I read the brilliant and timely book written by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Economic Adviser, Foreign Minister and two time Minister for Finance in the Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations where she was also coordinating Minister for the Economy in the latter and I was taken in by the candor, brio and gusto with which she spoke to the many troubles that bedevil our nation even as she equally suggested possible ways to find workable solutions to them especially where it concerns corruption in public finance and leakages.
The book titled “Fighting Corruption is Dangerous” detailed her time in office, the dangerous and unending battle she waged against corruption in public finance, the rapacious rent seeking Nigerian elites and their rapine global allies who in turn viciously fought back to keep the rentier economy that assured enormous privileges and obscene opulence for a few and a life of misery and penury for millions of Nigerians for the most part. Her mother was kidnapped, threats to maim her were issued to frighten her away from the path of reform and to show the rest of the world that those who opposed her meant business.
The importance of a book of its kind at this time in history and the lessons that can be learnt from it by those in the vanguard of the President Muhammadu Buhari fight against corruption is not something to be sniffed at if the fight is to be sustained and meaningful gains recorded. It is magnanimous of her to write this book at this time so those who are now doing what she did could learn valuable lessons, draw inspiration and worthy examples from her experiences. Consider that she could have legitimately hold grudges rightly or wrongly believing that after all Buhari supplanted the Jonathan government in which she could continue as minister, get malicious and refuse to share her experiences to benefit this government as she has done in the book!!!
It is particularly of interest that Okonjo-Iweala particularized institution building as the single most important tool in fighting corruption. We see the importance of this and the great good the Treasury Single Account (TSA) has engendered in cleaning up a major plank of corruption in public finance but as she noted, institution building takes decades, its impact usually slow and not immediately manifest so there is always the danger not to follow through if there is no political will and zealot commitment to reform.
The book which has been described by Lord Nicholas Stein as “a gripping and moving personal story of stress and courage… a deeply thoughtful and constructive analysis of a fundamental aspect of economic development” is one that should form part of the literature of all Donor Agencies, Multi Lateral Financial Institutions and Governments across the globe especially those in Africa and other third world countries which are perpetually grappling with the scourge of corruption.
It should be considered significant that the respected economist also identified the cultural, filial and social ties that fuel corruption anywhere in the world and noted that it is particularly ubiquitous in our world because of weak institutions. In Africa, the cultural problem is real, palpable and is probably the worst single factor that encourages and drives corruption. We do need to strengthen our weak and/or nonexistent institutions for as Barack Obama opined in his time as President of the United States “Africa needs strong Institutions and not strong men”. Strong men can only do so much, strong institutions will curb, drastically reduce if not eradicate corruption in its entirety!
Talking of institutions, one of the most important institutions not only in fighting corruption but in the all important task of nation building and knitting the fabric of society together is the judiciary and the oft identified problems of the judiciary are well documented – corruption, lack of independence, inadequate funding, poor remuneration and conditions of service, inordinate delay in reaching verdicts, inefficiency and sundry institutional deficiency.
The book, broadly divided into 8 chapters – (i) The Intimidation Game (ii) Return to a Troubled Country (iii) Confronting the Oil Scammers (iv) A Twisted Budget Process (v) Opaque Deals and International Scams (vi) Public-Service Scams: Ghost Workers, Ghost Pensioners, and Embezzlers Masquerading as Reformers (vii) Antifeminists, Ethnic Jingoists, and Economic and Political Idealogues and (viii) Reflections from the Frontlines – in chapter 6 dealt with an aspect of public-service scam that should concern us – Judgment Debt.
The essential gist with judgment debt as narrated in the book as implausible as it seems is that the courts, lawyers, ministry officials and contractors connive to defraud the Federal Government using the cover of the judicial process. This further indicts the important institution of the judiciary and indeed Lawyers. It validates the need to build viable and durable institutions independent of Government in the case of the Judiciary. The Judiciary is already reeling and hemorrhaging from the assault the institution has had to endure in the last three years, the height of which was the ‘gestapo’ style raid of the homes and offices of Judges of the apex court and other high ranking judicial officers some of whom are now standing trial for judicial graft. It ought not to be further vilified.
