PROFESSOR Itse Sagay, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is
the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Anti-Corruption. In this
interview, Sagay reviews the Muhammadu Buhari administration in the
last one year and opines that a lot has changed for Nigeria. Excerpts:
A lot has changed, it is a totally new world. Now you have a
government with integrity trying to provide selfless service rather
than serving itself as it used to be. The government is trying to
salvage this country which was on its way to a complete crash. The
government is recovering money that was stolen, it is putting a public
conduct that you must serve with integrity and honour and that the
greatest pride you get being in government is that you have the
privilege to serve, and not the privilege to be a locust that will
destroy all our resources for personal gain.
You can see that what is happening now is a new approach to
governance, the fundamental things are being done. We have Treasury
Single Account under which the government has been able to collect three
trillion naira, which would have been wasted if it had not done so.
You have all sorts of criminally-minded people, who have run down
this economy by collecting our common patrimony for themselves, being
brought to book and our money being returned. The whole attitude to life
is changing. So there have been major changes in this country and we
have an era of productivity and of service. So there has been a lot of
change.
But critics of the government argue that the last one year has been a waste. Do you agree?
When people say that, it is as if they are coming from space and that
they have not been in Nigeria. What this government has been doing has
been filling a big hole dug for us, you cannot move forward under the
devastating condition that this was country was left. So what the
administration is trying to do is bring us up from the scratch.
I have heard people say they enjoyed life more when there was
corruption. Is that not a self-destruct we thing for someone to say?
Was there a future in corruption? Would this country have survived.
Where would they have gone?
So, we just have to be patient and appreciate that service is being
provided in an honest way and that there is an organised effort to bring
this country up by its boots so that we can start once again to live a
happy and productive life.
In your effort to strengthen the anti-corruption fight, your
committee met with judges but it has been misconstrued that the meeting
was aimed at intimidating the judges. What is your defense?
(Laughs) Let us put it this way: Can a person be intimidated to do
what is right, to be honest and upright? And in a manner that will bring
positive results to society? Can that be regarded as intimidation? In
our interaction with judges, what we have done is to bring in experts
among themselves. We organised, we are the facilitators in terms of
organisation but the actual people, who facilitated it in terms of
presentation, are fellow judges, with experience in corruption cases and
matters, who have dealt extensively with it. They exchanged experiences
with their colleagues that this is how we interpreted the provisions of
the law when we had a case. It is for the benefit of this country.
Nobody is intimidating anybody.
The only person, who is inherently corrupt, dishonest and rotten and
who wants to remain that way, would say that somebody is intimidating
him. Luckily, all the judges we have met so far, have been happy with
the interaction; infact, we have have learned from them. In the process,
they have expressed what they have been through and we have all
discussed how problems can be resolved. It has been a happy interaction,
no problem whatsoever and together, we are moving forward for the sake
of this country.
There is no doubt that President Buhari means well for
Nigeria. As someone who believes in the rule of law, people are
perturbed about the president’s refusal to abide by the rule of law. For
instance, how would you feel if a court grants you bail but the
government of the day refuses to abide by the decision?
Well I have heard that several times. It is about Dasuki, not so?
In the case of Nnamdi Kanu, even the Court of Appeal has refused him
bail, his own issue does not arise at all. In the case of Dasuki, what I
know is this, there is are so many charges against him and it is in
connection with the law he has allegedly transgressed, which he has not
been granted bail, that he is being held. For instance, if you committed
ten offenses and you are granted bail for five of the offenses, you can
still be arrested and detained on the basis of the remaining five.
This is the way I understand it.
It is perceived that the Buhari government has no clear economic policy. Do you think he has one?
I believe so. Even though I cannot claim to be versed in that policy,
I know that there is clearly a policy and there is a team which is led
by the Vice President. If I may mention two areas of emphasis, I think
one is unemployment.
There has been a lot of emphasis on unemployment. The other one is
the total reflation of the economy from the flat bed that it is lying by
injecting a lot of funds into it. Third, they are trying to promote
social welfare of Nigerians so that we can begin to feel the impact of
the resources and I believe that, in another two or three months, we
will be begging to feel the impact.
