Joe Okafor is a versatile lawyer and Principal Partner at LAWSHIELD, a private legal consultancy firm. He is former Legal Services Manager of Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO); Company Secretary and Head, Legal Services, Omega Savings and Loans Limited; Team Lead, Paul Usoro (SAN) & Co. and Associate, Ike Onyiuke & Co, amongst other positions.
In this interview with Ife Osemedua, he speaks on various national issues, including Nigeria’s security challenges, mismanagement of national resources, socio-economic crisis, Anambra State governorship election, amongst others.
Nigeria is in distress today on account of seeming leadership deficit and mismanagement of the country’s diversity. What are your thoughts?
I would rather say that Nigeria is in distress today on account of a profound derailment from its originally-agreed, foundational structure of becoming a country and its governance. We have always pretended in Nigeria about this singular fact of where all our problems started from and why they still persist till now.
I think successive political elites have disingenuously attributed Nigeria’s many problems to leadership deficit, and mismanagement of our diversity. How dishonest can they be in calling a known problem by an unknown name? These same politicians know quite well that Nigeria lost its bearings and focus as a country when the military in 1967 abrogated the 4-Regional structure of economic, political and social governance of Nigeria by creating the 12 political States that have subsequently morphed into 36 ineffectual States as the so-called ‘federating units of Nigeria’.
So, the present unitary structure of government in Nigeria which we dubiously call ‘federal government’ cannot give us good leadership and neither can we ever have equitable management of our diversity under such an arrangement. The problem is squarely with the 1999 Constitution as the statutory source and entrenchment of the economic, political and social problems facing Nigeria today. Until we collectively admit this truth, own up to our failures and perfidious actions in governance under this 1999 Constitution, and embark on a holistic reconfiguration of the economic, political and social structure of government in Nigeria (just like the South Africans did to end the Apartheid Regime); Nigeria will be scratching at the problems and chasing shadows.
As we gradually move towards election year in 2023, what steps should be taken to ensure good leadership selection process?
My premise is that the periodic national elections in Nigeria since 1979 have not served us well in any meaningful parameter. This is because the constitutional process has been successively rigged to ensure that leadership was ‘selected’ rather than ‘elected’ in the real sense of votes being counted and such votes counting in a transparent electoral process as we see in the well-ordered countries of the world.
Once again, we are fixated on another round of national elections in 2023. Regrettably, we have set the stage for another failure in that venture by the National Assembly not giving clear and firm legislative support to INEC for the electronic transmission of election voting results. Anyone who understands the truth of electoral malfeasance in Nigeria knows that the real rigging of votes happens at the point between counting of the votes from the Polling Units and the collation of votes in the States Collation Centres.
So, we see a shameless political leadership in our society which hypocritically urges the citizenry to embrace all the available, proven, electronic technologies in doing just about every other thing except use in the process that brings same political leadership into elective public offices in Nigeria. So much for electoral transparency and integrity!
I do not see any positive changes in the 2023 national elections, if the elections even hold at all. The system has been further rigged to guarantee unfair results with the reported creation of additional electoral constituencies (Polling Units) in the country by INEC in an unbalanced, skewed manner vis-a-vis the North/South divide of Nigeria. Thus, regardless of the qualifications of candidates produced by the political parties; the electoral system will still frustrate the best, and throw up the worst into public offices in Nigeria. That is how mediocrity has been entrenched in Nigeria over the years.
Let me add that my views on the 2023 outlook do not negate the fact that political parties have a duty to present the most qualified and experienced candidates for elections. Likewise, the continued need for the moderating influence of the leaders of religious, business, industry, professional and youth groups in the candidates’ selection process of the political parties.
Why do you doubt the viability of national elections in Nigeria in 2023?
I am not alone in that persuasion. Many of our political elites have sounded both warnings and alarms about the viability of national elections in Nigeria in 2023. It is not difficult to see why they are so concerned; the country is plagued with rising political agitations for self-determination in 4 out of its 6 geopolitical Regions, the core North is wasted already by escalating violent insurgency of a religious ideological persuasion and which insurgency has spiralled down to the Middle Belt with undisguised ethnic cleansing in the mix, the national (and States) economy is in tatters, hunger, frustration and deprivation are now so pervasive in the land, youth restiveness is palpable, and the well-to-do bracket of the citizenry are leaving the country in droves in search of greener pastures abroad.
