Death sentence will curb corruption in Nigeria –Ahmad

Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Justice, Dr. Ali Ahmad

Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Justice, Dr. Ali Ahmad, spoke with SUCCESS NWOGU on a variety of contemporary national issues

The House is currently considering a bill on cyber crime, otherwise called Yahoo Yahoo bill? What is it all about?

The bill was sponsored by Aisha Ahmed. She is from Adamawa State and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party. The bill is on cyber crime mainly. It criminalises unlawful access to communication, misuse of computer, lik e cutting data and all sources of interference, including cyber-terrorism.

We are also looking at the definition of a computer, because now, a single gadget has many applications. So, the definition of a computer has to be robust. We are liaising with the Nigerian Bar Association, the computer societies in Africa and in Nigeria to come up with a robust definition of the computer. All the gadgets, whatever you use, if you interfere unlawfully with communication or have unlawful access to somebody’s information or you alter data, the law will catch up with you.

Have you got input from stakeholders?

We have a lot of input from stakeholders. We invited people who are knowledgeable and relevant to the bill; security agencies, the Bench and many other knowledgeable organisations and individuals made great input to the bill. By the time the bill comes out, we are giving a notice to cyber criminals that any one that commits such a crime will be prosecuted.

You mean the public hearing was helpful?

It was actually very helpful. You see people always blame the legislature when a law is passed. The legislature does not make draconian laws. We are not people who will just sit down and cook up some laws. The legislature responds to the events in the society and we now come to Nigerians to make responses. So, if the responses are robust, it will also affect the quality of the laws.

So, you are saying that for a good bill to be enacted into law, there is the need for the people’s input?

Yes! And the National Assembly always advertises and calls people to attend public hearings and make contributions. But you find out that many Nigerians do not respond to such issues as expected. If there is no monetary benefit for them, they are not interested. My appeal to Nigerians is that when they see any bill they should offer some good input.

What is your view about making corruption a capital offence?

I believe that the death sentence should be introduced for specific crimes in Nigeria. In our country, corruption has become our most problematic issue. So, if the death sentence can curb it, I do not see why it should not be introduced. If someone is guilty of an offence and such a person has gone through all the norms and court processes; from the court of first instance to the  Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court in which case there would not be any mistake  in the conviction, why not? Remember, it is very hard to convict someone for a capital offence as every ingredient of the matter has to be examined and subjected to reasonable doubt. So, if the person is proven guilty after all these rigorous processes, the person should bear the consequences. You know Nigerians are very corrigible people. Once an example is shown, everybody sits right. But, in fact, the most corrupt Nigerians are civil servants.

Why did you say that civil servants are the most corrupt Nigerians?

President Goodluck Jonathan acknowledged that. He said that there are even some civil servants who own more houses than Dangote. Look at most of the houses in Abuja, they (civil servants) own them. Go and check their bank accounts. It is very clear.

So, what has been preventing the anti-graft agencies from probing into these areas?

Anti-graft agencies cannot alone tackle corruption in Nigeria. It is bigger than them. It is what all stakeholders, including the President, governors, ministers, everybody should be involved in. We have about 50 agencies. How can the EFCC go after them all in one year?

If the federal ministries decide to tackle corruption in their areas, a lot will be achieved. They even do not have to go through prosecution. There are civil service rules. We mention EFCC and ICPC every time. I do not believe that these two agencies alone can tame corruption in Nigeria.

There were allegations of human rights abuses during the subsidy protests in January 2012. You said your committee would investigate such allegations. What has become of that promise?

We are following it up with the National Human Rights Commission.  The commission is doing a wonderful job. We are liaising with them and some other agencies. I learnt that the police officer that shot and killed someone in Lagos during the period has been sacked but we demand that he be tried. The commission is following up on that.

You will recollect that last month some women were walking on the streets of Abuja and were rounded up by military personnel. The women alleged that they were raped even though the military claimed that they were prostitutes. We worked with the rights commission and those military men were dismissed from service. But we have demanded that the culprits be tried and not just dismissed.

Is your committee considering other things?

Yes, we are investigating the allegation of cover-up by the police levelled by the Edo State Governor (Adams Oshiomhole) over the murder of his former principal private secretary (Olaitan Oyerinde). We will do the investigative hearing in public and I want to assure Nigerians that we will do a very thorough job.

Some people believe that legislators do not utilise their

constituency funds substantially for their constituents. There is also the belief that lawmakers don’t embark on real constituency projects; rather, that they pocket much of the money.

That is impossible. I have not seen any legislator that will pocket such money. In fact, the current challenge that the legislators are having is that, those of us that are professionals are thinking seriously on how we can be legislating and be doing other things that will earn us more money. If that happens, you will discover that we will not have sufficient time for the work of legislation. Even now, the time is not enough; we still have so much work to do.

There are seven stages for the passage of a bill in the House of Representatives and same in the Senate. So, in four years, you will see that a few bills will pass those 14 stages.

That belief cannot be true. If a lawmaker goes home frequently, his constituency fund can never be enough for him. Sometimes, we even come home with some loans so that we can take care of our constituents, who are in dire need of assistance.

Except for the need to shore up your finances, will engaging in part-time legislation not affect the quality of laws made?

It depends on what Nigerians want. You now have full-time law-makers, and you still do not have sufficient time to pass bills. It is not that they are not working but because of the processes and enormity of the bills. If you now have part-time legislators, then you know what you get. My personal experience is that if you have part-time legislatures, it will be cheaper for governance but it might tell on the quality of work that we do. You know we have to legislate, engage in oversight functions and do other things.

What is your view about the ongoing constitution review?

It is going on and is on sure footing. The only way we can say we are moving towards a people’s constitution is what we are doing now. The report will be out. It will be made in a transparent manner.

People say, ‘give us a referendum.’ You have over 300 sections in the constitution and in the template that we have, we only took about 35. So, you can see that these are the issues that we deliberated upon.

Now, nobody has come to tell us how to do the referendum, who will do the referendum, who are the people that are going to choose the issues and what issues are going to be addressed. Through the exercise, maybe another session will take up some issues and address them. But if you consider all these 300 sections in a referendum and say people should vote, if you voted ‘yes,’ you have voted yes for all the sections. If you said ‘no,’ you have said no to everything.

What are the major bills before the House?

A lot of bills are now before the House. We have the Whistle blower Bill; the Violence Against Women Bill, which hopefully, will be passed very soon. We also have the Pipeline Vandalism Bill, on which we held very fruitful public hearing. These are some of the bills we hope to pass before the end of this year.

How far about the Petroleum Industry Bill?

PIB will be passed definitely. The House of Representatives is keen on the passage of the bill. When the grey areas are addressed, I am sure we will move forward.

PUNCH