‘I See God’s Finger in My CON Award’

The story of Nigeria’s march to post-military democracy, cannot be told without an ample mention of the role of human rights defenders like Chief Dr Mike Ozekhome,  CON, SAN. The fearless Constitutional Lawyer who turned 65 on October 15, 2022, had the privilege of being awarded the coveted office of Commander of the Order of the Niger, CON, by President Muhammadu Buhari whom he had constructively criticised on a number of occasions, last week. He went down memory lane with Onikepo Braithwaite and Jude Igbanoi on his various battles in the trenches, and shared his opinion on several issues including restructuring and ransom payments to kidnappers  

Congratulations Learned Silk, our most dedicated Columnist, on your 65th birthday and the conferment of the national honour, Commander of the Order of the Niger on you. Despite your several battles with the Federal government over the years, they still considered you worthy and deserving of such a high national honour. How did this happen?

I will ascribe this my CON honour to three major factors. The first is that, I see the finger of God in it; the same finger of God in Exodus 8:19. This means that once God has decreed the happening of an event, no man can disapprove. Once God has proposed, no man can dispose. And, God usually does it, not because you necessarily deserve it, but because of Romans 9:15. That is what I have tapped into, with this prestigious award of the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) on me by President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR. It came to me as a pleasant surprise on my 65th birthday, because the conferment took place on the 11th October, 2022, just four days before my birthday on 15th October, 2022. I therefore dedicate the award to God Almighty, in His full glory and total adoration.

The second major factor is that my CON is a demonstration to the whole world that my modest contributions from my little window are being appreciated by the entire society, including President Muhammadu Buhari himself, against whom (and his government) I have been a very fierce critic. I have serially criticised Mr President over his style of governance which I insist has been too prebendalistic, nepotic, cronyistic, sectionalistic, tribalistic and too divisive and exclusionary, rather than being aggregative and inclusive. This is why when you check the entire security apparatchik of Nigeria, it is obscenely dominated by people from a particular section of the country, the North, and one faith, Islam. If you also check core areas of the polity – the Police, Army, Customs, Immigration, Civil Defence, Fire Services, Security Services like DSS, NIA, DIA and some of the first class or A-ministries such as Finance, FCT, Agriculture, Education, Communication, Justice, Information, Power, etc., are all held by these same people. I have always counselled Mr President that it is wrong, wrong and wrong to govern a pluralistic society of different religions, 374 ethnic groups (according to Professor Onigu Otite in his demographic survey of Nigerian ethnic groups); and different languages, in such a manner. 

But, once in a while, I had also defended the President trenchantly, even when majority of Nigerians were against him and against my own position, whenever I felt the need to do so, based on available facts. Such was when he passed the lockdown order on March 29, 2020, with which he locked down Lagos and Ogun State and the FCT for 14 days during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many Nigerians kicked against it, but I stood by him in many outings on television and several newspaper write-ups, because he was right as the order was necessary to save a large number of people, rather than looking at their convenience. 

When President Buhari fell ill in 2017 and he transferred power to his Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo,  SAN, before going to the UK for medical check-up, I praised him, saying that it was the best step to take. This was what President Umar Yar’Adua had not done when he travelled to Saudi during his ill health without transferring power to his then Vice-President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. The ricocheting effect of that faux-pas, put Nigeria on tentacles and the precipice, leading to the invocation of the “doctrine of necessity” by the National Assembly, to save Nigeria from drowning. 

When he passed Executive Order 10 with which he prohibited State Governors from touching the funds of Local Government Councils, I supported it against the argument of many Nigerians, including my mentor, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, unarguably the greatest Constitutional Lawyer to have emerged from the face of Africa. I said it was a good step taken to prevent Governors from waylaying at source, the little that belonged to Local Government Areas (LGAs), to further enrich themselves. However, I have had cause to disagree with Mr President more than 90% of the time, on his style of governance. It means that my contributions, favourable or otherwise, resonated with Mr President. 

This brings me to the third factor – Mr President’s large heartedness and State-manliness in still giving me such a high award, in spite of my critical activities against him and his government. I believe he knows that I always mean well for Nigeria and Nigerians. I therefore, want to specially thank Mr President for this large heartedness, because it is not everyone in his position that would have done what he did by giving me that prestigious national honour.

My final take therefore, is that every Nigerian must be consistent, dogged and must be identified with something positive that contributes to deepening and strengthening democracy, defending human rights, the rule of law and nurturing good governance towards effective nation building. All this, with all humility, I have striven hard to do, hands on, at least, in the last 50 years of my life.