How can a society with this ‘witches brew’ of problems conduct national elections without having more problems emanate from it? I think very strongly that going into national elections in 2023 would be a terrible mistake because the country is so combustible now and there are no signs of abatement anywhere. Not even by the actions of the FGN nor the pronouncements of its leadership.
Nigerian politicians and the political elites are so self-seeking in their quest for public office and political power that their sense of history is severely blighted. Otherwise, they would have been sobered up by the fact that the Western Region’s political troubles, and subsequent disputed election in the First Republic during the early sixties created the conditions for the events that precipitated the tragic military incursion into politics and governance in Nigeria, and the unnecessary civil war that broke out later in 1967. It would seem that the political class would rather repeat the same mistakes in their fixation with national elections in 2023.
The government in power is widely believed to be insensitive to Nigeria’s secularity. What should the electorate look out for in electing the next President?
Absolutely correct. That arrogant insensitivity to Nigeria’s secularity is a major factor fueling the rapidly escalating agitations for self-determination in Nigeria. That mindless insensitivity, if it persists into 2023, could well be the undoing of the Nigeria union. As for the desired qualities of the next Nigerian President; let me align my views with the recent prescriptions of former military President Babangida on that score. The pitiable insularity of the incumbent President has thrown into bold relief the imperative of Nigeria having as President, a well-educated, well-exposed, much younger, and broad-minded individual who is in tune with this century vis-a-vis the emerging impacts of science and technology in socio-economic engineering.
Nigeria cannot be led by someone living in the past nor by anyone who has not improved him or herself. Much less, by an individual with limited or doubtful education. Our present circumstances in Nigeria are res ipsa loquitor, as we say in law, and that makes these requirements mandatory of the next President. We just have to lift the bar by setting higher standards for entrance into both elective and appointive public offices in Nigeria.
Nigeria is now a sorry sight. Even our neighbors who once respected us now look down on this country. How did we get here?
We got to this sorry sight by derailing from our original foundational structure. Every government in Nigeria at Local, State, and Federal level since 1979 has been in an undeclared contest of outdoing its predecessor in official malfeasance, corruption, and impunity. It has been more of ‘same of same’ in the performance of public officials in Nigeria. The net effect has been the steady, gradual deterioration of the Nigerian polity, economy, and society when rated against its contemporaries on all known human development indices. How can Nigeria be respected in the comity of nations when we have such a dreadful outlook and erosion of values?
We fail or rather, hypocritically forget that Nigeria made its most visible, and internationally-acknowledged progress and development as a country during the years of Regional Governments. Then, the many ethnic nationalities of Nigeria were manifestly in charge of their lives, natural and human resources, environment, and their future. A healthy competition existed amongst the four Regions of Nigeria in the sense of which Region would develop faster. Policies and laws were formulated by home-grown leaders in the respective Regional Governments and Houses of Assembly to impact peoples and environments that they were familiar with as leaders. Peoples of this country took pride in their emergent nation as it were. Why would other countries not respect a Nigeria that had a burgeoning economy, happy citizenry and a stable polity then? All that glory was truncated by the derailment from our original foundational structure.
As a citizen, are you worried about the deteriorating state of insecurity in Nigeria?
Of course, I am. It would be naive not to be worried or to pretend that all is well with Nigeria or that its many problems will solve themselves. Nations, properly so called, are not built on wishful thinking nor on dubious, unfounded hope-raising either. Security is central to human development. Security of lives and property is a cardinal duty of any responsible government.
Tragically, we have seen the politicization of security and security services in Nigeria now to the extent that insecurity has assumed frightening dimensions. The misuse of resources (both human and material) allocated to the various security agencies, and the glaring mismatch in their deployments vis-a-vis the known national trouble spots have also aggravated the insecurity.
How can you explain the bizarre situation of our security personnel deployed to fight insurgency in the North-East, and armed banditry in the North-West frequently complaining (even openly now) about bad and inadequate equipment/personnel? Yet humongous sums of money have been appropriated and released to the respective security services over the years to battle the insurgency and banditry?
How can anyone explain the frequency of armed militia attacks and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous minorities of the Middle Belt States? People are being killed in their ancestral lands, their communities destroyed, taken over and renamed by the invaders in a supposedly sovereign country, and yet no official consequences attach for these crimes and neither are the dislocated peoples restored back to their ancestral lands by the government security forces.
