Prof. Sola Adeyeye is a solid interview material anyday. In this interview with TheNEWS, he talks on national issues generally, especially the rigging that characterised last year’s national elections and the election tribunals

Q: Can you appraise the various election petitions tribunals across the country, beginning with the Edo State verdict?

A: Well, I was most ecstatic because those of us who witnessed the travesty that took place on April 14 2007, felt extremely sad for this country. Those of us who fought for the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria were particularly saddened to see how the ruling party used the apparatus of state to make a mockery of democracy. And to the extent that the judiciary is standing tall and helping to correct the various travesties, one can only rejoice and give glory to God.

Q: Can you appraise what happened in Osun State?

A; I was an eyewitness to what took place in Osun. We had seen wuru-wuru and mago-mago in this country from 1959. We saw it in 1964 during the Bakodaya era when the then incumbent government in the Northern Region made it impossible for members of the UPGA to even register their candidature; as a result of which many members of the then NPC were returned unopposed. We saw an even worse travesty of the electoral process in 1965 by the Western Region government that led to the revolt of the people, which eventually precipitated the first coup. But I can tell you that at no time in the history of Nigeria have we ever had an election as bad as we had in 2007. And I know that it is not possible for any state in Nigeria to have been worse than what took place in Osun State. For months, even before the election day, the PDP had made life most difficult for members of the opposition, especially for those of us in the Action Congress. But we exhibited rectitude, forbearance and great patience, knowing that we had the affection of the people, confident that on election day, if the sovereignty of the people was given free rein, we would have the opportunity to send the interlopers to where the belong – the dustbin of Osun history. Unfortunately, come election day, what we witnessed was a nightmare that we could not even have imagined. But having been taught to believe in the rule of law, and having seen that in the last three-years, the Nigerian Judiciary has been, to a large extent, very courageous, very upright and has acted in the best interest of the Nigeria state, we are confident that we would be able to right all the wrongs.

We have built a solid case which, if we were given a fair and just tribunal, would make it extremely easy to prove our case. How would you describe the conduct of some lawyers who would defend the admission of forensic report and in some other states would reject it?

Lawyers, in some respect, are like prostitutes. They would lay on whatever bed as long as the client is willing to pay the necessary cash. But that is why judges must rise to the occasion. They must do so on matters of integrity or the law and they must have the intellectual and legal sagacity to cut through some of this rigmarole lawyers want to play on the process. A lawyer that goes to court sometimes, unfortunately, doesn’t really care for right to be done. Sometimes a lawyer simply wants victory for his or her client. And that is sad, because when they do that, they are not furthering the cause of justice. But it is for the Judge to be able to rise above such rigamarole. I believe that in particular, the judges ought not to allow technicalities to be used to dethrone justice. I have been in many tribunals, at least four in the last one year, and one thing you keep hearing over and over again is that Justice Niki Tobi had covered that when it comes to electoral matters, the law of evidence should be made elastic. So elastic that mere technicality cannot be used to subvert the cause of justice. Unfortunately, in Osun State, we have seen too many instances where technicality has been used to subvert substantial justice. We have also seen instances of most blatant double standards, where members of, say, the PDP, will ask for a particular favour in tendering some evidence and they would be granted. But when those of the AC ask for the same favour they would not be granted. For example, when members of the PDP tried to tender a particular piece of evidence, the AC lawyer opposed it and the chairman of the panel ruled that what should be paramount should be the relevance of the evidence, and accordingly ruled that such evidence should be admitted. Wonderful. So, we felt that if we could also show relevance in a situation like that, our evidence would also be admitted. But we found a situation were giant camels are allowed to pass through the needle eye because when it came to the AC, they now said no, it is not a question of relevance, it must be a question of mutual consent. If you and I are contending on diametrically opposed issues, head or tail, only one of us would win. Why would you give me your consent? So I could win over you. Of course, the other party would not give the consent, and what is bad in that kind of situation, the tribunal failed the test of impartiality. The test of integrity, the test of holding all sides to the same standards. Of course we also saw that when we came to the matter of forensic evidence which had been admitted in other states. The tribunal in Osun was the only one that refused it, on the ground that the analysis was not conducted in Nigeria. They forget that nowhere in the pleading of the petitioner was it said that the analysis would be made in Nigeria, because in fact, the technical and professional expertise to make such analysis doesn’t exist in Nigeria.

I consider myself as the first son of Bola Ige. When I think of Bola Ige, I still feel tears in my glands. I can recall that when Bola Ige died, the first policeman that went to his room picked the bullets from his room with his hands. A kindergarten child is taught in the USA that when you get to a crime scene, the first thing you do is to cordon off the premises so as to prevent forensic contamination and you don’t use your hand to pick up the bullet. Are these the kind of policemen we now expect to have the expertise to do fingerprint analysis?

There is no question that what we are witnessing in Osun State is daylight robbery and a daylight travesty. But again as I said, we are confident that as God lives, it will not stand on appeal, because if it stands we would be tragically unleashing on this country a chain of events the end of which no one can tell. Because it would be a sad day when the ordinary man can no longer repose confidence in the judiciary as his fortress of last hope. When the ordinary man would now know that it is better for all of us to establish garrison commanders and make elections do-or-die affairs, so that even on election days, the judges would not be able to find hiding places. We don’t pray for that. We don’t pray for chaos, we don’t pray for anarchy, because no nation can make economic progress, can make technological progress, can make scientific progress in an era of anarchy and that is why we are praying to God that the men and women of the High Courts in Nigeria, especially of the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court, must allow justice to flow in this land. Some of them are afraid that if they follow the path of justice the heavens may fall. But the truth is that when a nations does justice, heaven never falls, it always rejoices.

