Professor Oyelowo Oyewo (SAN), the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Oyo State, is an astute teacher of the law and a great believer in using the law for societal change. In this interview by YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE, he speaks on the need to rethink the existence of the law school, independence of the judiciary, lack of provisions for restructuring in the 1999 constitution and inability of ongoing constitution amendment to bring necessary changes, among other issues.
Do let us into what is not generally known about you
I’m a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. I have been a university law teacher for decades, since 1985. I passed through the university system, ascending to the level of Dean of the Faculty. I have been the head of department before coming here as the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice. What most people don’t know about me is the fact that my focus in the area of law and development has taken me into various aspects of law, including practice. I see law as an instrument of change. So I practice the law, I go to court, I consult for government. I’ve been involved in law making; I draft, engage with government to draft laws, both at some state levels, and at the federal level. I’ve done this in Lagos State. We were involved in the drafting of the Environmental Law of Lagos State. I have done this at the federal level as a consultant to the House of Representatives.
There are other aspects that most people don’t know. I like reforms. I push, push, push and try to push reforms. But I believe in involving a lot of people. So most times, we don’t make noise about it, or beat our chest about it. But I think within the period that I have been here, we’ve done our bit in making sure that law is an instrument of change in Oyo State.
So why did you choose to be an academic?
I believe going into the academics was fortuitous because two things happened. One, an academic married my sister, a Professor of Medicine, Professor Laide Oluboyede, University of Ibadan and University of Lagos. So I lived with them. And in living on campus at the University of Lagos with them, I decided that this is a good life because at that time, I was not in academics, I was a state counsel at the federal level, living in the University of Lagos and then fortuitously also, one of my teacher’s wife, Mrs. Adebisi Ojo, was my boss in the Ministry of Justice. I had access to the family of Professor Abiola Ojo who convinced me to join the university. So Professor Laide Oluboyede of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos and Professor Abiola Ojo, Department of Public Law. And of course, I can’t forget Professor Ajomo, the dean then, who just believed that I had a calling. These were the people that convinced me that I can do it. I think I did it and enjoyed it. And then, of course, what has encouraged me to stay with it are the products that we’ve and the impact that we have made upon the lives of the children, I think people must have a calling in order to be educators. If you see it as a means of just earning money, you’re going to wreak havoc on the lives of young people. And I think if there is a way in which we can identify people who have that calling to go into our university system it will help us in molding the lives of these young people. And we’ll be able to have so many role models that will come after because I believe one has been a role model to so many people who have even gone into academics and continued to mentor people even in the area of law. I think it’s been most rewarding. When I see my students who have grown and they start talking, I start looking like, are they talking about me or someone else, that’s the beauty of that work.
Is there a difference between your life in the lecture room and now?
Well, there is. It’s totally different. In the lecture room, you go there, you tell them theory, you will be the most knowledgeable person most times in the room. And here, you are dealing with life matters. And in here, you have to manage so many challenges, even in the ministry. Remember, this office is not just the Office of the Attorney General, it’s also Commissioner for Justice. So there are political issues that you have to get involved in and then of course, you are seeing life development that goes beyond your sphere. So we are dealing with various ministries and you don’t know the extent of the impact of your work. And then of course, we also deal with court, having to go to court. For me, all the experiences I’ve had in life, being a lecturer, being a consultant, being a litigator, being a reformer, they’ve all come together to stand me in good stead to be able to deliver on the duties and responsibilities of this office, including my starting point as a state counsel at the Federal Ministry of Justice.
As a SAN, how independent is the Nigerian judiciary?