Not a few alleged complicit Lawyers, amongst them, some with the ‘excellent’ title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria have been fingered and are now standing trial or have been convicted for perverting the cause of justice. An offshoot of this is the low esteem in which members of the legal profession are now held by members of the general public and the security agencies who used to adore the men in wig and gown. They have now resorted to hostility and inflicting violence on members of the legal profession in the cause of their duty. The Police have recently degenerated into sacking whole courts as happened in Owerri, Imo State recently.
To underscore the gravitas of this judgment debt scam, Okonjo-Iweala wrote “There were plenty of stories involving dozens of people. Some had to do with connivance between contractors, ministry officials and the courts in an unholy alliance where amounts owed by government, interest and penalties were inflated and all parties shared in the proceeds after payment. Others had to do with genuine court proceedings that were defended less than vigorously by government lawyers, thereby leading to the loss of the case, heavy fines, and again the sharing of the proceeds among the involved parties. Another set of stories had to do with arbitration and out-of-court settlements that were unfavorable for the government.”
The interesting point to note again as narrated in the book is that the Minister with the support of the President refused to honor the outstanding judgment debt and only judgment debts amounting to N11.6 billion were verified and certified for payment and the balance of N68.4 billion that would have gone out and part of it Lawyers fees was saved by the Finance Ministry out of the N80 billion judgment debt purportedly outstanding when she returned to the Ministry in 2012. As we speak, not one Lawyer, our colleague has sued to claim any part of the N68.4 billion as judgment debt owed their client!
For me, two thematic issues stand out here – (i) an indictment of the courts which heard and awarded judgments in those matters and (ii) an indictment of the Lawyers who defended the MDAs in those matters whether they are of the private or official bar.
To accuse the courts of such an unholy alliance is a weighty thing and in all my time as a practitioner in Nigeria I do not see how it is even possible for the courts to be so involved as the Judge will have to deliberately give judgment not according to law and then still also connive with others to inflate the judgment sum. Will this be done at the point of filing the case or at the point of judgment or execution? Were these the case one can swiftly conclude that the judiciary has gone to the dogs! As this cannot possibly be the case one is tempted to believe that the Minister probably meant court officials and not the entire apparatus of the judiciary as the sweeping use of the word “the courts” seem to suggest.
That doyen of the bar, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, quoting from elsewhere observed, ‘in its day to day administration of justice, the court needs hands and legs who would aid the cause of justice. This hands and legs include the Registrars, Court Clerks, Bailiffs, Messengers, Commissioners for Oath etcetra, etcetra, etcetra, of which some are knowledgeable in law to an extent and some don’t have any knowledge about law’.
He continued in his own words “Innocently, the Judge does not know what the ‘hands and legs’ of the judiciary do, and he does not have the magic wand or crystal ball to decipher what they think and how they act. A Judge does not execute his or her judgment personally, even after signing the writ of execution, the bailiffs and sheriffs do this. In normal situations and circumstances, a Judge would not know what price tag has been placed on any distressed property which is meant to be auctioned – that is the duty of the bailiffs and the sheriffs; thus, the Judge would not know whether the distressed item has been sold at a give-away-price, either to the sheriffs or his relation or his frontman; or would not even know whether such an item has been stolen or misappropriated completely. Even where the distressed item has been given out by the bailiffs or sheriffs at a ridiculously paltry sum, the Judge would not also know, and cannot comprehend whether the paltry amount has been paid to the government coffers or pocketed by the bailiff or sheriff”.