Kindly, tell us your story from start to date, so that the young Lawyers can see that it is quite possible to fulfil one’s ambitions without being born with a silver spoon, but with hard work, focus, commitment and determination.

I was born in a then very small rusty village of Iviukwe, near Agenebode, in Etsako East LGA of Edo State on 15th October, 1957, to very hard working, honest and worthy parents of great nobility, character and dignity, who natured and nurtured me, High Chief Abu Ozekhome ( Zaiki Samali, Anawii and Oghienomhoikpeghor of Weppa Wanno); and Chief Alimoh Abu Ozekhome (the Iyageghe and Oghikpotso of Weppa Wanno). 

In terms of material wealth, I would say I was born without a silver spoon; indeed, not even a wooden spoon; or any spoon at all. This is because my parents were poor, peasant farmers in the village. I had to go to the farm or streams tucked away under caves, hills and valleys, to fetch spirogyra-infested water, which we would clear with alum, before going to school. And, upon return from school, I would be told that my food had been taken to the farm. This was another way of saying “return to the farm and get back to work” again. I therefore, grew up not knowing how to eat breakfast; which is why to date, breakfast is virtually a taboo on my menu. I still eat my first meal anytime between 3 and 4pm daily, even when I happen to occupy a luxury hotel with complimentary breakfast. 

However, what my parents lacked early is life in material wealth at their initial stage, they had in tons and trailer loads of integrity, character, dignity, honour, endearing values and moral ethos, all of which they impacted into and nurtured me and their other children with. It was a taboo for a person to steal, or to lie, or cheat, or backbite. Life in the village was communal and interesting. And, because we had no toys to play with as children, we would find our way to the forest to go and dig up scorpions, crickets and reptiles as a way of playing like the little kids that we were. In those days, our Secondary School teacher would give us the dictionary definition of television, because we had never seen any. 

But, I thank God that before my parents died, they had made it within their poor environment and became wealthy in their own right, with barns of maize and expansive tents of tubers of yam. They even became very respected High Chiefs and leaders, in our community. When I was growing up, we had moral and strong societal values; respect for one another; respect for parents and respect for our teachers and community leaders. Unlike nowadays, when a dead person’s corpse means nothing to the youths who would rather gather round such a corpse to take pictures and make videos with their phones, in my own days when we were growing up, hearing that a person had died would keep us indoors for the next two or three days, with the belief, as innocent children, that the person’s ghost or apparition will be hovering around the village. 

I therefore believe that with focus, tenacity of purpose, hard-work, honesty, dedication, commitment and constant prayers to God Almighty, anyone can rise from ‘grass-to-grace’.   , like me, and make it big in life. I had promised myself from day one when I grew up that I      will break the shackles of poverty and anonymity; which was why and which is still why,till now, I work between 18 – 20 hours every day, often sleeping in the office, as if there is no tomorrow. I  prefer to earn my living honestly, with dignity, integrity and character ; and without cutting corners, or cheating anyone. In this my resolve, God has been very kind and He has imbued my life with ineffable grace, compassion and limitless accommodation. I thank God Almighty for carrying me in His wings.

a.  How did you get into Human Rights Activism? You risked your life on several occasions as a human rights defender, during the dastardly military regimes. As a human rights activist of national recon, how would you assess the nation’s human rights record under the Buhari Regime? How would you rate Government’s respect for human rights and the rule of law during, and now, post the military era? For instance, your brother Silk, Femi Falana stated that when he was detained under the military, his hair or beard were never forcibly shaved, as was done to Mr Inibehe Effiong recently, when he was committed by the Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom State to prison recently, purportedly for contempt of court. What do you think of Inibehe’s dehumanising treatment?

I must have started human rights activism right from my mother’s womb, because I am told that my immediate elder brother, now late, High Chief Pius Ozekhome, announced my arrival by always touching my mother’s big tummy of pregnancy, and announcing that “Agbedor is on the way coming”. That was how the name Agbedor stuck forever, as my middle name, overshadowing the real name my father had given to me, which is ‘Emoepo’, meaning ‘trouble is over’. ‘Agbedor’ means ‘blacksmith’. It is a special name for ‘God-anointed’. So, as I grew up in the village, I was always involved in fights. Whenever I saw two boys fighting, I would immediately engage in the fight on the side of the weaker one. And, of course, I would leave the fight with either a battered mouth, a bloodied nose, or swollen eyes. And, when the elders would ask me about the cause of the quarrel, I would simply say I was defending the other weaker one, although I did not know what issues he had with the stronger one. 

