My Encounters with Buhari, Obasanjo, Abacha as Appeal Court President – Justice Abdullahi

•  I was shocked when Buhari joined politics
  
•  Saraki has the right to seek legal protection from other courts against CCT
  
•  There’s need to separate office of AGF from Minister of Justice

How did you study law when during your childhood, many people were sceptical about western education?
In my extended family we have always been judicial officers and education is the backbone of the family. You cannot be a judicial officer without knowledge. We started schooling in my family early with the Quranic school before we were enrolled in primary school in Katsina and then to Provincial Secondary School in Katsina.
I finished secondary education in 1951 and secured admission into School of Advanced Studies or Abdullahi Bayero College (ABC) when it was an extension of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) and later it was renamed Bayero University, Kano (BUK) where I did my Higher School Certificate Examination (HSC).
I then went to Zaria and enrolled in a legal course designed by Northern Nigerian Government to produce Nigerian lawyers in preparation for Independence.  The one-year programme commenced with young students and civil servants and the condition to go to the United Kingdom for further studies was that one must write and pass examination monthly.
Out of about 40, only seven passed and the northern government gave adequate support to Nigerian students in University of London and London College of Law and other colleges. I passed the law examination in the UK and I was called to the English Bar in November 1966. Before then northern students were   being monitored by the government. Our progress was of much interest to the government and by the time we completed the programme, preparation was made for us to go to the Nigerian Law School.
But I came back to Nigeria in December 1966 while the season in Nigerian Law School had commenced in September, so I and three others couldn’t join and had to wait till the next intake.  We were posted to various places. I was posted to the Attorney General’s chamber in Kaduna from 1966 to 1967. After that I went to Law school. When I finished, I came back to Kaduna and was appointed Pupil State Counsel and Attorney General of North Central State.
What was the reaction of your family and the community when you decided to study English Law, as many people had the notion at the time that it was anti-Islam?
I come from Unguwan Alkalai (Judges’ Quarters) in Katsina and the people of Katsina have been progressives as they welcome education a lot. Besides, the issue of Bokoko a wuta (learn western education and duel in hell fire) had subsided and people had started sending their children to school. When we were in secondary school, General Muhammadu Buhari (now president) and General Shehu Musa Yar’adua (now late) and I enrolled in the cadet corps as we aspired to build our careers in the military.
Because my father was a judge and was very often on transfer, he left me under the care of my guardian Alkali (Judge) Ibrahim Maudu who was a provincial judge and who asked me what I wanted to do and I replied I wanted to join the military. He queried why I was interested and said I should maintain the family tradition – judicial work. When I told my principal Mr. E.C. Patience that I wouldn’t go into the military, he said military career was good and I told him my uncle had rejected it. The principal knew some friends of my guardian, like my cousin, the late Hassan Rafindadi who was the councillor for education in Katsina and a close confidant.
My principal asked him why my guardian wanted me to go to law school in Kano and he was told that the stand of my guardian was final and that the principal should forget about me going to join the military. My principal did not relent as he went and complained to Dan Malam, Sarkin Tsafta who was the councillor for health and he also repeated that the family would not allow me to join the military. My principal gave up and that was how I went to the university.
The chairman of the scholarship board that interviewed you asked that you take a bow while others were given close scrutiny. Why?
The late Alhaji Abubakar Imam was the chairman of the scholarship board and had as his deputy Danburam Jada and Alhaji Gwandu. When I presented myself, Abubakar Imam who knew my family said, “You want to join the family?” I said, yes sir. He told the others about me and they said, “Take a bow and leave.” That’s how I was selected to attend the course. Two people were selected from each of the 12 provinces, making 24 students. The lecturers were from the UK. We sat for a test every month and those that passed, seven out of the 24, went to London.
How did you start your law practice?
When I returned from the UK I was employed as a pupil state counsel in Kaduna for about a year and a half and I was converted and made a magistrate for four years and sent back to the Ministry of Justice as principal state counsel for one year and then to the judiciary as acting chief registrar of the High Court and made a chief registrar and in 1975 when General Murtala Mohammed (late) came to power and Group Captain Usman Jibrin of blessed memory became military governor (of defunct North Central State with capital in Kaduna), he made me his attorney general from 1975 to 1977.
