The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Afam Osigwe, says public donation of cars and houses to judges by governors, who are sometimes boastful during the gesture, is demeaning and ought not to be so. In an interview with Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily crew, the senior lawyer said the official needs of the judiciary should be budgeted for and not subjected to the control of governors.

Enjoy the excerpts!

Given recent events, the trust between the governed and the government seems depleted. How do we reverse this trend?

The average Nigerian has a distrust of government or persons in authority, especially law enforcement agents and politicians. It even affects all sectors of society; even among lawyers, they also have a distrust of their leadership, including me. So, we all must ensure that we deliver on electoral promises, that the people see that we are there to serve them, not to lord it over them. We must ensure that the dividends of democracy get to the people.

People have become very sceptical of government, and that is why people will readily accept a bribe, or an inducement during elections to vote for particular candidates, because they believe that may be the most they can get. It’s a societal thing; it’s systemic, and until people see that governments work and do what they promise to do, it will remain.

The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) has raised issues about the integrity of lawyers. How does this come across to you, particularly as the president of the NBA?

Sometimes in Nigeria, it’s very common for people to make sweeping statements and use one brush to tie every person. Of course, lawyers have some bad eggs among them, but that does not represent the large majority of lawyers. And like most Nigerians, there are many bad eggs among us whom we need to discipline and weed out to engender confidence in the people.

We are working with all relevant agencies like the EFCC and the ICPC to see the best we can do best to ensure that there is integrity in our profession and that lawyers are part of the global fight against money laundering, against terrorism financing, and other financial crimes. But it would be taking it too far to say that lawyers are behind it or that lawyers are responsible for it.

We know that some lawyers may have wrongly used their professional knowledge and experience to aid some of these activities, but that does not represent the face of the legal profession in Nigeria. We have a big battle to fight in Nigeria to weed out the society of corruption, financial crimes, economic crimes, and all the criminalities that affect people’s perception of Nigeria. We need to all join hands in this, and we should go beyond blaming people, name-calling, and get to the root causes of these problems and tackle them with every hand on deck to ensure that we build a kind of society we’ll be proud of.

The chairman of the ICPC, Musa Aliyu, spoke about mentoring of younger lawyers and that they should begin their careers under the guidance of senior lawyers with unquestionable integrity. Is there such a mentoring system in the legal profession?

That is sound advice. It is good to be mentored by a person of shining example. I like to tell the story of a man who was seated quietly in a train with a small child, and both of them were reading a book, while some other children made loud noises. Upon being questioned by another parent on how he was able to do that, he said: ‘If you want to get a child to do something, you have to be it, and the children learn to do things by watching’. So it is with the legal profession.

If you work with a lawyer who has integrity, who works with the highest ethical standards, and does work that meets international best practices, you’re most likely going to be like him, because he leads by example. Bad company, they say, corrupts good morals. If you’re a good person and you work with a bad person, if care is not taken, you may come to take bad behaviour as an acceptable norm, and you may be corrupted by the same. So, his (the ICPC chairman’s) advice is very sound.

Young lawyers need to be brought up well to do things right and to know the importance of complying with the rules of professional conduct. That is the only way they will turn out to be good lawyers and be able to do what is expected of lawyers, and not be in the hands of clients or criminals to do the wrong things that portray the legal profession in a bad light.

There are concerns about the independence of the judiciary, especially at the state level, where the executive arm of government provides certain things for the judiciary, raising suspicion of influence. Some say that when a governor builds courts or funds judicial activities, that person controls the judiciary. Is this troubling for the NBA?

It Is concerning to us that the governors would do things for the judiciary as if they were doing them a favour. Oftentimes, it’s annoying seeing some governors talk about how, ‘Oh, I give cars to my judges’, or even invite the judges and do a public presentation of vehicles or some other material to members of the judiciary. We believe it’s demeaning and ought not to be. The judiciary should be an independent part of government and should not be demeaned or reduced to a point where members of the judiciary should be given handouts as if a favour was being done to them.

There’s no way you can convince any person that the judiciary that finds itself in such a situation is independent. Never! Even if it is independent, the perception will always be that they are at the beck and call of the executive, and that the executive will always bend them to their will; otherwise, those handouts will cease.

Our position remains that if there’s money or anything needed by the judiciary, be it vehicles, courtrooms, or other infrastructural needs, they should be budgeted for in the judiciary budget, and the judiciary should be allowed to execute them. Nobody should give the excuse that unless the executive does it for them, the money will be embezzled, or they are not trained to handle it. That is why there are professionals employed in the judiciary to handle these things.

The executive should not emasculate the judiciary, reduce them to a weeping boy, or a beggar. It’s a beggarly situation where you see a chief judge continually visiting the office of the governor to beg for releases to be made to them. It demeans the judiciary, robs it of its independence, and makes it difficult for the people to trust that such a judiciary can be independent.

Happily, it is not so at the federal level, and we think the states should, as a matter of urgency, if they haven’t done so, they should do so. Justice is rooted In confidence, and the day that confidence is eroded, or seems to be gone, the people’s confidence in the judiciary’s ability will forever be eroded.

Is the Nigerian judiciary independent at the federal and state levels?

If you talk about financial autonomy, then to an extent, it is independent at the federal level. At the state level, the answer would be a resounding ‘no’ for the majority of the states. Most judicial arms in states still go to their governors for approval, even for money for medical treatment, foreign travels, or training. It shouldn’t be so.

Considering concerns around the integrity of legal professionals, could you provide an update on the N300 million controversy involving the Rivers State Sole Administrator, Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, and the NBA?

We got sponsorship from Rivers State, and that was it, and I don’t think there’s any more controversy surrounding that. The conference was moved from Rivers State, and the money was not for any hosting rights. I thought we were moved beyond that point. And it interests you to know that our conference commences in Enugu next week. (Channels TV)