How do you rationalise the fact that the South-East and South-South regions are treated like ‘occupied territories’ whilst the government security personnel deployed there carry on with the swagger of an ‘occupying force’? How can that build any sense of unity or inclusivity on the besieged peoples of those Regions?
We also now have the ridiculous scenario of hitherto peaceful regions of Southern Nigeria being militarized whilst the known hotbeds of mindless violence in Northern Nigeria grapple with insufficient security personnel and inadequate equipment! What more can underscore the politicization of security, and security services in Nigeria?
This administration has also been accused of double-standards, especially with regard to its treatment of Boko Haram members, and the separatist groups. Do you agree?
Yes. The fact of this regime being somewhat tolerant towards the many non-state actors in the violence and insecurity plaguing the country is so obvious. Nigerians have heard from videos of many disaffected security service personnel about instructions being given to troops not to liquidate the Boko Haram terrorists in battle but to capture them alive. Likewise, stories abound of troop movements being leaked to the insurgents leading to ambush, loss of security personnel, and military equipment either captured or destroyed by the terrorists.
The complaints about poor welfare, and inadequate equipment for the deployed troops are recurrent. Yet the same central government is more interested in ‘rehabilitating’ these terrorists, subtly canvassing some sort of public ‘forgiveness’ for those terrorists that surrender, and reintegrating them into society (including absorption in the military)?
Now juxtapose the foregoing with the heavy-handed military, police, and DSS crackdown on self-determination agitation groups of the South and Middle Belt? The spate of unofficial, extra-judicial killings of alleged members of proscribed groups and their affiliates by the security forces have so spiked that Nigerians now believe, erroneously, that mere membership of a proscribed group attracts summary execution by government forces. That is certainly not the prescription of the law.
The paradoxical consequence of the government’s bias is that it fuels both the insurgency and banditry whilst at the same time hardening the resolve of the self-determination agitators. Talk of the irony of unintended consequences!
As we move gradually towards 2023, what role do you think the youths should play in the coming struggle to save Nigeria?
It is simple; Nigerian youths have shown inspirational understanding and organisational ability with the recent EndSARS protests that rocked the country last year, and frightened the establishment and its backers. I admit that the startling youth brilliance and political resurrection we saw was majorly in the South whilst the Northern youths preferred to play ‘defenders of the status quo’ as usual. That scenario in itself underscores the deep ideological divide between Northern and Southern Nigeria.
Regardless, the future belongs to the youth. They must seize the initiative and create the future and life they desire. Present political leadership has failed the youths. As such, the youths must play a more active, focused, and definitive role in party politics in order to reverse our slide into geriatric leadership.
A very loud way for the youths to communicate their disenchantment with the politics of the older generation would be by open rejection of youths being used for political thuggery, accepting political bribes in both cash and any other material form, and refusing to be used in the manipulation of voting, and vote collation process.
Justice is a component part of any democracy but there is injustice everywhere in Nigeria today. Why?
The pervasive injustice in Nigeria is symptomatic of the general malaise in our society. We need to understand that injustice, just like official corruption and the many other maladies of Nigeria, is systemic. It is bred by the dysfunctional unitary system of government we run dubiously as ‘federalism’ under the 1999 Constitution.
Most Nigerians would quickly think of the Judiciary when you talk about injustice. They forget the more important one; social justice. Government policies (which are the will of the Executive) must be people-centric when they are being formulated. It is this will of the Executive that will eventually, in most cases, be enacted into law as statutes; that is, Laws of the States, or Acts of the National Assembly. So, you cannot have social justice when the Executive formulates malicious, anti-people policies and gets these policies passed into laws through the conspiratorial, pliant Legislatures.
The ball now lands in the Judiciary and its Courts for redress. What do you get; long-drawn out, tortuous litigation, and often terse, lame or ambiguous pronouncements on serious issues of public interest. One gets the impression sometimes that the Judiciary is in cahoots with the Executive with the tepid judicial treatment of raging disputes challenging actions of the Executive and its agencies in Nigeria.
No country achieves social justice with this scenario I have just painted. At most, what you see in such a system is what I term ‘transactional justice’; more like justice dispensed preferentially on a ‘case by case’ basis depending on the personalities involved. Thus, you see high-profile election or pre-election cases, fraud/corruption cases involving ex-public officials or notable well-connected personalities, and high-profile corporate disputes getting accelerated attention from the public Courts vis-a-vis the slow, frustrating pace of adjudicating disputes between ordinary peoples.
