 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast on Plus TV Africa and we're looking at the administration of President Mohamed Buhari. Before now we looked at the economic situation from 2015 to now that he's living and right now we want to concentrate on social and legal issues of the Mohamed Buhari administration or his presidency. We're glad to have joining us two gentlemen. First of all Sir Leonard Anyogo, legal practitioner and public affairs analyst. Good morning and welcome to the program sir. Good morning and thank you for having me. We also have Mr. Kola Oluwadari representing SARAP here on the program today. Good morning and welcome. Okay let me begin with Sir Anyogo. The legal issues of the Mohamed Buhari administration or his presidency. How would you rate it from the legal mind that you have? How would you rate his compliance to the law and everything related to the legal issues that we have had in this administration? Well we all know what has happened for the last eight years. You know the unconcerned removal of the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Norgan, you know so that was the height of it. The rule of law was not obeyed during this last, during this outgoing administration. It was more of a national security above the rule of law. I know that in a democracy once the rule of law is fettered then we have serious challenges. So I would say that the administration was not given to the rule of law and then basically and most importantly we didn't see the will, the political will to to prosecute offenders. You know raising from moderates, bandits or so called terrorists. And of course we didn't see that. So you, I may not be able to score the administration a high mark on the rule of law because you know in every given society, in every given jurisdiction, once a government is not seen to be prosecuting offenders, they're like I keep saying in different fora that laws without the implementation, sanctioning aspect of that law, they just be a musical instrument. We have seen where people commit all sorts of atrocities. Killings, mass murderers and there's no IOTA of prosecution. There's no IOTA of the will of government to arrest and prosecute. And so that agitates my mind because the primary duty of governance is security. So we have seen because the government came on the promise that it was going to improve on our security situation in 2015 but I'm sorry to say that substantially wasn't the case especially from the legal perspective we didn't see that prosecution, the way to prosecute offenders and that's why you know in Nigeria basically if you cannot, you do the crime and you do not do the time. You do the crime, you do not do the time. So that is the challenge of the outgoing administration. I would hope that the incoming administration will take the rule of law very seriously where people will be prosecuted for offenses that they are alleged to have committed. I was trying to take it to Mr. Oluwa Dari. Working with Sarah, let's join the social part of this topic to it because social life has to do with human rights and all that and we would like to know how you would assess the present administration, the outgoing administration of President Mohammedu Buhari in terms of human rights violations or otherwise in terms of keeping to the law as well and in terms of interaction with the people of Nigeria and doing the right thing. Thank you very much. The administration of President Mohammedu Buhari for the past year has not spared well in the aspect of human rights and we must understand that through the prism of what human rights are also within the context of our constitutional position, which after all provides a way to pay for the responsibility of the countries and we understand the importance of the economic rights to the economy, to human life as it was and even to the majority of what is in this setting of the forward human rights and these administrations have not done well. And that is not surprising me. When we look at the other index, the key indexes of government that this government that played with the rule of law for instance, and I can't admit it, economy itself and even in security, government has become more opaque with the economic rights of the people who have not been respected or never been promoted. And the very good aspect of these which is how predictions of this administration have formed itself is for instance the report of the NDA and Nigeria Bureau of Statistics which said that more than 130 million in terms of war and that is the multi-functional property index. And that is very important to know that the failure of social structures that would cushion the effect of poverty and other even natural things that happen for instance culminating is basically like and this is not because you do not have laws that are provided for you. This is not because you do not have forms that will do this. It is because this one I just managed. For instance at the twilight of this administration just two weeks ago the president approved a place before the National Center on Human for 800 million dollars and one of the things the president said he would do this morning is to socialize the policies to cushion the effect of poverty in the land as part of the social obligations from government. But this has been done in the past. Pre-epose COVID and we have not seen either the administration about those forms that have been imposed or even the effect on the people. So I am willing to trust that this is for this day is approved by the National Center and the forms that we need above all