In a balancing act of sorts, the learned SAN considers that Lawyers may even be involved in this unwholesome act and yet the Judge is not any wiser! He wrote, “A judex might not know whether any of his aides, registrars, clerks, personal assistants or any lawyer appearing before him has been using his name, title and office to collect bribe, purportedly meant for him from litigants, even to the extent of collecting such bribes from both parties, across the divide. A Judge who has burnt the midnight oil to write a well-considered judgement, fixing the judgement for a particular day/date, would not fathom a situation whereby his clerk, registrar or research assistant has gotten a hold of the judgment and leaked same to either the winning or losing party, or even to both of them before the date of judgment. After the delivery of judgment in court and the judge has signed off, he or she would not know that the registrars of court are demanding for money from litigants and counsel before the release of the judgment, even though the Constitution makes it mandatory for such a judgment to be released to litigants within a period of seven days after delivery…”
Hereinabove lies the dilemma of the Judex! Still, though I have quoted him copiously already, I will borrow the learned SAN’s words in concluding this part of the discourse and hope it speaks to Okonjo-Iweala and everyone who reads this part of the book for what we write and say about our courts and ourselves does matter. Outsiders write bad enough about us already. Take any book written by a Western author and at times some African scholars on Politics, Economics and the Administration of Justice that has some element of cross country comparison. See what they write about Nigeria and die!
It is good that Okonjo-Iweala also acknowledged corruption in the processes of the countries we like to admire all be it to a limited degree. If my less than prodigious memory serves me right, Ayo Obe, another respected writer, lawyer and public affairs analyst has observed this in the past and crucially, she drew a distinction to the effect that whilst we shout corruption through the roof top over here and further tar our country with the dark brush, they, over there, use temperate, less guilt words like ‘failure of integrity’, ‘compromised ethics’ etc in those climes to describe exactly the same situation and go ahead to back words with action, making sure those who cross the red lines face the predetermined consequences. That does not happen here after we shout ourselves hoarse after all!
Lest I lose the plot about concluding! Wole Olanipekun, SAN wrote, “the fact remains that no Judge is a Knight-errant; and no Judge or any human possesses the attributes of God, who alone is omniscient and omnipresent. Yet a Judge by the larger definition of a court, is always in the minority, and can always be ‘outvoted’ by these ‘hands and legs’, who, unfortunately, unlike him/her, have not taken any professional or judicial oath, and who are not committed to any ideal. Unfortunately, whenever these ‘hands and legs’ misbehave and cross the red line, the wrath of the public and aggression of the uninitiated are always directed against the judex”.
Now unto the Lawyers who prosecuted these matters on behalf of their clients and those who defended the MDA’s in these matters. Whether the allegations made by Okonjo-Iweala are true as their failure to challenge the decision of Government not to pay the judgment debt to their clients may suggest is not one for us to interrogate here and it will also not be remiss for us to speculate on the tardiness, connivance or otherwise of the Lawyers who defended the MDA’s other than to draw their attention to the relevant pages in Okonjo-Iweala’s book.
The book is relatively new in the stands having just been released. It is possible those concerned have not even read the book. One is only compelled to speak out/up for the court/judges considering the peculiar circumstances of their work and I consider that the second category of persons the Minister spoke about – Lawyers, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General – are well able to defend and speak for themselves in these matters.
On a final note, I have thoroughly enjoyed Okonjo-Iweala’s book which I consider an important and monumental work only if the lessons she so vividly brought to the fore are learnt and heeded. In her words, “So telling my story is risky. But not telling it also is dangerous. Silence would allow these same vested interests in my country, the same corrupt people, to distort events, twist factual accounts, and hide behind lies, half-truths, and obfuscations to protect themselves and harm others. With the co-optation of unscrupulous media, they turn truth into lies and promote lies as truth. Their currency is propaganda and fake news, and it must be challenged by transparency and sustained ethical actions based on lessons learned”.
In all, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had a remarkable story that required courage to tell. How well did she tell the story! Very well!! As she did in the equally remarkable book “Reforming the Unreformable” a few years ago!!!
Stephen Onimisi Obajaja Esq, a Partner at the Lagos Law Firm of Fountain Court Partners was former Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Lagos Branch.
