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Nigerians converged to honour Kwara Speaker

 

On Thursday in the federal capital city, Abuja, the Speaker of the 8th Kwara State House of Assembly, Dr Ali Ahmad was the cynosure of all eyes at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre as he was honoured with a book presentation for his contribution to the passage of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA). MUMINI ABDULKAREEM was there and filed in this report.

Related scenarios

It was Alhaji Nurudeen AbdulKareem’s (Pseudonym) worst moment in life yet but he had no choice. The country’s law(s) has dealt a cruel blow on him instead of rescuing him out of a vulnerable situation. The Ilorin West Local Government indigene spent 10 years in prison before he was miraculously pardoned by one of the chief judges of Kwara State during a routine prison decongestion exercise. His immediate elder brother was wrongly accused of aiding criminal activities in the area and the police stormed their abode to effect arrest. But fortunately or otherwise, the police met his brother and whisked him away in place of the alleged fugitive. That was how the politician became an inmate until the divine intervention. The rest is now history.

Similarly, Hajia Nusayba, an indigene of Lagos but Kwaran by marriage had another devastating tale to tell. Her Husband was out of the country and she had issues with his family. Now her only son was allegedly wrongly accused by a neighbour and was arrested by the police. As the only child of her mother in an all female family, she went through hell before she could find a male person that was ready to stand for the bail of her son. The police refused her because the law does not permit a woman to stand bail for anybody. Narrating her ordeal then, “her only prayer would be to be able to change the obnoxious law which refused her right to bail her son”.

However, Juliet Salami’s narrative was bloody and she did not live to tell her story. She was relatively pretty and attracted a few eyes in her environment in Egbe, Kogi state. After many failed attempts to woo her, one of his male admirers who was allegedly into cultism threatened to “waste” her in a test message. A week later, her body was found in a pool of her own blood right inside her room in school. After much ado, the case found itself in court. But that message did not suffice as evidence in court to prove her case for the devastated parents. The case is still frustratingly ongoing after over 15 years in court. But that may now be a thing of the past.

Correlation/Background

The above scenarios succinctly explained some of the frustrating experiences many people go through in their quest for justice in a criminal related persecution because of lack of a better legal framework to address many of these issues. But that was before the coming of Dr Ali Ahmad as the Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary in the 7th legislature. Under the new ACJA regime, a woman can stand for someone’s bail, electronic evidence or text message can be admitted in court as evidence, it treats an accuse in a humane nature as a human being and speed up the process of justice, one cannot be arrested in lieu of another person among others which were not hitherto the case with our old laws. It was on this basis that the crème de la crème of the country’s major players, including politicians, captains of industries, judges, Senior Advocates, and students among others gathered to honour him for his contribution to the passage of the ACJA bill.

Why the title

It is against the backdrop of the scenarios earlier painted above at the beginning of this piece that the book “The Challenges of Criminal Justice Administration in Nigeria” printed in Nigeria by Crest Publishers containing eleven chapters and 548 pages in honour of Dr Ali Ahmad was written and designed to celebrate him.

Already tested at the Supreme Court

The ACJA has already started impacting the judicial system and has already been used to decide a case at the Supreme Court. According to Dr Ali Ahmad, who couldn’t hold back tears because of the calibre of guests that thronged the venue, “we have witnessed an equally unprecedented iteration of the ACJA to the Supreme Court five different times within its first two years”. “With the Supreme Court’s decision in Olisah Metu’s Case a few months ago”, which in a landmark ruling that upheld the provisions of Section 306 of the bill and Section 40 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act that prohibit courts in the country from granting stay of proceedings in criminal trials, “the Judiciary is saying nothing is stopping implementation of ACJA.

Nexus between Ali Ahmad and ACJA

According to Professor Maxwell Gidado (reviewer), the bill failed in the 5th and 6th Assemblies and Ali Ahmad was the major missing link. When he surfaced in the 7th assembly, the period when the bill became law, he was the only one as the chairman House Committee on Judiciary that engaged all the team of stakeholders to bring it into reality. As the Speaker of the Kwara Assembly, he has continued to rally support from his speaker colleagues to support the bill and even hosted a three days speaker’s conference retreat in 2016 to enlighten and sensitise his colleagues about the importance of the bill and to accelerate the passage in the state assemblies. He has also been delivering lectures to several bodies and organisations to that effect.