the world and we will not go the same way. The same for apartage groups. The fact that there is two trends of all that is administration. And Sarah was written and a freedom of commission requested her to the president asking for details of how much are coming in the streets, how they can spend and the benefit to the general. Of course the matter is depending on these are some of those issues that show clearly that this administration has been trusted and that they are accountable to the young people and more most importantly the people are very involved of the misuse of public funds for that is administration. All right let me stay with you Oluwadari Kola because you have set up and very first of all I must comment Sarah you guys are doing an amazing job. Yesterday we were talking about how we missed the late chief Ghani Faumi and I mentioned that Sarah is doing an amazing job. In 2021 you sued the government. You had 21 lawsuits against the federal government and part of what you sued the government about is how they handle the social intervention program among other things. Talk to us how would you say that justice has been served on all the cases the lawsuits that are taken to court in this administration. Thank you very much. Unfortunately the effects of the malagasy for the past decade is telling on judiciary also as a key aspect of government. So the law has allowed judiciary to be the final result of the rights and obligations between citizens and business citizens on the government. But unfortunately even in judiciary is lacking the basics of what it may not be able to do job effectively which is why we have a lot of backlog in court. Out of the 21 pending cases I can tell you we've only had judgement for two of them from that feeling 21 till now and that shows you the slope of judgement not because the judges are not working not because they are not at working but basically the structures to aid their work to make it work faster with the government judiciary autonomy and that is not only for the autonomy it also means financial autonomy for the judges to be able to do their work. The number of judges the couple of prosecutors that will allow them to do that is sitting on like it. And much more importantly what about the judges that have been delivered that the executive led by the president just wasted time. Out of that impact on even the willingness of the courts to do to do justice in this instance. For example we got a judgement just two weeks ago. Managing the president to give details of how the loan collected from the Chinese for building the history of a structure in Abu Dhabi. The same reasoning that we are yet to see functioning in Abu Dhabi and yet to be told that we are serving those loans. The government is yet to be that judgement of course. And this administration is going on. So what we've seen is that while we and other citizens are taking this initiative to approach the courts for justice to ensure that the government cannot remove the actions of government that have also made that process not that much. And it is true that the process of justice in this is that. But we are ready to go ahead. And we believe that the government administration will obey this pending judgment in favour of Nigerians. Okay let me go to Salenad Nyogo. You are of the legal profession and I'm wondering where a lot of Nigerians wonder how come the hands of the judiciary seem to be tied so much so that this administration is perceived to have gotten away with a lot of impunity. How come they just talk down on the judiciary and get their way? Because that's what a lot of people perceive this administration to have done in the last eight years. So what tied the hands of the judiciary so that they could not perform as well as they should have performed? Well the straight answer to that is lack of judicial financial autonomy. You know I was in the conference Nigerian Bar Association conference in 2018 or 2019 or there about and the then Chief Justice of Nigeria who is in the then Chief Justice of Nigeria is not returned. He clearly told us that how do we expect him to be independent when he goes to the executive to get impressed to run the judiciary? You know that God be thinking because where a man is dependent on another. You know such a dependent will always take the dictates of the person the source of the of his own income. You know we will have a constitutional provision which has been signed by the president and then what of the implementation? The judiciary does not have a financial autonomy in the real sense of it. So that is one angle. But then basically my own jurisprudence analysis of the judiciary is that we have few judges, we don't have enough judges or justices with the full complement that can take care of so many plethora of cases and some of us are even of the opinion that it's not all matter that should get to the Supreme Court. For instance why would they rent matter initiated somewhere in Zanfa or somewhere in Kosovo or somewhere against the Supreme Court? So we need to do some fundamental shake-up or structuring of the judiciary too. That is my own personal opinion because for instance they just hold one Supreme Court in Nigeria and so all cases there are no cases that is restricted. All cases get up to the Supreme Court. So I won't say that I see the institution itself has to be restructured of course by legislation. We have to look at that so that we can get speedy administration of justice. That's why the administration of justice are that has been in the system. We see how delay in justice administration by some of