Agu: Courts should be allowed to do their duty

Prof. Agu Gab Agu is a Professor of Law and former Dean, Faculty Law of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). He spoke to LAWRENCE NJOKU on the present onslaught by security operatives in the guise of fighting corruption among others.

What is your take on the current invasion, arrest and detention of Nigerians by EFCC, DSS in the name of fighting corruption?

I think a lot has been said about corruption, as if it is a new thing that has come to town. We have been living with it, and it will continue to be part of the society and the world in general. The hype and frenzy created by the media has given the EFCC opportunity to move in arrest and keep people without even investigation. In A more civilised polity, before anybody is arrested, most of the things would have been done quietly so that once the person is arrested, he goes to court. But here, you first of all start with the resolve that the person is corrupt and you arrest him and start searching for information to prosecute him. It is a very sad situation, but we will get out of it, because Nigeria has a way for survival, not out of ingenuity, but perhaps lack of it. We will always triumph.

What should be the ideal thing under the law for anybody arrested and how long is he or she expected to be detained before going to court?

The type of crime will determine how long. Although, there is this proviso for two days, I don’t want to go into that. After arresting somebody for two or three days, you are supposed to release the person on bail. The severity of the offence might make the court say the person has to stay with the investigating agency for a period of time, but that is, especially, when granting the person bail might make him influence investigation one way or the other. I am sure that a situation where people like Fani Kayode, Olisa Metuh and even Dasuki have been detained for a long time is not constitutional. You don’t incarcerate somebody for such a period of time; you should allow the court to do its duty. The court might decide not to grant bail to such a person and the proper facility to keep such a person is the prison yard; that is assuming if he should not mix freely with the rest of the society, not in DSS or Police or Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) facility.

It would appear that arrest and detention has become a common thing in our democracy; what does it portend?

Short of being satirical, what it means is that we are all corrupt, and so, everybody is a potential detainee. That is a very sad commentary on the way we have gone so far. I think the presumption is that we are innocent until proven guilty, but the reverse is the case. So, what we are into is grabbing people and putting them in detention without trial and not allowing the courts to decide that the person is actually guilty. It is not a fair commentary. I think in a country under the rule of law, peoples freedom and liberty are supposed to be respected and it is only when they have ran foul of the law that you can decide to incarcerate them, not otherwise.

The belief is that the fight against corruption so far is skewed against certain persons and institutions?

Maybe if it continues this way, it will get to everybody. Currently, I know that certain persons belonging to a particular political bloc are being targeted and that also affects those in the legislature. I really don’t think it is the best way. Let nobody think that all the members of the executive are angels. We live in the same society, they have been around for some time and most of them have had their hands in one or two things that ran foul of the law.

They have not actually been investigated or subjected to the kind of experience others have been made to go through. We continue talking about funding of political parties; does it apply to all the political parties? Assuming without conceding that there are other political parties, those parties are they not owned by Nigerians? Are we now saying, by extension, that these other parties are clean and nobody funded their campaigns? Maybe, because the other parties are at the centre, that is why it is so; but when you look at the other parties, you ask how they funded their own elections. What of the funding of both local council and state elections? So, if we find out what the position is with the state and council polls, we may move further to federal elections. We need to know how they also funded their elections and those of other political parties. It should not be All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there are other political parties and how did they get their funding? If you start to do that, people will not mind as much as it affects everybody.

I quite agree that given the antecedent of the president, he might mean well, but is the execution of this programme in tandem with his thinking and execution, that becomes the problem. The earlier chanting and singing do not bar us fromoffering constructive criticism and anybody who dares to have a different viewpoint is termed opposition or a ‘wailer’. However, if people will be ‘wailing wailers’ and make things better, there is no problem in that. Maybe it should be something that we should be happy about. Everybody should not be labeled as bad because he has said his mind. That is not the way democracy functions; you don’t create an unusual situation because people want to say their mind; that is not how democracy functions.

There are fears that the present development is a serious threat to the survival of the country?

It could have been better and done more properly. Like is stated, Nigeria has a threshold for survival and whatever situation, activity and inactivity that we may have been going through, I believe we will still weather through. It is better to do things perfectly well and failure will mean endangering democracy or leaving room for quacks.

The better way would have been to stick to the rule of law, resort to the constitution, which is like ground norm. The stipulations are very clear for everybody to see. Give people their due, give them freedom to speech, religion and association and allow them to set out their ideas and decide what to do for the country. They are supposed to be philosophers who think and are supposed to do things for us. We need power; food, security and these are the things that will culminate into healthy, better life and happiness. We are suppose to ensure that we reduce greed, take care of the people and ensure that we churn out policies that will augur well for the masses.