I carried this genetic mantra to Primary School, Secondary School and the University, where I led various clubs and organisations that fought school authorities on the side of pupils and students. We led the “Ali-must-go” national students’ protest in 1978 at Ife, which led to the banning of NUNS. I led the Ife students’ delegation in January, 1980 to Benin City, where we now took the new acronym ‘NANS’, thus, changing it from ‘National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS)’ to the ‘National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS)’. I am happy to say that aside from being a Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), I am also a Senior Advocate of Nigerian Students (SANS), an award given to me in 2002 by NANS. At Ife, after students like Dr Goodwill Ogboghodor and Edoreh Agba, I became the best student debater of my time. I was also Speaker of the Student’s Representative Council (SRC), when the then Speaker was impeached for financial malpractices. Femi Falana was one of those who spear-headed my being voted for. I edited and chaired many high-class students journals, all criticising the ills of the University system, students life styles and ills in the larger society. I forayed into students politics witn Awa Kalu,SAN and O.C.J. Okocha, SAN, sponsoring me. 

I subsequently joined Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s Chambers, and handled most of his human rights abuses cases across virtually every State in Nigeria, during the locust days of the military. I became Gani’s Deputy Head of Chambers in 1985, and helped set up the Nigerian Weekly Law Report (NWLR), which we launched on 1st October, 1985. With all humility, and to Gani’s eternal satisfaction, I gave NWLR its name and colours, modifying both slightly after the English Weekly Law Report (WLR). Gani popularly called me “Ozekbaba” or “Mobile Library”, or “Mobile Dictionary”. 

I then joined like minds, such as Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, Clement Nwakwo, Abdul Oroh, Richard Akinola and Emmanuel Erhakpotobo, to found the first ever human rights body in Nigeria, called the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), which we launched on October 15, 1987. I also later founded the Universal Defenders of Democracy (UDD) which was launched by late Justice (Dr) Akinola Aguda in April, 1992. Emeka Ihedioha was my Director of Mobilisation. It was this human rights league that I used in getting reprieve for General Zamani Lekwot, who had been sentenced to death by an IBB Special Military Tribunal over the Zang-Kataf crisis, through Honourable Justice Onalaja of the Lagos High Court. By 1998, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, myself and others like Femi Falana, Dr Tunji Abayomi, Dr Osagie Obayuwana, Kofo Bucknor-Akerele, and others, founded JACON (Joint Action Committee of Nigeria), with which we finally pushed out the military, thus, birthing democracy in 1999. 

During the military, from Buhari to Babangida to Abdusalami Abubakar, we fought from the trenches, virtually on a daily basis, rallying, singing, pamphleteering, leafleteering, mounting barricades against fully armed Soldiers and Police, with us being tear-gassed on ground on many occasions by military and, occasionally, by hovering helicopters. This extended up to the June 12 crisis.

I can say categorically that I barely escaped death on many occasions, but could not escape many detentions, including one after the Gideon Orka coup of 1990, where a detachment of six loaded vehicles of fully armed military men picked me up from my chambers on Ajao Road, Surulere, Lagos. I was detained along with Olisa Agbakoba, very close to an open smelly toilet, infested with maggots and human excrement at the DMI, Child Avenue, Apapa. We could not sleep at all. So, human rights activism and the struggle have been my life. There is no way I can now suddenly back down now, in a supposedly democratic setting, under a government whose records for respect of human rights, rule of law and democratic precepts are even lower than we had it during the military era. We never had our hair or beard shaved like was recently done to Inibehe Effiong, when he was committed to prison by the Akwa Ibom State Chief Judge, purportedly for contempt of court. Even my UDD’s injunctive reliefs on the Kuje 5 comprising of Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, Beko Ransom-Kuti, Baba Omojola and students’ activist, Segun Mayegun, was respected by the Military when they were brought physically from the Kuje prison to the Magistrate’s court, Kuje, where they were being tried. 

I can say categorically that the human rights record of this government is unfortunately, worse than it was during the Military, because this government does not obey court orders, nor respect the rule of law. If it does, it would have immediately released Nnamdi Kanu as ordered by the Court of Appeal last week, after I won the case. I now counsel and beg the Buhari Administration to release Nnamdi Kanu immediately, to bring peace and tranquility to the East. This will heal some sores and bleeding wounds, as he is but a metaphor for the Igbo struggle.

 As a human rights activist and also having been remanded in a Nigerian prison before, what would you say the conditions therein are like? Beyond the recent change in nomenclature from Prison to Correctional Centre, is there any need for prison reform? What can be done to decongest our overcrowded prisons?

The Prison conditions in Nigeria today, notwithstanding the change of nomenclature from Nigeria Prisons Service to Nigeria Correctional Service, are worse off today than they were during our time. They are more congested, and more dehumanising. 

