Buhari must begin graft war with corrupt people in APC – Ajulo

As the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration clocks 100-days in office, Kayode Ajulo, national secretary, Labour Party, in this interview with OWEDE AGBAJILEKE said to be seen to be sincere in the anti-graft war, President Muhammadu Buhari must begin the campaign with the corrupt people in his party. He also deplored the delay in the appointment of ministers, saying it is a breach of the constitution. Excerpts:

How would you react to delay in the appointment of cabinet by the President?

One thing we have to know is that we have a regulatory law in this country that gives a framework on how the government should be run, that is the Constitution. Even this government came into power through the instrumentality of the Constitution in the sense that the Constitution provides for election, provides for how the President should be sworn in and provides for what should be done afterwards. Even the position of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a creation of the Constitution, so also the position of ministers and it is expected that immediately after taking over the reins of power, he needs to follow the provisions of the Constitutions and one of such provisions is that there must be ministers in place  because those that drafted the Constitution envisaged a situation like this. They envisaged that we have a President and as much as we have a President, we should have those that will work with the President and this is where the issue of ministers comes in. The Constitution states that there shall be ministers.

Although it did not stipulate the time but it is expected that being a Constitutional provision, it must be immediate but till today, we are yet to have ministers. The question is: all these appointments that Mr. President has made, through who is he making them? Are we now saying that it is the President who is a letter writer or a messenger? There are lots of things going wrong. As a lawyer, I know some people will come to tell you that we do not have to look at the form or the procedure but it is the procedure that helps the smooth administration of things and that is one of the problems.
We cannot divorce the stagnant position we have in Nigeria today from not adhering to rules and regulations, especially when it comes to government. I know much about the administrative law and I know that there are lots of things Mr. President needs to put in place. Laws are to be obeyed or followed and this is the bane of our problems now. The wheels of progress as it pertains to governance seem to be grounded.

As a lawyer, how possible can the President fight corruption without an Attorney-General?
For you to know how important the office of the Attorney-General is, of all the ministers, it is the only post that the Constitution created differently. It even states that the Attorney-General shall be the chief law officer of the Federation. Apart from being the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice who will advise the Federal Government, he shall also be the chief law officer of the entire nation. Besides that, he will be the chief legal officer. Rather than have the Attorney-General in place, you are telling us today that you have appointed Professor Itse Sagay to head the anti-corruption committee. This is the same person who by his antecedents, never seemed to agree with the anti-corruption war. I was one of the counsels in the case against the former Delta State Governor, James Ibori. I remembered his utterances and positions then. Even after we were disgraced by our court by freeing somebody who United Kingdom court referred to as a common thief, this is the man that protested the severity of the punishment. You see young people being set ablaze by stealing common handset, yet, you were complaining that somebody who stole almost all the wealth of his state was severely punished. The same person wants to head the anti-corruption committee.

I think that Mr. President needs to be advised because we all know that no one person knows everything. He needs special advisers and he needs ministers. What we are seeing now is that any side of the bed President Buhari wakes up from, that is the way he will think that day. We do not run government like that. We all know that he came to power based on his anti-corruption position and based on his principled position. We all agree with him, no one can fault him on that, but he cannot do it alone, he needs advisers. He is like a father of the house who goes to the kitchen to cook, wash the car, fuel the car and drive it. He will not be effective. That is the reason you see many people masquerading as advisers. We do not even know the change of command. It was like the shameful act that took place at the 7th National Assembly. Until today, nobody can tell you who asked the then Inspector General of Police to block the entrance to the National Assembly because there are different change of commands, you do not even know who to talk to.
As of today, only two people are ruling this country – Buhari and his wife. We do not have to deceive ourselves. Initially, we said we would not have the office of the First Lady but now, we know we have Office of the Wife of the President. Aside the two of them, who are the people running the affairs of this country? That is the reason the country is in a state of comatose.

Do you subscribe to the use of special judges to handle anti-corruption matters?
I will not subscribe to that because we have different jurisdictions in our judicial system but some people may be novice about that. The judicial administration has a way of designating the court on their own, overtly. So, I do not think we need to have over designation that ‘this is corruption court’. If it is a corruption court, then what do we call security and investment court and others? The way things are going, very soon, we will have murder-related courts and stealing-related courts.