Challenges ahead

But despite all these efforts, only five states including Lagos, Anambra, Imo and Ekiti has adopted ACJA in their domain among the 36 states in the country and it is on the verge of final passage in Kwara after it has gone through second reading and public hearing. Explaining the relational for this, the chairman of the Conference of Speakers who doubles as the Speaker of Kebbi state, Honourable Ismaila Kamba, noted that “during the Kwara conference in 2016, we all resolved to adopt the Act but its unfortunate that only five states has done that. This is due to some due diligence that has to be taken by the Attorney Generals and Commissioner for Justice in the various states”. He therefore “urged them to speed up the due diligence process to adopt the ACJA. Also, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki has tasked the stakeholders to extend same ground breaking legislation in criminal matters to civil matters. According to the honouree, “Yes, ACJA is a breakthrough, but it is only limited to the criminal aspect of the law. We need a similar groundbreaking legislation to address undue delay in civil matters, especially commercial cases. To this, the Senate President has been concerned and has responded positively in specific areas of substantive laws of commerce and doing business in Nigeria. Last year, he asked me; “why can’t we by law or constitution consign all commercial disputes into a mandatory arbitration process only. But I am lucky this time because the Senate President also tasked Professor Paul Idornigie (SAN) with finding a solution to unbearable judicial delays to business dealings.

Domestication or adoption

It was Professor Gidado that also taught the audience that “you don’t domesticate a federal law at a state level the way many of us use it, it is only a treaty or an international instrument that a state wants to domesticate and laws that the National Assembly has passed, you adopt such.

Who said what?

Governor Ahmed: “The bill is very critical to delivering of Justice to the people of Nigeria and certainly this is a milestone which we will adopt in Kwara State. The three arms of government must work together and put national interest first. When we all create the enabling environment through broad interface that will allow us to see areas of differences and adopt new ways of moving things forward. And for the state that has not done it, we advised them to because it will aid in the delivering of justice to the people of Nigeria”.

Toyin Saraki: “I urged the government to within the framework of the administration of criminal justice put in place measures to ensure that every death and birth is accounted for in the country. There was need to protect democracy and support the judiciary and court system because of its important role in sustaining democratic system.

Gov Tambuwwal: We need the prompt enactment of strong legislation to address the proliferation of illegal arms that account for the growing security challenges being experienced. I used this time to propose to the government to first declare a period of amnesty for illegal firearms owners to return such for a fee following which the law should be allowed to take its full course. Ali Ahmad served under my speakership as the chairman of justice and he performed creditably well beyond the imagination of many. There is no segment of the society that is not represented here today from the political class, judiciary, business community, security, armed forces, academia and students.

Na’Allah – Book a major material for our new college of law this year. History is being made here today. This is the first time a single person for a long time in Nigeria will be able to mobiles and effect some major changes that has happened in our criminal law. This is substantial for as one who had served at the council of KWASU when we started. As a university that is starting the college of law, we will benefit in big way with this. It is going to be one of the major materials for our students in the concept of community law we are starting this year.

Sarat Adebayo: The event has signified hope. The honouree during his time at the House of Representatives made a mark that cannot easily be filled. He came, he saw and he conquered with the ACJA bill.

Bayo Ojo: “My close interaction with Ali Ahmad was during his time at 7th Assembly sponsoring several bills, which include ACJA that had been in the works for a very long time. The Bill made up of 480 clauses has positively changed the face of the administration of criminal justice system in Nigeria and has indeed been acclaimed even beyond our shores. Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar described it as a revolution in the administration of criminal justice administration in Nigeria.

Honouree’s lesson/hope

On 13 of May, 2015, a day I will never forget, the Clerk of the National Assembly transmitted the clean Bill to the Villa. Few hours thereafter, Mr. Adoke called that I should inform the Clerk of the National Assembly that the Bill had been assented to. It has never happened before that a 400-clause legislation becomes law in three hours. The lesson that the implementation of the Act teaches me is that good governance will continue to elude Nigeria, if the three arms of government would not agree to cooperate and work in the same direction…Today we are celebrating that spirit of togetherness among stakeholders of the three arms of government. I still believe we need to write more books, especially about law and lawmaking… This is not America but I will one day want to see a book in Nigeria titled: How To Get A Law Passed And Signed In A Few Hours.

Unveiled ‘Secret’?

During the book presentation, many in the audience expressed surprised when they heard that Ali Ahmad was a classmate of Mrs Toyin Saraki at the law school in 1989.

Additional roll call

President of the National Industrial Court, Babatunde Adejumo, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), spokesman for the Nigerian Police who stood for the IGP, Jimoh Moshood, Kwara State Commissioner of Police, Lawan Ado and DG, National Institute for Legislative Studies, Professor Ladi Amalai.

Others include Chairman of House Committee on Justice in the 8th National Assembly, Hon Rasak Atunwa, aide of Senate President, Hon Moshood Mustapha, TIC chairmen of Ilorin South and Asa, Hajia Funmilayo Salau and Alhaji Yinusa Oniboki respectively, House Leader of 8th Kwara Assembly, Hon Hassan Oyeleke, Hon Kamal Fagbemi, Hon Adamu Usman, Hon Moshood Bakare, Hon Funsho Abodunrin and Hon AbdulRasheed Taiwo.

Representatives of Aliko Dangote, Comptroller General of Customs, Hammed Ali, former First Lady, Mrs Maryam Abacha, Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, Chief Judge of Abuja High Court, JAMB Registrar, Is-haq Oloyede, Chief Judge of Kwara State and members of the diplomatic corps among others.

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