Mallam Yusuf Ali (SAN), who was recently awarded fellow of Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin, spoke with newsmen on the recent sociopolitical events and other national issues in the country. BIOLA AZEEZ was there.
WHAT’S your view on the rejection of Ibrahim Magu as substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)?
I am not sentimental about issues. The president has done his own side by submitting the name of Ibrahim Magu to the Senate for confirmation and the Senate has also done its own side by rejecting his confirmation as the substantive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In fact, there is nowhere in the constitution that says that the Senate must give reasons for rejection of his confirmation. For me, I don’t think people should start reading their personal interest into the Senate action. It is unnecessary. The Senate merely looked at the security report presented to it by the Department of State Services (DSS) and the report questions the integrity of Magu.
What about the anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari?
At the presentation of my book Anatomy of Corruption in Abuja, in May this year, I said categorically that top to bottom approach on the fight against corruption can never work. If you want fight corruption you must create a mass movement. A majority of Nigerians must buy into it. But you arrest three people out of 10,000; what have you achieved? What is going on is fight against corrupt people, not against corruption per se. Corruption is an institutional thing, so fight against it should be more than what we are doing. Because if we are not careful, things we are not doing properly may become a culture. If we want to fight against corruption, we have to dig deeper. I tell people that for the street to be clean, every member of the street must keep their corner clean. Corruption is symptomatic of a deeper problem. When we are talking about corruption, we should not limit it to bribery. Bribery is a fraction of corruption. Nepotism is corruption; ethnicity is corruption; tribalism is corruption and influence peddling is also corruption. Just fighting by public officials is a tip of the iceberg. People still stop motorists on the highways to extort money from them, what do you say to that? There are all sorts of corruption allegations about government officials. It is a good attempt that we are trying to fight corrupt people. We should pay attention to fighting corruption itself.
How do you think the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) can tackle corruption in the judiciary?
Nigerians are skeptics. They don’t believe in their leaders and their institutions. And you can’t blame them. Maybe it is a product of their experience of having been let down by the system. I have said this on several occasions that it takes two to tango. Before you can see somebody takes bribe, there must be a giver before you have a taker. Usually, we go after the takers. The givers are there still waxing strong. Until the day comes when the Nigerian elite start to know that justice cannot be bought, we will be running in circles. The truth is bitter, but we must say it. The average litigant in Nigeria believes that you can buy justice. So, with that frame of mind, it is very difficult. That attitude of believing that you can buy justice must stop. What I have said is very apparent from the way litigants react to judgments. Somebody who had tried to reach a judge unsuccessfully, if judgment goes against him, he believes that the other person has given higher [bribe], which may not be true. Above all, Nigeria is a very big market for rumour. It thrives in the country. Tell people to come and tell you what actually happens, they begin to scratch their heads.
With the issue of corruption becoming frequent in the continent, what do you see as the problem with African leaders?
A country gets the kind of leader it deserves. And that is why I am always against the setting up of special courts [to try corruption cases]. I ask: are you going to bring people from heaven to come and sit in those courts? We are having such cases because of the problem caused by leadership and followership. Look at the campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump before the US presidential election. Look at what is happening now because he knows his society will not accept certain things. Nigeria and by extension African society is where anything goes.
If we want to hold our leaders accountable and we want them to be upright, then this must start from all of us. All leaders have their evil tendencies; it is the society that disagrees with them. We don’t have minimum standard for our leaders. The American society is what it is today not because their leaders are super humans, but because the average American will insist you do what is right. Watch this hacking by Russia preparatory to the American presidential election, you will see the outcome. Because that is the society that digs deep, unlike us who are very superficial here. Here, we try to look for quick-fixed solutions. There is nothing inherently wrong with Africans, it just that we are too lax. We believe we have excelled when we do little. Whereas people outside there, for everything they do, they have to improve upon it.
What’s your take on recession in the economy?
The problem of recession for me as a layman is lack of confidence in the Nigerian market and economy for people who want to bring their money here for investment. Simple! What caused it I don’t want to dabble into that. The way out is for us to go out and market our country.
After all, there was a time in this country that oil was selling for $11 and we were doing well. Then we were producing 2.2 million barrels. Now even at 40 something dollars we are not producing well. So, it is not about oil, it is about lack of confidence in Nigeria.
There is a craze for certain courses in tertiary institutions in the country. What’s your advice?
The colonialists gave us the kind of education they wanted, just to have a pool of averagely educated people that would be used in the civil service and other places. When they left, unfortunately we never thought that is a problem. The chicken has come home to roost. Every person who went to any higher institution in Nigeria looked for government employment. The way the new set of universities are going, which is putting entrepreneurship into their curricular is the best option. We must prepare the graduates for the world outside the universities and from the world outside of paid employment.
and then