A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Abass Oyewale-Freeman, speaks on the legal implication of the mass sack in the financial sector and set agenda for the incoming executives of the Nigerian Bar Association both at the state and national levels. He also spoke on other issues in this interview with YETUNDE AYOBAMI OJO.
Recently, some banks reportedly rebuffed the Federal Government order stopping them from continuing with the sack of their workers. Under the law, does the government has the right to stop a private employer from sacking an employee?
Based on the state of economy, the government would be absolutely wrong to say banks should not retrench workers. Presently, many state governments are owing civil servants, not to talk of individuals. The statement of Minister for Labour was absolutely dissatisfied. He could advise them if possible in other not to over bloat the already overbloated labour market. Government should do as much as they can to see how the economy can improve. Saying they could face sanction is wrong. What sanction can you give an employer who felt he doesn’t need the employee any longer? Even if the employee go to court, court cannot stop the banks from retrenching their employees once they follow normal procedure to lay them off. So that is the truth of the matter. The law recognizes the right of employer to lay off the employee.
What is your take on the call that federal government should name the looters who have returned the public funds. Some organisations have also gone to court to compel government to do so?
Sincerely speaking, I know that every Nigerian would want to know who our looters are, but if you ask me, we already know our looters. We know them before they got into power, the kind of life they are living now that they are in power or out of power. With regards to the present recovery or anti- corruption crusade government is pursuing, to me, I would say government should not name the looters, let us recover our funds. I know the people are arguing that we should know who looters are so that by the time they come out tomorrow for elective position, we will not vote for them. Another reason government should not is that if looters are named, those who have stolen money in custody may decide not to return the money and will prefer to be charged to court no matter how long it will last.
I think government should be civil and modest about it by not naming them but try as much as possible to recover our funds. Government may name them in the future but they should continue to recover the money for now that some are cooperating, that is why they are refunding the money. But the moment you name Mr A, then Mr B will come and say I don’t want to be in that group, let me keep my money and let the matter be in court and wait for one, two years or four years when new government will come. I think government should not name them. They can plea bargain.
You mentioned plea bargaining. Don’t you think it aids corruption more or makes people think if they steal, they can go to court and plea bargain to return part of the money?
Plea bargaining is an American innovation and America have some best practice in the world. If America could decide to adopt plea bargaining as a means to safe time, money, I think it should be made part of our law in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015. A criminal case can drag for long and can be struck out base on lack of credible evidence to convict the defendant. I believe Plea bargaining is not a means to encourage corruption but rather to safe time and money. For instance, in the case of State against Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, it was the present Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo that started the case when he was the Attorney General of Lagos State. He thought he could conclude it within two years but when the matter began, he realised the case would take time and at the end of the day, Lagos High Court convicted Al-Mustapha based on sentiment.
On appeal, the Appellate Court held that there was no concrete evidence to convict him, though all Nigerians even judges knows that Al-Mustapha directly or indirectly knows about the death of Kudirat Abiola but there was no evidence. If we had adopted plea bargaining then the matter would have ended a good time and today Al- Mustapha would have been ex-convict. Plea bargain only pardon you because you have admitted to committing the crime and instead of going for 10 years in jail, it may be one or two years. The prosecution will say if you can return N5 million out of N10 million stolen, you admit to it and plea bargain. It had made our criminal justice system more robust.
In the next few months,the tenure of present national Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) will end, how will you rate the administration?
Well, I will say they have not done bad. They came up with idea of every lawyer having a seal thereby minimizing the case of having fake lawyers to a great extent. The position now is that you cannot file a process in court without your seal or seal of any of the juniors in the chambers. As a matter of fact, in the corporate affairs ministry, you cannot file document without an official seal. In that regard they have not done too bad for the bar and the system at large. Even though they have not done too well in advocacy and activism on their part.
As a member of the Ikeja branch of NBA, what agenda will you set for the newly elected executives of the branch?
It was in the news sometimes ago that there was rancour leading to this election. I think lawyers should be seen leaving above board. If we could criticise Obasanjo for not doing well by privatising refineries, also Yar’ Adua in the short time he was in office for reversing the policy and Jonathan for stealing our money, and we say President Muhammad Buhari has not done well on the campaign promises then lawyers must be cautious of their actions. I would say the bar particularly, the Ikeja branch should come out and become a forthright entity that will stand for nothing but the truth and champion the right of humanity. Not just for lawyers, because a lawyer is not to defend himself but the entire humanity.
Do you hope to see more of activism on the part of the national NBA?
Certainly, the next regime should be more of enlightenment and education on the public. Let the public know what is going on in the polity and when the government is right, the Bar should commend the government, when the government is implementing policy that is of anti- people, Bar should be able to speak up, stand against it and stand more as a watch dog. That is the primary duty of the Bar aside defending people. Bar should be seen as a hope of common man and a voice of a nation.
Government seems to be privatizing all public utilities, what is the social economic implication of that?
To me, government has no business being in business. The duty of any government is to provide congenial and conducive environment for business to strive, not for government to be in business. At any point, when you have government in business, it will continue to pump in money into the venture that he cannot make money out of, because it is not the duty of government to be in business but have a regulatory organ that will monitor and checkmate excesses of the entrepreneur and businessmen. All government business should be fully privatized. Obasanjo came and privatized NITEL which makes everyone to now enjoy GSM. The only thing is that they should ensure due processes. If they had privatized NNPC during Obasanjo’s time, we would not be where we are today.