those factors have just enumerated. So I won't say that I think that Nigeria as a country would do well if we allow the judicial autonomy, financial judicial autonomy because when we talk about government in Nigeria it seems to be that it's just the executive. We do not even look at the legislative arm and the judicial arm. So the executive is like the bully it takes to other arms of government and so why I keep saying that look until we have strong institutions in the country who are going to have strong personality. Now the outgoing president Mohamed Wari on the 29th of May is going to become a citizen. I mean it's going to be it's a story. It's going to be it won't have that executive powers again. And so the person that comes in and decides to use his power against him can use it. That is why it is good to have strong institutions, workable institutions rather than strong individuals. So we need to get our institution to work well and once we get that we then of course we're going to have the peoples by it from this a judicial government. Okay, Oluwa Dari. Oluwa Dari my question to you he just took that from my mouth I was going to ask about the legislative arm because if you look at that excerpt which we showed the clip we showed from the speech the inaugural speech of President Mohamed Wari in 2015 he had said that they would not interfere in the activities of the legislative arm and judiciary. Would you say that here you have it this is not the excerpt I was referring to they're going to give us that one but he had promised that they would not interfere. Okay let me just let me just read this for them the federal executive under my watch will not seek to encroach on the duties of and functions of the legislative and judicial arms of government the law enforcing authorities will be charged to operate within the Constitution we shall rebuild and reform the public service to become more effective and more serviceable we shall charge them to apply themselves with integrity. Oluwa Dari. Of course what we have said and what has been done in the past eight years that is not true, that is not the whole thing. We cannot be a president for everyone that has called on me in the past eight years. But these years as the Secretary of State hasn't gotten the job done. The judiciary has to talk to the National Assembly of the House of Police and what has happened in the past eight years but what we've seen is that the president has not said any kind of example that would be an example as the chief as the chief executive of Nigeria for other and some government for instance. Let me talk about the cost in which as the president and the president themselves and lead any example in that regard. Besides that presently as a case in court where we are challenging the government or more or less taking another call to compel the president to cost some of the wasteful expenditures in the 2022 budget and here we are in 2023. 26 billion was proposed that various projects in line for travels, main refreshments and even some of the aspects of the presidential wing of the state out in Abu Dhabi in the 2022 budget. That is way too after winter as the final and that has been done with various amounts of money spent on presidential views. There is simply no hope for the movement of the path of the president to have a lady that is speaking to them. So if it is there that we are not encroaching the duties of the judiciary we need to get that statement clearly. But there is a concept of our experience in the past eight years where judges are given that cost. We are from the base of the judiciary and the executive that we have refuses to make a judgment. It is not that is that not an encroachment of the path and duties of the legislature of the judiciary. When the president makes this kind of presentation for national assembly, ask him for a loan of 8 or 10 million dollars. But that is not the case again for what that loan will be used for. Every one of the ones who collected the path will be used for. How can we say he is not encroaching on the duties of the path of the members of the legislature. And what it is, the legislature makes laws that the president allows them to make. It is not encroaching on that function. And so we need to look at this thing within that context to determine whether the promise is made by the president is going to be paid as it fulfilled or not. President, Sarah has more than 11 judgments of this government. Not all of them are going to be used to give you a somewhere before that. But we are not going to let them freeze with this administration that are yet to be fulfilled. What does that speak about as the regard and respect that the president has for the judiciary? So it is not enough to blame that it is not encroaching. He is encroaching. But he is calling up on my actions and he is going to go with the law of the court. And according to the language and the strength of this government. Thank you so much. I wish we had more time to X-ray the administration of Mohamed of Buhari. But he is going in a matter of days by Monday. And after that he will be ex-president. And he might not even be in Nigeria. He may be in Niger. But let's see how that goes. Well, I would like to thank you for coming on the show. Sir Leonard Agnogo, legal practitioner and public affairs analyst. Thank you so much for being a part of our program today. It is my honor. Thank you for having me. And also Mr. Kola Oluwad Dari, representing CERAP here on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much. Okay. We'll take a short break. Sports is next. Stay with us.