I was later appointed judge from 1977 to 1983 when I was elevated to the Court of Appeal in Jos. From 1983 to 1987 when Katsina State was created, the Chief Justice of the Federation Muhammad Bello (late) and the President of the Court of Appeal Mamman Nasir, both from Katsina State like me, decided that we needed a sound person to develop the judiciary. (So, I got a transfer to Kastina State to assist in setting up the state judiciary).
It was a lower rank but I cherished it as it was a home-state service for four years where I  built some courts and appointed some judges and when I felt the judiciary was stable I went back to the Court of Appeal in 1992. I was in Lagos, Enugu, Kaduna 1996 to 1999 and that was the year I was appointed president of the Court of Appeal by General Abdusalami Abubakar until when I retired in 2009 after reaching the retirement age of 70.
How did you reform the Court of Appeal to ease the adjudication of appeal cases from distant places?
When I became president of the Court of Appeal, I realized that there were so many deficiencies. Retiring judges were leaving the official vehicle they used for incoming judges to continue using, which was very unfair. 
So I told the Chief Justice that when a judge was about to retire, I would change his vehicle with a new one, so that he could retire without having to worry about getting a car. Then I built court complexes as I realized that there were some shortages. I tried my bit to build court complexes in Jos, Illorin, Sokoto and so on. I improved the one in Kaduna and then I realized that the people of Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kebbi were coming to Kaduna to pursue their appeals and the people mostly had no contacts or relations to stay with.
They would be stranded and would sleep in the court mosque. I said I must build the court in Sokoto to ease their trouble. And people of the northeast – Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe – were all coming to Jos which is too far. Some people had to forego their right of appeal because it was too far to travel. So, I decided to build another court in Borno and another one in Adamawa and I devised a means of solving the heavy load of cases in Benue.
Benue and later Nasarawa all had to come to Jos and I decided to open a division in Benue.  Before then I organized a team of judges to go and stay for weeks to clear some of the appeals before returning to their various divisions.  That was how I eased the burden of the people who filed for appeal of their cases from lower courts.
Someone attempted to frustrate your effort to build the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja despite a provision for it in the master-plan. Who was the person?
This is a very interesting story. The Court of Appeal was given a place in Area 3 in Abuja and I think a customary court of appeal near tax office which was crammed up. We tried to do some extensions but the place was small compared to the workload increasing by the day and lawyers were coming from all over the place and I said we needed a place to suit us. And when we looked at the Abuja master-plan there is a place clearly written Court of Appeal, adjacent Police headquarters and I started the process and had the cooperation of the National Assembly.
We produced the design, the plan and then the job was advertised and the contractor was selected. When the contractor started mobilizing to site, in the midnight ‘somebody’ started placing huge boulders at the site and the contractor was driven away by armed security people and when I started making enquiries I was told that the court was directly behind the house of Vice President Atiku Abubakar and when I enquired from him, he said he had nothing to do with it. 
I queried that if ‘they’ allowed the police who have guns to build a six-storey building, why not a court? One day during a court session a lawyer said we should look for another place and I said no somebody would stop us even though we may suffer. Senior Advocate Afe Babalola came to me and said he could make an arrangement for us to see the President and he booked an appointment and told me and I invited judges in Abuja Division and the chief registrar and the chief consultant, making eight of us.
We went to President Olusegun Obasanjo. I told him our problem was in the Presidency. I was very upset and I told him that I looked for explanation but I could not get it and one powerful ‘somebody’ was doing this, and he said he would argue with the ‘somebody’ about that. I showed him the master-plan.
He said when you get back to the office drop a note to me in reference to our discussion. I was told to go and look for another place between Bullet Construction office near Federal Secretariat and I said no. I was told to go to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Muhammad Uwais said no way.
Fortunately for me Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai who was made minister of Abuja was a defender of the master-plan. El-Rufai said he was not going to look for any land for the Court of Appeal since he had been demolishing many buildings of land encroachers because they violated the master-plan. He insisted that he would not disobey the master-plan and eventually the ‘somebody’ gave in. I was in my chambers when the minister walked in and said, “Good afternoon, sir.
Go and build on your site,” and he left. I followed him and said thank you, minister.  He is the one person who solved my problem from ‘somebody’ high up. He stuck out his neck, disobeying Obasanjo. I appreciate him and the court was built and late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua commissioned it and that is one of my main legacies.