You could ask; how easy and affordable is it for an average citizen or resident (that is, the common man) to access the public Courts for redress of any wrong done by a private citizen or by a public body? Your guess is as good as mine.
The sad reality of the widespread injustice in Nigeria is linked to the fact that our Judiciary unwittingly allowed itself to be polluted by an irresponsible, self-seeking political class. Legal practitioners, unfortunately, played collaborative and conspiratorial roles in this self and profession-destructive enterprise to the extent that they facilitated the abuse of Court processes on behalf of the political elites.
Let me quickly add this point to the discourse; the injustice in Nigeria is not on account of lack or any insufficiency of laws. On the contrary, Nigeria has a surfeit of laws on almost all parameters of development. I recall undertaking a deep, detailed research in one of my post-graduate studies; LL.M in Legislative Drafting where my Dissertation was on ‘Legislating to aid development: Appraising the Nigerian experience (from 1999 to 2016)’. It was initially perceived as an open-ended topic by my supervisor and the other faculties such that they doubted my ability to write on it. Nevertheless, I persisted after limiting the study in time, and my findings established that legislation is not the impediment to development and justice in Nigeria but that honest, dispassionate implementation of laws is the problem.
Laws, however so well crafted, do not execute or implement themselves. Persons and strong institutions of State are required to give effect to legislation. A happy congruence of purposive policy formulation/legislation with purposeful leadership, execution and implementation of laws in the country is desirable to achieve an egalitarian society where government would be meaningful to the citizenry. This becomes more imperative in a society like Nigeria where the citizenry has been conditioned over time to expect less from the leadership.
Anambra State will be electing a new Governor in a couple of months. How would you describe the political activities so far?
Anambra State has always been a basket case in the political evolution of the South-East since 1999. The tempo and colour of political activities in the State in the build-up to the Governorship election slated for 6th November has been both interesting and intriguing. Interesting in the array of contenders for Agu Awka, and intriguing by the shenanigans we have seen amongst the main political parties in their candidate selection process. I mean, their party primaries.
Could you do a character analysis of the front-runners in the major political parties?
Now that is somewhat tricky. Anambra State has been about the ‘luckiest’ State in the South-East since 1999 when it comes to choosing Governors. I say luckiest because of the known fact that present political leadership in Igboland has not really been homegrown like you see in other regions of Nigeria. It has been more of impositions of political leadership by external influences on the peoples of the South-East. Now, that is a trend that has not served the Igbo well, and it will certainly be reversed with the political renaissance and self-determination agitations sweeping throughout the region.
Expectedly, the leading political parties; APGA, PDP, YPP and APC have put forward their governorship candidates, albeit with a lot of unnecessary drama, noise, litigations and intrigues. Professor Soludo of APGA needs no introduction because his pedigree precedes him everywhere. Chief Valentine Ozigbo of PDP has sterling qualities with a proven track record in banking and the financial services industry. Senator Ifeanyi Uba of YPP has his track record of entrepreneurship and recent surprising emergence as a Senator In a hitherto unknown political party’s platform. Chief Andy Uba of APC has a known character antecedent in previous Anambra Governorship tussles and his current political party platform may not serve him well this time.
Among the candidates, who do you think has what it takes to govern Anambra State, and why do you think so?
Without hesitation, I would say that Prof. Soludo of APGA stands out from the pack of contenders for Agu Awka, and he has ALL it takes to move Anambra State forward. I fully support the candidature of Prof. Soludo (Odenigbo Aguata na Orumba) for several reasons.
Firstly, Anambra State has a pivotal role in the economic, cultural and social survival of Ndi Igbo in the Nigeria Project. A man of Prof. Soludo’s pedigree is needed to sustain and optimize that ‘pathfinder’ responsibility.
Secondly, Prof. Soludo’s pedigree in education, career and achievements in public office speak so eloquently for themselves. Anambra State needs his sterling qualities to blossom to its fullest potentials.
Thirdly, Prof. Soludo’s vast international exposure, acute mastery of economics and proven understanding of the global economy and the financial workings of Nigeria are assets Ndi Anambra must build on to greatness.
