The Judiciary Isn’t Nigeria’s Biggest Problem, Politicians Are — Prince Adebayo

International lawyer and former presidential candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has weighed in on the contentious role of the judiciary in Nigeria’s democracy, the structural flaws in the nation’s electricity laws, and the uncertain future of opposition politics. In this interview with TITILOPE JOSEPH, he challenges the notion that the judiciary is the greatest threat to democracy, but instead points fingers at desperate politicians who manipulate the system. Excerpts:

How would you assess the role of the judiciary in shaping electoral out­comes? Considering Atiku Abubakar’s assertion that the biggest problem of democracy is the judiciary?

I wouldn’t say the judiciary is the biggest problem of democ­racy. The biggest problem of democracy is the politicians be­cause they are the ones that rig elections. They are the ones that file petitions. The judiciary is just intervening. Of course, it is un­fortunate for the judiciary that on many occasions, they have not been able to do their own part but they are not the main cause. The main cause is that the political class is full of desperate people who don’t want to win fair and square, and who do not want to accept even when they lose fair and square, and they use all kinds of methods. So, the judge that is a good judge is the one that gives judgment in their favour. The one that doesn’t give judgment in their favour is a bad judge. But, the issue we need to deal with is the fact that the Nigerian elec­torate need to understand that they are the makers of people in power and that however boring it may seem, they need to listen more to what politicians are say­ing and what they want to do and they should resist the temptation of selling their votes. I know it is very difficult because of the economic situation. But if they don’t sell their votes and vote in an enlightened way, they will be able to have a government that will work for them. It is a work in progress. Democracy takes time but you must do the work which is that as a good citizen, you must understand the power of votes; you must listen and we that are in politics must go around. I have done 4000 kilometres going from Katsina to Jigawa and other plac­es trying to talk to people and I think we might be able to show to the world and the Nigerian people that we still have patriots in this country. And President Tinubu will be highly surprised by the time 2027 comes and he will be grateful that he served, but I think he should be preparing for a handover note.

The President signed an Act to de­centralise the electricity market, yet only about 27 out of 36 states have taken it up. What legal or structural issues could be hindering full imple­mentation?

They are decentralising the market but what I am saying generally is for them to make the power available. Even if there are statistics of capturing power, they are not capturing the investments that private people are making.

They are not looking at it from the social service point of view; they are looking at it like creat­ing a market for product. The only problem they have is that the product they are creating a perfect market does not exist.

They went to Tanzania looking for $35 billion, but do you know how much money Nigerians spend on their own? So, we can actually plan the market better.”

There are international litigations con­cerning some hydro-power projects. How do legal disputes over power in­vestments affect Nigeria’s electricity capacity?

I think the government should do more in terms of investing pub­lic money in core areas and the way we have relied too much on the national grid; the engineering requirements of the national grid are too technical for the people in the ministry to manage. So, we should do it the other way round. The grid is cheaper if it works but I think that micro grates and cap­tain systems are more manageable and more reliable. And they need to also work on the excessive bu­reaucracy that they operate.

Some of the monkey busi­nesses they are doing with new hydro-powers like some of the ones that are now in controversy in various courts internationally, if the investments had been made in some of these power stations, by now capacity would have gone up and we won’t be having litigations.

You talked about not politicising it; do you fear that Nigeria might become a one-party state or is it already be­coming a one-party state?

I don’t think so. The problem with politics is that the elite are the same. They feed off one an­other.

….That’s including you?

Yes, mostly, the elite are the same; we just have to make a dif­ference. The elite have the same political belief. They disagree as to sharing positions and all of that, but we are trying to bring core ideological differences. It is difficult to pretend to be different when you are not different and that is why it looks like there is no opposition because when you believe in the same thing and ro­tate position in government, you behave the same way. You will see that President Tinubu is behav­ing like former President Jona­than whom he liked to really op­pose and sponsor protests against but he is Jonathan times 10. So, you will see that they behave in the same way. What he was pro­testing for against Jonathan, he is doing even far more than Jon­athan did.

The removal of subsidy, for ex­ample, and so many other things like the issue of accountability is part of what he is also doing.

What I am bringing out is the fact that the Nigerian political elite are not different. There is one single tendency and because there is one single tendency, even when they are in different polit­ical parties, it is easy for them to cross over from one party to the other or remain in their own party and sabotage it to work for another party because there is no real difference between them and until we have real difference, we won’t see that distinction.

Nigerians are lamenting the lack of virile opposition parties in the country and here you are talking about sabo­tage; what do you make of the popular view that there is no virile opposition party in Nigeria?

What I can say is that all par­ties that are not in government are regarded as opposition but the dynamics of Nigerian politics is not that way. Many of these par­ties are supposed to be in coali­tion. In fact, technically speaking, PDP and APC are in coalition.

Could you shed more light on what you meant by “Technically in coalition”?

A foremost leader of the PDP is a strong minister in the ad­ministration of the APC and not only did he go there in his private capacity, he got the clearance of his party, the PDP, to go and be a minister under the APC govern­ment. You can’t get that kind of clearance from the SDP’s NWC; they can’t give you that.

Second, we are not angry or displeased with the PDP, but the fact remains that if you look at the PDP’s policies, they resem­ble that of the APC. So, it is good for them to try to work together. What will happen is that in the near future, ideology will be the acid test to know which party is in opposition because Nigerians don’t like to be duped.

Yes, there should be a coalition, but that coalition should lead to collision. Any coalition that does not lead to collision is not a coa­lition, because what you want to do is to coalesce all the opposition parties so that they can oppose or collide with the ruling party. But if you look more like the ruling party, why will I be in coalition with you? So, there must be an ideological convergence.

What we in SDP are trying to do with some other partners is that we are trying to have a consensus re­garding how governance should be done. We are not interested in gang­ing up to remove one person… To be against an individual is not an ideo­logical framework. You must agree on what to do with power; what you will do with the constitution, rule of law, public expenditure and rev­enues, what are the priorities in government and all those things.