What caused the friction between you and the late General Sani Abacha on Chief MKO Abiola?
This is another thing I hardly talk about. Abacha is dead. The late Abiola was granted bail and the bail condition was tough and his lawyer late GKO Ajayi was my lecturer in law school and the respect was that of lecturer-student relationship, and his student had risen to that level.
They filed for the bail condition to be reviewed and they argued that it was taking too long. They said they were coming for reference to the Court of Appeal and MKO was in Port Harcourt and he was brought back to Kaduna Prison and arranging for application for bail bond and I said why not in Abuja the headquarters where he was?
They said he had been transferred to Kaduna Prison and they filed for bail. The present Chief Justice Mahmud Muhammed was with me in Kaduna and another one that retired and I consulted them. They said we should look, that if they met the condition Abiola should be granted bail as he was within our jurisdiction.
The Ministry of Justice and SAN Ajayi came and argued and we wrote a considerate ruling and granted him bail. We didn’t knowing that the head of state was not happy and when I heard it, I said we did our work. But after a while people said we should go and see Abacha, but I declined because I did my job. He later saw reason and we restored relationship before he died.
How is your relationship with your childhood friend and now president, Muhammadu Buhari?
School life builds some permanent relationships between mates and we grew like brothers. In my school, Government College Katsina in 1956, we met people like Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji, Shehu Malami, Mamman Argungu who retired as the auditor general of the federation.
There was Imam from Gusau, Jumare from Zaria who died in an auto accident, as well as numerous other students from all parts of the North. I don’t know how we allowed these unity schools to go haywire and we say we want to build a nation, it is a pity. I went to the judiciary, Ibrahim Commassie joined the police and Muhammadu Buhari and Shehu Musa Yar’adua made it to the military and became generals.
Did Buhari consult with you when he wanted to go into politics?
We are close and I used to visit him and we stayed for hours in Kaduna and when he moved to Daura. One afternoon I went to Daura and we had lunch together and Alhaji Wada Nas of blessed memory came in and we greeted and I said I am going and left them, but I know Buhari never liked Nigerian politics as he condemned it and never talked about it. But some weeks later I started hearing Buhari was going into politics. It is not bad in itself as it is better to have somebody who will put things right.
He might have been convinced to change his mind and if he doesn’t come in people will not do what he wants done and maybe that is why he jumped into politics and God knows better. I know Buhari’s resilience and when he makes up his mind about something he goes for it. This is how he can contribute. Look at what is happening today. We need his resilience to culminate into good for the nation and we wish him well.
Why is it that when military takes over government which is unconstitutional, they bring in the Chief Justice who is the custodian of the constitution to swear them in? Do they force the Chief Justice into such exercise?
No, no, no. Nigeria is a country and it has laws and the military would announce after coups that they have suspended the constitution and the judiciary is the only one of the three arms intact.
We call it legal state of illegitimate action as the country must proceed and the function of the judiciary is to make sure there is stability and if the Chief Justice refuses to do that what will follow is anarchy. When there are two evils, the option is to take the lesser one. This is what has been happening.
Why have many chief justices – Muhammad Bello, Muhammad Lawal Uwais, Alpha Belgore, Aloysius Katsina Alu, Dahiru Musdapher, Maryam Aloma Muktar and now Mahmud Muhammad; as well as presidents of the Court of Appeal –  Mamman Nasir, Umar Abdullahi, Ayo Salami, and Zainab Bulkachuwa – come from the North?
When we came to serve in the civil service, we were young and some of us from the south went to practise privately and made money and they just squeezed back into the judiciary towards the end of their career. And after some few years they reached the age of retirement and they go while we were growing, so it is not by any design. 
How can Nigerian courts graduate from using analogue to digital system of proceedings?
When I was in office there was an attempt to digitalize our judiciary as our foreign partners in America came with a lot of proposals and seminars and invited us to go over to USA and train, all geared towards digitalizing the judiciary. But the process is capital intensive as what the partners would produce would not be enough. Nigeria is a very big country with large number of judges. 
Some courts were directed to do some savings but it was difficult because we tried to install some machines for dicta-phone to record proceedings and so on but the training was not proficient enough and the machines had some problems and the issue of transparency was a problem as you have to rely on the supporting-staff and you never know what the staff can do with your court proceedings and lawyers’ arguments and so on.