Well, I will tell you that the Nigerian judiciary is as independent as those stakeholders that make up the dispensation of justice in Nigeria. But there are some matters that throw up a question mark on the independence of the judiciary and one of the biggest is election petitions. And that’s a function of the politicians, the practitioners, the judges, and even thugs, you see thugs going to court to disrupt sittings, so bottom line, all those give the impression of a dependent judiciary but election petitions equal a miniscule every cycle affair that doesn’t represent the judiciary in the amount of dispensation of justice that they do. So if point zero percent of something is what you see, then you are not looking right, a lot of times, fundamental rights enforcement procedure rules, judges are on top of it; on commercial transactions or land matters, on so many things. So for me, we have judges who have demonstrated integrity, who have demonstrated ability to carry out the job that they have been called to do. And I think we can only address some of the challenges that are facing the judiciary this time because the judiciary is part of this community. So there are challenges that are being faced by every segment of Nigeria. So I believe if those challenges are addressed, the judiciary they live in Nigeria, Nigeria is challenged; corruption and all that. We have a lot of judges are the valedictory service even in the apex court have alleged corruption. Indeed the justices of the Supreme Court in a recent letter against the out gone CJN raised allegations. I’m not going to pretend that there are not challenges, but by and large, upon all, we can say that we have an independent judiciary that is challenged. So addressing those challenges will enhance the independence,
Do you think judges are well paid?
When you say judges are well paid, you have to put them against other people in the system. Can you compare judges with a local government chairman? So if a local government chairman is better paid more than a judge, there’s something wrong. Can you compare a judge with the legislator? If a legislator is better paid than a judge, there’s something wrong. Is the President better paid than the CJN? Of course, the President has a private jet and all that. We’re not asking for a private jet for judges, we are just asking that they should be treated in a way that will ensure that the office carries the essentials that should go with that office. And this is being addressed in a way though, with this autonomy of the judiciary. So there’s been a constitutional amendment for autonomy. There’s been legislative enactment, so what remains in Oyo State for instance, is developing the framework for the implementation. But when it comes to the salaries, mostly it is federal, the National Judicial Council (NJC), that determines it and that’s why I think the Federal Government announced the upward review of the salaries of judges.
What is the role of the 1999 constitution as amended in restructuring?
You see, when you talk about restructuring, it is a term that has many connotation for people. In the constitution that we practice there is nothing like restructuring. What you can have is what you call rebalancing. You can have things like devolution of powers. But if you look at the antecedent of the word restructuring, it is from the coinage of what was constituted to be the problems of Nigeria called national question. It is when those national questions remain unresolved. People call for sovereign national conference, when the sovereign national conference was not resolved, they now took a look at the Constitution. Are you remember in 1999, the Constitution was said to be a document that lies against itself. Because it says we the people of Nigeria, so since that time, there’s been agitation, and then this formula of restructuring, restructuring means different things to different people. But contextualizing it within the discourse of constitutional politics, it relates to our federal structure. So one, in terms of subject matter, between the Federal Government and the states, there needs to be restructuring, which I believe is devolution or rebalancing. So take some subject matter from the federal give it to the states, and that’s part of what is going on in the constitutional amendment. Some items are being taken, so when it comes to restructuring too, it has to do with access to power, you know, look at a lot of allegations have been made and substantiated with statistics that the Buhari administration has totally brought disequilibrium in appointments, if you look at all the federal agencies, it’s from one side of the nation, and that’s what is causing agitation, then there is inequitable usage of resources, they set up universities, federal universities, how many of them are in the south? You want to repair roads, how many of them are in the south? So all these are the issues you will see that it even played out in access to power. That okay, eight years of Buhari should be followed by eight years of somebody from somewhere other than his region, and that’s why APC said it must come from the south. That’s why Governor Wike is fighting Atiku that you can’t have the president from the north and the party chairman from the north. So people are now aware that if you don’t address these issues, it brings inequality and it fuels poverty and insecurity among others.
And so, people are saying, let’s restructure this Nigeria. And if we cant restructure it, then; and that’s why we are now having agitation for seccession. In IPOB, for instance, we used to have it in the south south, we have it in Yoruba land, the Yoruba nation agitation and these are all issues Nigeria will work on. Who wants to complain, after all, we had the 1963 constitution that made us a region. And as regions, these regions had some equilibrium, we had three regions, the North, the west and the east, but with the creation of more states and disproportionate creation in the north, so the north that one now has more than the east and west combined. So I mean, these are things that shows that we are not practicing federalism, as was intended by those designed Nigeria, and the way we are going, it’s a call to patriotism, for people to acknowledge that if we must live together, then we must be able to have equal assets. And not that some people will say they are born to rule or they are the ones who know how to rule. It’s equity and justice that restructuring stands for.