To decongest prisons, I suggest sentence by parole and also suspended sentence, in which case a prisoner does not necessarily need to serve it inside an enclosed prison yard. He could be made to do supervised community hard labour; put into a trade to reform him; or the sentence suspended for some years, while he is under watch to see if there will be recidivism. 

Your case against the EFCC and the Federal Government over the issue of a Lawyer’s entitlement to his professional fees, has reverberated again. While Lawyers have continued to commend the judgement, some have raised questions about the appropriateness of the precedent. Share with us some of the highlights of that case, and why it has suddenly come into national limelight in the past few days

I am disappointed that any Lawyer would ever argue against the well-reasoned judgement of April, 2017, of Justice Abdulazeez Anka, where he defroze my account containing N75 million  which had been paid into my bank account as part-payment of my professional fees by the then Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, and which sum had been illegally seized and frozen in the account by the EFCC, on the alleged ground that the source of the money of Fayose was being investigated. This sound judgement was later upheld by the Court of Appeal in Lagos, led by the Justice Chidi Uwa. 

The effect of these two judgements, is that a Lawyer’s professional fees should not be subjected to questions as to the origin of the source from which he is paid. How is a Lawyer expected to know the source of money from which he is being paid? Even Lawyers defend kidnappers, Boko Haramists, armed bandits, 419-ers, murderers, etc. Are such Lawyers expected to ask these clients the source of their professional fees? This sound judgement, I believe, will be upheld by the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Otherwise, no Lawyer in this country will ever be paid by a client, and go to sleep with his two eyes closed. I expect all Lawyers to rise up and defend this judgement, as it represents their emancipation.

i. What is your opinion about the recent Federal High Court judgement in PDP v Mai Mala Buni?

I am not surprised by the recent judgement by the Federal High Court in PDP v Mai Mala Buni, because after the Supreme Court in a historic 4-3 split decision in the Akeredolu case last year, I wrote a piece titled, “The Proverbial Banana Peel under APC’s Ricketty Chair”, wherein I warned APC of the dangers of getting Buni who is the Governor of Yobe State, to act simultaneously as the Care-taker/Chairman of the APC Convention Committee, contrary to the clear provisions of Section 183 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 17(4) Of the APC Constitution. I had warned then that any victory of future candidates based on any primaries organised by Buni or sanctioned documents of candidates, will be declared null and void. So, the Federal High Court judgement has again vindicated me, because like Nostradamus (the man who saw tomorrow), I normally do rigorous research and arrive at an objective analysis of issues of the day; and, I am invariably usually proven right by history and subsequent events. My non-political partisanship, helps me with a clear head and analytical mind.

There was national outcry over your ordeal in the hands of kidnappers in Edo State in 2013. Ten years down the line, kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry, and ritual killings have assumed outrageous dimensions and become the order of the day. What does this say about the nation’s security architecture today? Has the nation lost the battle against violent crimes? How did you secure your freedom from the kidnappers? Were you rescued by the Police? Given that you have undergone this horrid experience of kidnap personally, what is your candid opinion of the law enacted by the National Assembly criminalising the payment of ransom to secure the freedom of abductees? Do you believe that refusal to pay ransom, will make kidnapping become an unattractive enterprise and reduce its incidence?

My 21-day horrific kidnap experience which started in the hot afternoon of 23rd August, 2013, between Ehor and Ekpoma, and lasted till 12th September, 2013 when I was released by my kidnappers, saw the four Policemen who came to my aid from a nearby Police station brutally hacked down, and their guns seized by my kidnappers. 

Upon release on 12th September, 2013, I held a world press conference in my house at Igando, Lagos, where I urged the government to declare a state of emergency on seven key areas, including education, youth unemployment, insecurity, and infrastructural decay, amongst others No government ever listened to my wise counsel. If they had, we would not be in this terrible state where insecurity has ballooned to a national pastime, and to a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy. Nigeria has been literally captured by non-State actors that wield equal, and even more deadly power than the legitimately constituted government. They plant their flags on Nigerian soil; give passes and identity cards to citizens and indigenes of captured swarths of land, and collect taxes from them. They order parents to pay and buy for them, bags and baskets of rice, beans, millet, maize, tomatoes, atarodo, tataśe, salt, tubers of yam, jerrycans of palm oil and vegetable oil, and even maggi cubes, to cook for their children; so as to keep them alive to enable payment of ransom. 

