Peter Adebayo Omolope Olorunisola is one of the oldest Senior Advocates of Nigeria in Kwara State whose voice on legal issues commands respect. In this interview with KAYODE ADEOTI, he speaks on some likely factors impeding the efforts of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in its fight against corruption among other sundry issues. Excerpts:
Almost every day, there are complaints in court from farmers over the invasion and destruction of their farms produce by herdsmen and their cattle, would you advice the Kwara state government to enact anti grazing law…?
The policy to enact that law is government matter. If it feels the situation warrants it, it will determine it. But for now, I don’t think there is any pressing need to have the law here, and from my observation, we’ve not had any serious conflict as they have in Benue, Plateau and elsewhere even in Ekiti state that experienced it at a time, it is still not as pronounced as that of the northern parts of the country. So, the government might not have seen its necessity if we’ve not been having influx of it. When the need arises, I believe government will be up to the task. We don’t just make law for fancy sake but to guard a situation.
What is your take on the government’s decision over the issue of former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Madueke who was accused of corruption?
Situation of Diezani Madueke, I don’t understand it, my legal knowledge has not risen to that level. When an accuse person will dictate where he or she wishes to be tried. Are they trying her for the same offence with that of Nigeria in the UK? If she had done what contravened their laws over there, she will be tried there. The law stipulates that you try a person where the offense is committed. In that place, they could be trying her for money laundering into their territory. How can she be accused of money laundering abroad and expects to be tried in Nigeria. It is a matter of jurisdiction. Also, why she wanted to be tried here, we cannot speculate, all I can say is that it’s unheard of to say, compel someone to come and try me in its territory.
Government has moved to confiscate Osborne Tower building in Ikoyi, Lagos state where billions of naira was recovered through whistle blower some months ago, does that mean, identity of the owner (s) of the building cannot be…?
(Cuts in)…The government doesn’t know who owns it, that is why they go to court and got order of temporary forfeiture. Whoever owes it should come forward in 14days. If no one has the courage to come to claim it, then, it becomes government property.
(Cut in…) Are you of the opinion that it cannot be traced even with the advancement in our technology?
In Nigeria, we know too much laws, and that is why we get confused about so many things. We are complaining about trials. The laws says, if a property is used for crime, you can temporarily seized it and let whoever owes it come forward and claim it instead of looking around for what is not there. The owner must bring documents. We cannot be playing hide and seek game for the prosecutor who will never know where they are hiding documents. And if no one comes, it means, it’s a no man’s land.
Now to our anti graft agencies, following their efforts in the fight against corruption, would you condemn or commend them?
I commend them, the difference between the French and the Anglo system is that, the onus is on whoever accuses to prove its case, in this wise, the prosecutor has to go and find all the evidences relating to the matter and bring them to court so that all the witnesses, the documents will have to be proven by the prosecutor. The problem is, even when the prosecutor has gathered all these, what about the technical way of presenting them in court? The judge might look at the documents based on the argument from the other counsel and throw them out, there are certain procedures that must be followed before documents are sought to be tendered. Is it registered or stamped? And as far as the matter is concerned, those documents are germane. What about when you’ve seen the documents, somebody steals it or destroys it? Or, when you bring a witness to court and you’ve both agreed on what he or she will say but it changed; you don’t know what could have happened between that time and the time of evidence. The opponent may have reached out to him, subtly, ‘testify or die’ that is why witnesses will get to court in some cases and start behaving like he or she is mad or deaf, something has happened… These are some of the things that make it difficult for EFCC to succeed. Sometimes, when the lower court agrees on its evidences, they could get to the upper court and the story would change. The upper court might see some lapses in the evidences, then throw the matter out. These are some of the things ordinary person doesn’t understand and invariably weakens the effort of the EFCC.