We have been on constitutional amendment for long. It did not work and they started doing it in piecemeal. Do you really think this amendment will be successful and it›ll help us as a nation?
What do you mean by success? To address the issue of successful, if you pass a constitutional amendment to be successful, you follow the due process of the law, you follow the provisions of Sections eight and nine to amend the Constitution. But is that success you are talking about.
What I mean is can it really make the difference we want?
That’s the key that you didn’t ask in the question because it’s not about the success of the procedure but the success of addressing the issues, what you call the existential issues that challenges the existence of Nigeria, has it addressed the issue of insecurity? There is no proposal for state or regional police so that has not been addressed. There is no proposal for the reform of the Army, or the Air Force or something, that’s not been addressed. There is no proposal that addresses the issue of access to power. You know, that’s not been addressed. So a lot of the provisions that you find in the Constitution are cosmetic constitutional reform, you want to look at the power of immunity from litigation. Those are things they are doing; you want to change the age of somebody from 65 to 70. Oh, no, those are not the fundamental national questions. So on the issue of fundamental national questions, I dare say and I’ve had the privilege of going through the 44 bills, none of them have addressed the real issues relating to the existential challenges of Nigeria, as a nation or as a nation states.
Now, we have issues of conflicting orders issued by courts of coordinate jurisdictions especially when it comes to political issues. How does this affect the judiciary and the people?
Well, the issue of conflicting orders is a matter of hierarchy of courts. If you have hierarchy of courts and you also have divisions, even at the Court of Appeal, that›s bound to happen. The challenge we have is how our system is structured. In the olden time of the 1960 -63 constitution, they addressed this. There were some subject matters that terminated at the court of appeal of the region. So if a matter is decided by the High Court and is wrong, quickly go to Court of Appeal, it›s resolved. Here, we have matters going from high court to court of appeal. And then when it goes to court of appeal, while matter will go to court of appeal in Anambra, they will decide it differently, Court of Appeal in Benin will decide it differently. So, there›s bound to be these seeming conflicts. But eventually, most of those matters, they get to the Supreme Court. And then the Supreme Court will lay it to rest but where you have conflict is where even there is conflict in the judgment of the Supreme Court. So you are not even now dealing with trial and appellate court, but we›re dealing with even conflicts in judgment of the Supreme Court. So those are some of the things that make the populace to be confused about justice and we always say that look, justice by the court is justice according to the law. So the perception of justice in the eye of the public is totally different from the perception of justice from the judex; from the point of view of the judiciary or the law because in legal justice, it is not based only on facts, it is based on facts, it is based on law, it is based on procedure. So it›s the intermingling of these and in some cases, it can be decided mainly on the law. Some, it can be decided on the facts, some, it can be decided on mixed law and facts; some, it can be decided on procedure. So you that you go to court, that›s why lawyers always explain to people that all other persons are not learned.
Last week, a girl died at the law school, and there is this call for the law school to reduce the stress on students. Do you also believe this?
Well, I went to the law school, it was stressful, but it is not meant to kill. The truth of the matter is that life mimics fiction. The law school is a fictional institution that mimics life, you are supposed to go through law school in order to prepare you for litigation. So if you say that want to make life easy for somebody, then does it mean that you’re going to make life easy for him when he comes to practice. No. But the question which needs to be asked is whether we need the law school at all. There are three schools of thought about the law school. There is a school of thought that believes that we’ve moved beyond the law school. And this is confirmed in the Virtual Teaching modes that we have now. That’s one school of thought they are another school of thought that you really need to scrap the law school because if you are not going to allow people to be able to take the law school within the confines of places close to them, then scrap the law school, put the syllabus of the law school into the university system. And that’s what they do in America. I am a product of UCLA. And I’m also product of the State Bar of California. I sat for the State Bar of California examination without going to any law school. I didn’t go to any law school because most of the things that I was supposed to know were taught in the university and the one that I didn’t know, they certified some bodies that you go to, and they teach you how you pass your professional exams is your business. So that can be the approach to go so that this issue of government spending money on law school and all that will be eradicated and that’s what professional exams are all about. For ICAN, you don’t go to any ICAN school other than the privatised ICAN schools around. So, if we have to be realistic, we need to rethink we must get out of the box; it is the same thing with even our wig and gown. You are in something degree country and you are putting on horse hair, something that is supposed to keep the brain of the counsel when it’s in the temperate region and we’ll be sweating; you go to some courts, the AC is not working and you will be perspiring from all the parts of your body.