Addresses were recorded and the machines had to be reproduced and something could go wrong that would lead to a lot of damage. Because of the sheer number and the classification of federal and state judges as some of the states where at one time not funding their judiciary until the federal government took over the payment of salaries and allowances. State judges had no houses and cars while the courts were in shambles.
Imagine who cannot pay salaries and allowances, how can he pay money for gadgets? But now the federal courts are much better as the Abuja Federal High Courts are modern compared to those of other states. We want it but hopefully the younger ones will put it in place.
What in your view led to the open attacks between Justice Katsina-Alu and your successor Justice Ayo Salami versus others?
When I was in office I consulted with the Chief Justice and my colleagues. I think the issue was due to lack of consultation. I worked under Chief Justice Uwais, Belgore and Katsina-Alu and we never had any disagreement.  I think the approach to things was the bane, because if there was cooperation this would not have happened. But each one took a position and it boiled into a big issue which engulfed the legal profession and the judiciary.
 Even as a judge you still believe in out-of-court settlement?
I believe in it as even our law has provision for mutual settlement of dispute; that is why we have Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
How did you feel as a judge when your childhood friend Muhammadu Buhari was in your court challenging the election of former President Olusegun Obasanjo?
My position was that of a judge and he was a candidate and I relied on what his lawyers brought before me and that is what I would use and what the other judges and lawyers would use. I was not the only one, we were five and I couldn’t take decisions personally as we sat down and held conference and decided which way to go. I could not tell any of the judges to change his mind because Buhari is my friend as one of the judges would also say Obasanjo is his friend. There is nothing really about it, only that some people will make issue of it.
How did you plan for your retirement or are you the traveling type?
Only the rich travel. I don’t have money. But once in a while I travel. I planned and retired to agriculture as I acquired a large land and my thinking at that time was to develop an orchard as I come from Katsina which is a desert-prone environment. My consultant Dr Kabir Yan-Mama who is an expert in Jatropa plant or ‘Bini dazugu’ in Hausa language which is a very useful plant as the seeds can be processed with the right machines to produce diesel.
And I am producing diesel for the generators in my farm, house and family compound in Katsina.  I made some research work and with the help of some advisers I started producing other by-products for soap, spray, hair and body oil and candle and so on.
We taught the women around the farm how to produce the by-product and within a short time they mastered the technique and when the husbands discovered that the women were making gains they rushed and joined. It was very successful and I concentrated my time on it.
Did any ministry, department or agency (MDA) come to you for partnership?
Somebody came from an MDA, maybe it was SMEDAN through my consultant but I told him that I don’t want anybody to come and dictate what I should do. They later said we were going to organize a workshop and after we had fixed a date, somebody wrote that his boss was away and we needed to wait and I told them to forget about it.
What is your advice to President Muhammadu Buhari on judicial reform?
Judicial reform, yes; as every institution needs reform from day to day. I want him to make state governments take full responsibility for their judiciary. Section 121, sub-section 3 of the constitution says every year state judiciary should submit their budget to the state houses of assembly and whatever money is prescribed should be handed to the heads of courts. Some state governments are refusing to comply and that is why court facilities are dilapidated and they don’t pay salary, which leads to industrial actions by Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN).
The state governments just throw what they want to the judiciary and staff are lacking training. I know he cannot force them to do this, but he can persuade them. I think when there is funding, computerization will be easy as they will be able to buy equipment and undergo training. That is one way of modernizing the judiciary.
The other thing is the judiciary is trying to ensure that good quality materials are appointed as judges. The judiciary is introducing new system of reforms also as interviews are conducted before we appoint judges.
Before the new development, we would just receive lists from the state as the governors bring in lists after they had decided on who is appointed a judge and who is not. But the judiciary would now not allow governors’ lists. Whoever wants to become a judge, he must face a panel of interviewers and the purpose is to make sure that only those who are really prepared for the job are taken. The wisdom is that it is easier to deny a would-be-judge entry than to remove one. 
Another established system of assessing performance is each judge must write six judgments in three months. This speeds up trial. Nobody cared before as some did not write anything and got paid for doing nothing. It is not fair to the society. And one area I want action upon is the administration of criminal justice system. I think our criminal justice system has crumbled in this country as there are many people on awaiting trial.
