Guy Ikokwu is a London-trained lawyer with 54 years post-call experience. In this interview with Senior Correspondent ONYEWUCHI OJINNAKA, he speaks on the forthcoming Nigerian bar Association (NBA) general elections and continued incarceration of Biafra activist, Daniel Kanu, among others.
What are your expectations on the forthcoming NBA general elections?
The tenure of the current president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Augustine Alegeh, will expire in the middle of this year. So a new president will be elected in the next general assembly which will come up in July this year. The post of the president under the NBA zoning programme has been zoned to the Northern part of the country. We understand that the two people who are at the forefront are Chief Joe-Kyari Gadzama and A.B. Mahmoud, both of them claiming to be endorsed by the Arewa group. Again, there is problem within the Arewa group adopting any single candidate. Consequently, the two candidates are now going to other zones. They were at the Eastern zone just few days ago. I also understand that they will come to the Western zone very soon.
As a senior member of the Bar, I want to make two things very clear. One is that we are against monetisation of any campaign. And any of such monetisation will count against whichever candidate it is attributed to. We know that the present regime and even the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are very much against “anti-Bar activities” by some senior advocates of the association. Many of them have been implicated in influencing some judicial officers not to do their work as they should. We know that the common man relies on the judiciary to promote the Rule of Law and safeguard the society.
Some of us also want to make it very clear that in the light of what is going on now in the country under the present regime, any of the candidates who refused to embrace the primordial ethics of the Bar will not only be exposed but will be made to stand down. So, they must make sure that there is no skeleton in their cupboards which the EFCC and other anti-graft bodies are determined to expose. This will make the Nigerian Bar Association to be truly independent, capable of advising the government in a way that is devoid of any bad antecedent.
Two senior advocates were charged before the Lagos High Court for providing financial assistance to some judges. How strange is the incident to you?
It is not strange within the Bar. Many members of the Bar have known that over the years; at least in the last 40 years, a lot of the ethics of the Bar were being breached. They were being breached in the sense that they undermine the true meaning of law. They were being breached because members of the Bar could see that the very principle which should be upheld by both the junior and senior members of the Bar are no longer being practised due to influence from the society, the government and the polity. A lot of principles on which a nation should be built have been grossly undermined, not only by lawyers but also by other professions who have gone down the drain – not doing what they ought to do.
When I say profession, the military is a profession; and in the last 50 years, the military has not acted in the way a true professional military should behave, and this is obvious to everybody. All the eight revolutions in the last 50 years have been largely military versus military. Change of government has always been military versus military. But, all these had undermined democratic principles for laying solid foundation for nationhood.
So, Nigeria has not progressed, and that is why most professions in Nigeria have not also progressed. The banking profession has not progressed. These banks derailed the economy and ruined depositors in Nigerian banks. Most of the people working in the banks today are not professional bankers; they are just people that have been contracted out. So also is the profession of accountancy and medicine. So, the same thing affects the legal profession. I am a lawyer, but not all lawyers are good. We have got into a situation in this country where everything has become fast-track; everybody wants to make money fast. When you go to court to swear to an affidavit or file a process, you know what you encounter there.
So we are all encouraging President Buhari to sanitise the system. We support him on the issue of anti-graft 110 per cent. Let those who have looted the treasury vomit what they have stolen and face the punitive nature of the law.
Is it abnormal for a lawyer to assist a judge who has financial challenges?
It depends on what the assistance is. Let me give you an instance, if the mother of a judge or his daughter is undergoing a kidney transplant or something like that and the judge needs money, he should go to the government as a judicial officer. And that is why we are saying the judiciary should have its funding and not impoverished by the executive. If the Chief Judge goes to the governor of a state and tells the government about the situation a judge is undergoing, I do not see a state governor that will turn a blind eye to such request. It will be wrong for that judge to start approaching individual lawyers for assistance. But, if a judge wants the public to know about it, he could advertise it in the newspapers and appeal for funds from the general public. There are things that are worth doing, and they should be done well. Things that are not done well are improper. So, if a judge’s daughter is marrying and we are invited to the wedding, we could buy a wedding card and a little gift. That is all.
Would you comment on the continued incarceration of Biafra activist, Daniel Kanu, despite court pronouncements that he should be granted bail?
What is the essence of detaining the boy? What is Radio Biafra? How many people listen to Radio Biafra? If it is aired in London and in the United States, is that the first time? During National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) days, Wole Soyinka, Bola Tinubu, Tony Enahoro and myself financed Radio Kudirat outside Nigeria and used it to tell the military that they must step down and that we want democracy. Was Soyinka charged with treasonable felony? The Federal Government is making a hero of this boy called Kanu. Most people do not even know him before; I personally do not know him or any of his family members. I do not even know the town he comes from. Most Igbo people do not know him. Most Yoruba do not know him and do not listen to his radio. So, why should government disobey a court order that says he should be granted bail? He satisfied the bail condition, but you refused to release him, thereby making the boy a hero. Now, he is well known all over the world. People who do not know what he was saying now want to know.
Are you saying Federal Government should have ignored him?
Exactly. I tell you, if there is a vote today among the Igbo, they will tell you they prefer a restructured Nigeria because the civil war was fought and they were forced to become members of Nigeria. It is now close to 50 years and most people who are governors and members of the National Assembly today are below 50 years. They were born after the civil war and not before or during the war like some of us. So, what the Igbo want is a restructured Nigeria and true federalism. If any state wants to have one million local governments, let it have it and pay for it. How can you have a state like Lagos with just 20 local governments and you give the federating money for just 20 local governments? Then you go to Jigawa and Kano, which used to be one state before and give them more local governments that is more than a whole region. Is Kano or Jigawa more populated than Lagos? These are truths that we keep burying and it will kill the country if the right thing is not done. Nigeria will soon become a failed state.
How can law be used to develop the country?
I have been very much interested in the affairs of Nigeria and see how we can change Nigeria for the better. The Ghanaians have been able to live up to standard because of their history. They had to go through a revolution, but we have not gone through a revolution. Now we have a constitution which most Nigerians disagree with, which was imposed by the military. In actual fact, in the last 40 years, the military have been ruling Nigeria and have been able to manipulate the constitutional system in the country. They gave us a constitution which is more suited to the military than the civilians. If you look at the 1999 Constitution which was drafted by the military, it is tailored towards the military line. In the military, only one person is in charge at the top and every other person below obeys his command. Civilians are not brought up that way and that is why we have problems in the constitution and that is why we have problems in the polity.