In a situation where these non-State elements reign supreme, challenging the sovereignty and suzerainty of Nigeria; added to heightened corruption through the primitive and obscene acquisition of wealth and money, which has made Nigeria become 148 out of 180 most corrupt countries in the world, the second most corrupt country in West Africa (Transparency International Anti-Corruption Perception Index); and the poverty capital of the world, overtaking India. When all these are added together, Nigeria qualifies to be put in the league either of failed States or failing States. 

So, the alleged fight against corruption, to me, is only directed at political enemies, critics of the government, and those who are not boot-lickers, fawners and obsequious genuflectors at the corridors of power. Corruption now struts about like a proud peacock, with government officials pocketing hundreds of billions of dollars, and with the fight against insecurity unabating, because, like Obasanjo once said, if insecurity persists in a country for one year, then you must know that there are some government actors supporting and nurturing it. Thus, insecurity and corruption, which have led to a parlous economy, with the Naira exchanging for N750 to 1 US Dollar; with herdsmen invading farms and homes of people, raping mothers, wives and daughters with reckless abandon, have since graduated from their crèche level, to post-graduate institutions. 

In my humble opinion, the recent Act passed by the National Assembly, criminalising the payment of ransom to secure the freedom of kidnap abductees, is a bad law, because it does not take into account the physical, emotional, psychological, psychical and spiritual trauma that kidnap victims, families and loved ones experience. It will not even stop kidnapping anyway. Rather, it will only subject victims to more horrific ordeals in the hands of heartless kidnappers. Nor will the death sentence also stop kidnapping, because in spite of the death sentence for murder and armed robbery, these crimes still thrive. What will solve kidnaping and other crimes, is simply good governance and the enthronement of social justice, equity, egalitarianism, mutual respect, religious and linguistic tolerance, and gender fairness, all of which must be reflected in an autochthonous, indigenous, people-driven and owned Constitution, adopted by the people after a popular plebiscite and referendum. This has been successfully done in countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Eritrea, South Africa, Iraq, Iran and several other countries of the world. We can borrow a leaf from them, and then we will become like the Asian tigers of Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea.

You recently proposed a novel form of democracy, advocating six Vice Presidents from the geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Kindly, shed more light on this form of governance as proposed by you. Why did you propose this? Is the Federal system (in name only), but in actuality a Unitary system which we have been practising in Nigeria, not working? What are your views on restructuring?

My proposition is that we either return to the less acronymous and expensive Parliamentary West-Minister system of government that we practised before the Military putsch of January 15, 1966; or if we must retain the very expensive and rather authoritarian Executive Presidential system of government, then our new Constitution must define the terms of the six geo-political zones and ascribe six Vice-Presidents to them, with each geo-political zone developing itself according to its pace, and taking care of its peculiar needs. This will bring about a healthy competition and enthrone a less expensive, less powerful and less corrupt central government, which should only be in charge of critical areas like central banking, national defence and foreign relations. Matters like policing, marriages, licensing, education should either be shared by the States and the Federal Government, or devolved entirely to these six geo-political regions for better management and results. 

This means serious restructuring and devolution of powers, towards lasting fiscal federalism; rather than the unitary system we currently practice, a system where the 36 State Commissioners for Finance conglomerate in Abuja at month end to share national allocations under Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution. No one cares how this national cake is baked, or who provides the recipe or what  happens to those who bake it. Restructuring through a brand-new people’s Constitution, is a national desiderata which has become the urgency of now.

What are your expectations from whoever becomes President in 2023? Please, give three major things which you think the new President should do immediately on assumption of office?

My prediction is that whoever becomes the next President, whether through Atikulating, Tinibulising or being Obidient or Kwankwassiya, cannot solve Nigeria’s monumental and systemic problems, unless and until he looks into certain fundamentals. The first is that, he must take a deliberate step to immediately put in place a deliberate project of returning Nigeria to an era of cherished values, ethics and national ethos of honesty, hard-work, integrity and dignity of labour. 

Secondly, he must put in place a project that will actualise a people’s Constitution; an agreed Constitution that aggregates the aspirations, expectations and ideals of a new Nigeria through a Constituent Assembly or Sovereign National Conference. This will ignite true nationhood, and achieve a nation where “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand”. Any Presidential candidate who becomes the President in May, 2023, and who undertakes these two onerous tasks, would have dealt a terminal blow to other national ailments such as insecurity, parlous economy, corruption, kidnaping, armed banditry, murders and social injustice and inequity. Like the Bible admonishes us, we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto thee (Matthew 6:33). 

Returning our country to a decent era, great cherished societal values and having a new people’s Constitution will be the very beginning of the end of our national travails. This will usher in a new dawn of mutual respect, prosperity and security. God bless Nigeria.

Thank you Learned Silk.