What is your reaction to the Federal Government’s plans to recover looted funds and prosecution of corrupt Nigerians?
I would not want to say whether the government lacks focus or not but by their body language, it seems they do know what to do. The only mantra of this administration is ‘I will probe’. Who are they probing? As I speak now, Rivers State Government seemed to have done better in the area of corruption than the Federal Government. I know the reason some of us seem to like Buhari was because of his anti-corruption stance but this issue is just one of the thousands of Nigerians’ expectations. We cannot be expecting 10 points from you and you are just battling with only one point and you want to say you are passing. What can he say he has done even on the issue of war against corruption since he assumed office? It is just pontifications, ‘I will do this, I will do that’.  Buhari should realise that he was not elected based on the anti-corruption war. In as much as we would want him to do that, corruption issue is just a fraction of expectations. Also, the probe should begin from within. He has to clean himself before cleaning outside.

If he refuses to clean himself – those surrounding him – he has not started. I can say it without any fear of contradiction because he has accepted that some of his allies are corrupt, let him start with them. The way they are branding his party now, it is like all you need to do these days is to join the All Progressives Congress and your sins would be washed away. APC is now like a sanctuary, a sanctum that whosoever is a corrupt politician will run into it and he would be washed as white as snow. You cannot say you want to run mad and you are using 20 years to plan, when then will you start?
Unfortunately, one of his supporters said he needs honeymoon. Nigerian society is peculiar and we need peculiar solutions. Going for honeymoon means he should go and sleep while the country is burning. My anger is that those who usually speak for the masses have become silent because they are expecting political appointments. That is the major tragedy of this country now. Even if you call them, they will tell you they are watching simply because their names have been penciled down for appointments.

The Labour Party is enmeshed in crisis, as the immediate past National Chairman, Dan Nwanyanwu, handed over the party’s certificate to the Joe Ajaero-led faction of NLC. What is the way out?
What happened is that we had an election fixed by the National Executive Council and aside the party executives, we had all the trade unions in attendance. The last meeting had virtually every group that matters in the Labour Union in attendance because that was when Governor Olusegun Mimiko wanted to leave the party and there were lots of persuasions for him not to go. It was in that NEC meeting that the convention in Akure was fixed. The chairman conducted the election and the former National Secretary was elected as the chairman while I came in as a National Secretary. Prior to that time, there had been the controversy over who was to hold the party’s certificate. I would not believe that Nigeria Labour Congress should be the custodian. I agree that we are a workers’ party but Labour Party is an entity and that is the reason different labour groups send their representatives. The issue caused a big problem then with the National Chairman, Dan Nwanyanwu, to the extent that he took NLC to court. This is the reason I said it is about interest.

There have been some scheming but I would not be able to state the rationale behind going back to NLC to give them the certificate. However, the only thing I can fathom is that perhaps, he had offended some people and he needed to do restitution and he decided to use that as a bargain. We may also believe that he wanted to remind people that we have connections with Labour movement. But whatever it is, the party is intact. That is the reason the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wrote a letter to the police then confirming that Comrade A.A. Salam is the chairman and Barrister Kayode Ajulo, the secretary and they agreed with that. At the end of the day, we came together.

Now, there is a letter from NLC inviting us for a three-day meeting in Calabar to look for ways to move forward but you know that this is another political time, elections are going to hold in some states soon and from what has been happening recently, it is now obvious that if you want to fight any political adversary, you first start with the platform. Today, if there is any viable political party, it is the People’s Democratic Party but we have to be sincere, it is going down. All those people that are supposed to talk are muted because once they say anything that is the time the government will remember that the person is corrupt and they will send EFCC after him. I remember one young man from my state who said he wanted to become a governor, within two days, EFCC started looking for him until he ran out of the country. That is for you to know how bad things have become. But in Labour Party, we have nothing to fear, all of us are working and we have our sources of livelihood. I pay my tax, if you want to know how much I have, all it takes you is to find out how much I declare as tax. So, I will not say we are well-to-do but we are comfortable and we would not soil our hands.