differentiate matters of substance from matters of personal style.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria has challenged senior lawyers to help expose corrupt judges. What is your take on this?
The fight for a clean judiciary is everybody’s fight. And senior lawyers, especially have a major role to play in this. It is in our interest that we have a very clean, independent judiciary. The country cannot develop without having a strong independent judiciary that is credible, efficient and clean. It is a task senior lawyers should shoulder along with the leadership of the judiciary. In the appointment process, lawyers and the bar association have a role to play. Sometimes you are asked to comment on the suitability of a candidate for an appointment, this should be seen as a sacred responsibility by lawyers to candidly comment and recommend suitable people only. If there are genuine complains, lawyers and the bar association must champion them.
As I always say, majority of our judges are honest men and women who are working within the ambit of the law, but that is not to say there are no bad eggs. We know there are and we must champion the process of getting rid of them. And I can assure you that the bar association under my leadership will certainly champion this.
What is your take on female judges that marry from states different from their states of origin and are overlooked in their spouses’ states for higher appointments?
The fact that I am personally involved with this kind of issue should not stop me from airing my view. And my view is straightforward. The constitution guarantees certain rights which should regulate the conduct of all institutions. This clearly frowns at discrimination in whatever form. In my view, if a married woman has been serving for many years in a particular state different from her state of origin there is no reason why she should be discriminated against. If somebody has served the state, paid taxes and there are no legitimate complains about her conduct, there is no reason why she should not be treated like every other person from that state. We need to get away from some of these issues. We cannot promote a sense of togetherness, a sense of national cohesion, a sense of unity if we continue to hold on to some of these very divisive rules and regulations.
In other countries, it is not done this way. It is clearly stated in our constitution: promoting inter-ethnic/religious marriages, promoting unity and removing discrimination and all of that. So we need to live to the spirit of the constitution and the judiciary has no basis on falling on all these rather primordial loyalties to be dividing the bench. What we need at the bench at all level is integrity, competence and capability. These are the main yardsticks. Of course, we need to promote the sense of belonging but that shouldn’t be based on discriminatory grounds. We will continue to support and promote these issues not because my wife is affected but because I think it is the right thing to do.
What direction do you want the law to go?
It is very clear that when we talk about the law here, I am talking about the legal profession. It is very clear that the legal profession in Nigeria has a huge role to play in national development. Historically, lawyers have always been at the forefront of the struggle to promote a better and just society. Our members have played key roles in the various phases of our national development. Right now, it appears to me the key challenge is the challenge of building institutions, systems and processes. When we say corruption is bedeviling Nigeria, why are we not able to deal with this corruption? We are not able to deal with corruption because we don’t have strong institutions that can really confront this problem. When we say we are not able to deliver on economic programmes or improve on the prosperity of this country; why is that happening? In my view, one of the key issues is weak institutions. So the struggle for stronger institutions, for establishing systems based on values, principles such as accountability is going to constitute the next major phase of our national development, and unless we get institutions right, unless we get processes right, unless we establish values, we are not going to overcome the challenges of development.
The legal profession needs to direct its energy, skills, and capacities at helping on this by working jointly with other stakeholders. This is the real challenge and unless we address this, our country cannot overcome its key problems. Our country is bedeviled by corruption, internal conflicts and all sorts of problems. The key to confronting them will be developing strong institutions, strong value-systems that can take on this challenges and that is where the energy of the legal profession needs to be focused on. My message to the legal profession is that we cannot play a significant role in this unless we ourselves look at our own institutions. Look at the NBA, look at the various other institutions that constitute the legal order and begin to reform them and to establish them as very credible partners in this development process. This, to me, is the next phase of our national development and this is where lawyers have a strong role to play.