Fourthly, a proven technocrat like Prof. Soludo who deeply appreciates the interplay of politics and economics would lead Anambra State to exponential development across all sectors. In fact, Ndi Anambra are very safe with him.
Fifthly, Prof. Soludo’s profile is both mind-blowing and intimidating. Anambra State has a great asset in him, and has not fully tapped the enormous treasure base of his accomplishments. As we approach Anambra governorship election on 6th November; now is the time to seize that opportunity. I believe that Prof. Soludo has made his inimitable endowments available to Ndi Anambra for assured accelerated development, growth and all-inclusive progress. Ndi Anambra long for that day when a tried, proven and accomplished technocrat like Prof. Soludo would take charge of affairs at Agu Awka to unleash the long-suppressed potentials of Ndi Anambra and effectively undertake that pivotal role of galvanizing home-grown, people-centric leadership, social cohesion, popular awakening/interest in governance, and holistic development of Anambra State.
Sixtly, no other contender comes near him comparatively in attainments. Anambra State has essentially all it takes to achieve breathtaking transformation like the UAE has shown humanity. Prof. Soludo has been involved extensively in political and developmental economics. He has acquitted himself on both the national and global stage. He has seen it all. All that is left is that singular opportunity to have the Executive powers of Anambra State Government to effectually put his endowments to work for Ndi Anambra and Igboland, by extension.
Finally, Prof Soludo comes, in the words of a commentator on him recently, with “…a revolutionary agenda for enthroning a politics of development in Anambra”. What more would Ndi Anambra need to blossom to their fullest potentials with Prof. Soludo as Governor ably steering the ship of state to “…a new economy that will make Anambra the Igbo’s epicenter for a developmental economy” in fidelity to its title as ‘The Light of the Nation’.
Of course, I am not oblivious of his critics who say that he is not a core politician in the Nigerian context and as such may not succeed in office as Governor. My response to that has always been that one does not necessarily have to be a core politician in order to be a good leader. In any case, how well has any State in Nigeria fared under the leadership of the so-called core politicians? The jury is still out on that.
I know civil aviation is close to your heart. Where do you see travel and tourism in Anambra with the State’s new Airport?
You are quite correct in that observation. Civil aviation is a very interesting but largely untapped industry in Nigeria presently. It is a very strategic industry that has serious economic-catalytic effects in birthing new businesses and evolving an economy of its own. The concept of an airport-city; Aerotropolis originated from the business-facilitating utility of airports as seen in cities like Hamburg in Germany, Amsterdam in Holland and Dubai in UAE.
I know so because I worked in the foremost Aviation Ground Handling Company in Nigeria for many years, and in multiple competencies and deployments too. Those engagements afforded me a lot of travel opportunities locally and offshore, and the benefits of observing first-hand, how civil aviation grows an economy. Additionally, I have professional certifications in IATA-approved Courses both locally and offshore in Station/Ground Handling Management, and also in the industry’s Standard Ground Handling Agreement (SGHA), and the Service Level Agreement (SLA). These two documents are the foundational, legal contractual documents that guide a Carrier and its Ground Handler in their respective obligations in civil aviation operations anywhere in the world.
The main occupation of Ndi Anambra is business. I mean, commerce in its entirety whether in retail, distribution, manufacturing, importation, exportation, agriculture and sundry technical works. Civil aviation is a prime booster of commerce, travels and tourism. Anambra State has a lot of untapped tourist destinations like the Ogbunike Cave, the Igbo-Ukwu archeological sites and its copper/alloy works, the stunning waterfront locations in Anam, Aguleri and Otuocha axis with its rice-cultivation, fishing and marine resources industry, the famous iron works of Awka and environs, amongst others. I foresee a major proliferation of tourism and its affiliated hospitality businesses in Anambra State soon.
The strategic utility of the new Airport at Umueri will be manifest in the years ahead. In a few short years, Ndi Anambra would still be thankful to the current Governor, Dr Willie Obiano for siting and delivering such a transformative infrastructure to the State. It is also no surprise that Prof. Soludo very strongly supported and encouraged the Anambra State Government to actualise the Airport even in the face of orchestrated opposition and ignorant criticisms of the project. The benefits to a commercially-inclined people like Ndi Anambra of having a good airport to support and facilitate their commerce, industry and tourism can only be imagined but certainly not disputed by any well-informed and exposed person.