An accused person is brought to court and sent to prison looking healthy and by the time he comes out he looks scrubby and ill and if he went in as a petty thief, he comes out as an armed robber. This needs to be addressed as it affects the constitutional and fundamental human rights of people Lumping people into jail for whatever purpose for years is wrong. There is an expansion and prevalence of offences and police must arrest, but the process of arresting among others is cumbersome.
There should be demarcation of responsibility. I remember when I was a state counsel when we related with the police very well. We would even go on assignments from Kaduna to Zaria and Kafanchan with prosecutors and police investigators and study the witnesses, give instructions and cases were moving and all of a sudden that collapsed. Police administration is not my area but posting of police personnel should be reconsidered.
There is no need to take a police man from Akwa Ibom and transfer him to Katsina as that has taken away fifty percent of his capability because he doesn’t even understand the language of the people to aid him to collect any information. If a person investigating a criminal case and relating to Ministry of Justice is transferred to Katsina or Oshogbo, how can you bring him back to give evidence? Maybe that is why people are craving for state police and some are against it as it was misused before. But I think we have moved far from that place for any local authority to use the police for selfish means.
If you cannot have a state police get people from a locality to work there as it would boost their locality and make them more competent in information gathering and things like that. The commissioner and his deputy can come from anywhere but the middle cadre should be from the area. If we do that our present security threat will reduce. I think the present system is not helping matters.
What is your view on the call for the separation of the office of the attorney general and minister of justice?
I think it is a good call. I think it is a new. Attorney general is a professional post as I was one myself and I know what it means as you are the chief legal officer of the state. The minister or commissioner of justice is a lawyer and a politician. He understands the mechanism of the law. He can carry whatever complaint the judiciary has because the judiciary has no seat in the executive cabinet but the minister is there and a lot of improvement would be achieved. 
How did you feel when Justice Mohammed Talba sentenced an assistant director in the Police Pension Office, Mr. John Yakubu Yusuf, to two years imprisonment or a fine of N750,000 for conniving with others to defraud  the Police Pension office and pensioners of N27.2bn?
I don’t want to name names but even the National Judicial Commission (NJC) was not happy about it. When we look at all the pros and cons it is not entirely the fault of the judge. But we blamed the judge because as a judicial officer he should have taken an unambiguous position. What he said before the ruling did not tally with the ruling.
He said people like this are the ones who are destroying the country and all sorts of things and at the end he came out with this paltry funny thing. EFCC also contributed because they framed the charges and a judge has no right to interfere with the charge you brought. He is there to listen to you. They have a section under the EFCC law which has provided for much stiffer punishment. They did not use that section but that of the penal code.
Penal code provides for summary trial and the punishment obviously is very low. In fact, the section has options that when you are imposing fine you can impose both sentence of prison and fine, or you impose prison (alone) or the last provision of fine which is the last one. The justice forgot about the first two and then just picked up the last one and issued a paltry fine. Somebody who stole over a billion and you fine him 750,000! What is that? I don’t know whether it was true or false that when Mr. John Yakubu Yusuf was paying the fine, he paid and told the clerk to keep the change. This is an extraordinary situation.
What is your view on instance of Peter Odili being given not only an injunction but a perpetual injunction status? Is it because his wife is a Supreme Court judge?
I don’t know what gave rise to that. Some people might say it is strange but I don’t want to comment one way or the other because I have not read the proceedings. I don’t know what gave rise to that.
Somebody might say it is strange but I don’t know what really happened. So this is always the problem as people draw conclusion without knowing exactly what happened and has not read the law, seen the evidence or anything but they just jump into conclusion and I don’t want to join them.
We have too many young lawyers now. What is your advice to them?
They have to work hard and stop thinking about the type of car they should drive or house to stay in or the kind of wife to marry. They should concentrate on the work by learning the law first and establishing a direction and knowing you have a purpose for being a lawyer. You have a responsibility for being a lawyer and try to achieve it squarely. As a lawyer you have a special responsibility to the people, to the state, to the judiciary, to yourself and to the general public and you have to weigh this as a lawyer.
Without working hard there is no way you can make it. That is why some of them find it difficult to survive. Because they are lazy they cannot read any more. Once you are a lawyer, reading has become part of your life. And you read anything, not just law as there are other aspects of life you will confront in the legal profession. So you have to be acquainted with all.