Q: You vied for election into the Senate but lost. What actually happened?

A: I cannot talk too much on that because right now, I am still in the tribunal. All I can say is it was so bad that on the week of my election, thugs of the PDP came to my home town, went to the residence of the chairman of AC of my ward, pasted PDP posters all over his house and dared him to remove those posters. They told him that his head would not rest on his shoulders of he dared to remove those posters. I went there and tried to remove those posters but the man was too scared. The man kept begging me: ‘Prof, you will soon leave this town to go to other places and when you do, they would make do on their promise. They would kill me. For the sake of my children, leave those posters. When Saturday comes, we know where we would vote.’ But of course, when Saturday came, people were not allowed to even vote. I could not even vote for myself. I was chased over 25km and guess what, because I had I received so many assassination threats, because my house had been invaded in Abuja prior to the election, the IG, thank God for that, gave me two armed police escorts. The day I was being chased, I had two armed police escorts, including one who is an inspector of police. You are not talking of a small man in the hierarchy of the police. That was how bad it was. It was not my experience alone. The House of Representatives candidate who was to replace me had to flee the entire constituency. His house was invaded and somebody died in the process of invading his house and instead of blaming the invaders, they now tried to charge him for murder. But, thank God the court declared him not guilty in that case. There was such a climate of harassment, intimidation, repression, tyranny, that we had never seen in the history of Western Nigeria. I was alive when Fani-Kayode used to boast that whether or not people voted for the NNDP, the NNDP would use its apparatus to win the election. Incidentally, the slogan for NNDP in those was ‘Power’ and 40 years thereabout later, another party shouting power is using state apparatus to supplant the sovereignty of the people.

I pray to God that God would release Nigeria from the evil advocated by Obasanjo in saying that the election should be do-or-die affair.

Q: We want you to compare the present National Assembly with the era of people like Jonathan Odebiyi.

A: Let me tell you, if you take Yorubaland as an example and you go to any constituency and pick a man who represented the Yoruba between 1959 and 1966 and compare him with those who are representing us now, you will notice that all we have are caricatures, poor shadows who are, I’m sorry to say, not fit for leadership. Ask yourselves, who is now taking the position of Joe Adebiyi, either when he was in the Senate or House of Assembly?

Ask yourselves, who is now taking the position of Obafemi Awolowo? Ask yourselves, who is now taking the position even Akintola used to hold? Whether or not you agreed with the politics of Akintola, the point is he was a brilliant man.

Take Fani-Kayode who I didn’t respect because of his politics, he was an extremely sharp mind. But today you find in the National Assembly, people who are semi-literate or illiterate, people who can read and write but don’t have the intellectual capacity to comprehend what is going on in the 21st century.

Let me give you an example. When they brought the law on due process to the National Assembly, I led vigorously to the defeat of that law when it was first presented. I did so because I went on the Internet and I was able to have the laws of due process from 32 countries of the world. I read through them and I found out that the only one as bad as the one Nigeria was proposing was the one from Paraguay. I found out one as bad as that was proposed in Kenya and became a matter of litigation and was quashed by the Supreme Court of Kenya. But because of loyalty to Baba, because Oby (Ezekwesili) was doing a good job, people felt Oby should be supported. I have known Oby for years, I have the greatest regard for her as a woman but the law as it was proposed was bad. Why? Because the same President, Vice President and Minister of Finance who were in the Cabinet approving big contracts are also the ones who are going to have veto power over this so-called Council of Due Process. That, to me, is like asking a man to play judge, prosecutor, witness and jury. Unfortunately, because of the calibre of people we had in the National Assembly, eventually the leadership succumbed to the blackmail and rigmarole of the executive and they passed the bill. But now, what have we seen? Despite all we were being told for those three years, we have now seen that we did not have due process in the power sector. We have now seen that we don’t have due process in road construction. And if you go to any of our universities, you can see that we don’t have due process in our education sector.

After eight years of the presidency of Obasanjo, Nigeria remains the only OPEC country that imports its petrol. Now, is that what they call due process? What they were giving us was not due process but mere shenanigans. They were chasing shadows, while the substance of corruption was left untouched. I mean, take the story of Gbenga Obasanjo. All the time I was in the National Assembly, there were all kinds of stories about Gbenga Obasanjo getting contracts. I don’t see any wrong with Gbenga Obasanjo getting contracts. Gbenga Obasanjo is a Nigerian; an adult Nigerian. He has the right to work in Nigeria as a businessman. But when he gets contracts, he must get them through due process. And Gbenga has told the whole nation that his own wife was given a huge NNPC contract for no other reason than that she slept with her father-in-law. I don’t care about that aspect of it, let them deal with it in their family. But as a Nigerian, I care about how the economic resources of Nigeria are been spent or mis-spent. It is sad that after weeks of that allegation coming from Gbenga Obasanjo, the Yar’ Adua government has not seen it fit and say: ‘Let us look at that all over again. Is it true that Gbenga’s wife got a contract from NNPC and if she did, was due process followed?

For full details, demand the 21 April, 2008 issue of TheNEWS from your vendor now.

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