| One year: An assessment of Jonathan's rule from rule of law perspective KAYODE KETEFE President Goodluck Jonathan stated early in his administration that he would be committed to rule of law, due process and constitutionalism. Next Tuesday would exactly mark his one year in office, it is thus pertinent to do some sort of stocktaking both to assess how the government has fared against of its self-avowed values. While a lot may be said on the respect of this administration for civil liberties and freedoms in comparative terms viz-a-viz other governments in the past, a lot of stakeholders are nonetheless of the opinion that the present government still have a long way to go in entrenching the culture of democratic ideals, rule of law and civil liberties. Probably the best way to start is to assess the performance of the government against what the constitution itself calls the "primary purpose of governance." This is stated in section 14(2) (b) of the constitution which provides that "the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government." Now on the issue of security of lives and properties, although Nigeria has had customary challenges of insecurity like uncontrollable spate of armed robbery, kidnapping, ethnic militancy, stealing, vandalisation of public and private properties, the present era has gone down in history as a time the nation's faces its most nightmarish problem of insecurity with the emergence of sustained acts of terrorism. Countless number of lives had been lost while properties worth billions of naira had gone up in flames under the onslaught of terrorists. If the present administration is judged leniently on the grounds that the insecurity in the land as reflected in the acts of terrorism was being allegedly sponsored by some disgruntled fifth columnists who are bent on "making the country ungovernable" , as it were, no such excuse would avail the government on the issue of failure on the welfare issue. There is unanimous agreement among Nigerians, that despite the constitutional endorsement of the socio-economic rights by virtue of Chapter Two of the 1999 constitution, there is abysmal failure in the human-focused areas like creating employment, social amenities, infrastructural development, adequate or at least reasonable funding of education, social insurance, accessibility to health etc. Even the government itself, through the Minister of Youth Development, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, recently said about 46 per cent of the estimated 67 million Nigerian youths is unemployed, which translates to about 30 million jobless youths. The most remarkable civil opposition this government has faced was however the anti-removal of fuel subsidy protests. In what they called operation "Occupy Nigeria" the protesting civil populace shut down the whole country for several days. During this crisis, Some overzealous law enforcement agents used repressive methods which resulted in the death of some Nigerians. But Jonathan's government itself did not help matter when he brought out soldiers on the streets of Lagos and Kano, to quell the protest at all cost, which to it, was becoming embarrassingly extensive. Popular human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, has sued President and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, for N500m for alleged illegal deployment of soldiers in Lagos to forcefully quell the riots. The way the last governorship election was managed in Bayelsa State, where the alleged president Jonathan's candidate, Henry Seriake Dickson, emerged the winner also left much to be desired as a lot of intrigues and lack of transparency were alleged. Furthermore, accusation f lack of transparency in public life on the ground that government is yet to make public the action it is on individuals and companies indicted by the various probe panels set up on fuel subsidy, pension fund and independent power projects. Of course there is also the controversy generated by the president over the issue of sovereign Wealth Fund over which the 36 states governors have dragged the Federal Government to the Supreme Court. Another perceived blight in the present administration's from the perspective of law and justice is the way the removal of the former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami was handled. Although it was the National Judicial Council that recommended his suspension to the president. It was glaring that the manner the NJC handled the underlying crisis between Salami and the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Iyorgher Katsina-Alu, was controversial. Many believed the President should have exercised certain restraint before removing Salami based on that recommendation especially as the matter was still pending in court. Ironically the same "pendency in court" argument is the now being used by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello-Adoke SAN, as the reason why the President is still dragging his feet to reinstate Salami after the NJC made a volte face and recommended that Salami should be reinstated forthwith by the president. Bello-Adoke had said "The matter is in court and no responsible government will try to overreach the court." But some people would counter that that matter was also pending in court when the President acted on the first recommendation of NJC by removing Salami!
Some criticisms have also trailed official conducts and utterances of the AGF himself, (who is the chief law officer of Jonathan's government) with many stakeholders describing his role as being biased and too pro-government for an attorney-general. As a matter of fact, this feeling was so pervasive that the House of Representatives have just begun moves to amend the 1999 Constitution for the purpose of stripping the office of the prerogative powers to prosecute and discontinue cases at will otherwise known as powers of "nolle prosecui". Under section 174 of the 1999 Constitution, the AGF is invested, among other things, with the powers to "institute and undertake criminal proceedings against any person before any court of law in Nigeria other than a court martial, in respect of any offence created by or under any Act of the National Assembly" Apparently incensed by what they construed as abuse of this constitutional powers by the AGF, the said lawmakers are working to whittle down by stripping him of powers of nolle prosecui in cases instituted by other persons. In spite of all these controversies Jonathan's administration may be also be credited with some positive measures like the inauguration of the Committee on the Implementation of Justice Sector Reforms in August last year. The committee, headed by Justice Ishaq Bello, is saddled with the responsibility of initiating a policy framework that would ensure that justice is served in a fair, timely, accessible and equitable manner. The recent appointment of 12 new judges to the Federal High Court in the country by President Jonathan may also be seen as an auspicious measure to further aid administration of justice. This writer sought the views of some prominent lawyers on the rule of law and human rights record of President Jonathan's one-year-old administration. In his view, a former Second National Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Adekunle Ojo, gave his own assessment as follows, "if the question is asked whether or not the executive arm of government is now better that what it used to be, my answer will be that I have not seen any improvement! "Court orders are being flouted with impunity and what I would regard as lame excuses are often advanced to justify some of these breaches. "There is a court order saying that the election should not hold in Bayelsa State; there is a court order saying that this or that should not happen, how many of such others are obeyed? We realise that most often, these court orders are not obeyed. If you see the way soldiers were brought out during the fuel subsidy crisis, then it would mean that this regime is not in any way better. This is because the protest was more or less crushed with brazen force" Another senior lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, said "I will look at the assessment of President Jonathan from two perspectives. I will asses it in terms of civil and political rights and secondly in terms of socio-economic rights. From the first one, there is no doubt that because of our democracy it is not possible to just arrest people and thrown them into prisons like we used to have under the military. "There is no law like Decree Two; our National Assembly won't pass such laws. So when I look at it from that perspective I will say this administration is not faring worse than other civilian administration we used to have. But not because the government is doing anything fantastic in protesting those rights, it is because Nigeria has changed in some respect as far as governance is concerned. However, on socio-economic rights, Jonathan's government, just like all other previous government in Nigeria, has woefully, totally and fundamentally failed to deliver."
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