A lot of talk has gone on about the reform of the legal system, reform of legal education and legal practice. But we still have all these talks. Then there are those who believe that the syllabus in the law school is not reflective of the realities that we are having. There are a lot of things they are teaching; they don’t need to teach that much. If you have accepted that people have been taught in the university, but by and large, they will tell you, they are teaching you the practical aspect of it. There are some things that you can, for instance, corporate law and practice can be taught in the university. Criminal law and procedure can be taught in the university, civil law and procedure can be taught in the university. Land law can be taught in the university. So, bottom line of it is, as these things happen, we will always go back to what we need to do to reform the law school because the only thing that is constant is change.
I want you to talk on reforms in procuring affidavit in Oyo State. Now that it’s online to curb roadside merchants, how does it affect people?
The thing about this is to give kudos to the leadership of the judiciary under the leadership of the Chief Judge of Oyo State, Honourable Justice Munta Abimbola. The bottom line of it is that once there is a mischief that is found in the procedures of the court, the court responds with practice directives, rules, and even administrative reforms. But this time around, we’ve been helped by information communication technology. So you will find out that for online affidavit, there is transparency. You can trace the source, unlike the paper form of affidavit that you may not even know who did what.
Interestingly, because of illiteracy, a lot of people may not immediately come into that. But the fact that a chunk of the affidavit processes are automated and brought into modern practice means that less and less of those affidavit that you find in embassies and all that will be taken through legal means. And then there’s been a corollary in reforming those areas. For instance, there’s a reform going on in Oyo State customary court in terms of affidavit evidence coming in and the procedures.
Another reform I want you to talk about is the Multidoor Court House and the Oyo State Family Court. Both reforms have been lauded by the public. Is there anything you are doing to ensure that this standard does not go down?
The bottom line of it is that those are reforms; Multidoor, we met it, so what we are doing is that we are trying to also look at the personnel and enhance the status of it. The new board of the multidoor court house has been constituted. I believe as you have more and more people who are reform-minded, things will get better. The multidoor court house for example has taken a lot of load from litigation alone and more and more. It›s also not as expensive as arbitration, so it helps to bring justice speedily. But we still have challenges about enforcement and all that. And let me also let you know that even in the Ministry of Justice, we have a mediation center that complements the multidoor. So what we are trying to do is that once there›s been mediation in the mediation center, it goes to the multidoor for ratification and then enforcement. With respect to the Family Court, it›s a very, very positive development that even though it started some time before we came, but it was established under the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde and we are even still looking at some other aspects. For instance today, I had a meeting on establishing an aspect of that with relation to violence against persons, so matters like rape, sexual assault and all that, there should be a specialised practice rules, not necessarily a new court. It can even be under the family court, or you can do like Lagos State and Anambra State and specialize, but bottom line of it is that the family court has brought a lot of opportunities to have matters relating to family, children, and all that to be given the proper environment and speed with which this can be done. When you have such things; look at the actor that committed rape, the thing was handled speedily because there is a specialised court. So more and more, these reforms will continue, and then fortunately, we have donor agencies who are partnering with us, we have the United Nations Population Fund. Now we have some people bringing issues. So, once we have all these agenda, we are going to have a body like a task force does, like we have the NANTIP task force to map out the sectorial development that can augment what we are doing.
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