WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT NIGERIA’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE: (GET WISE, STAY FREE OF ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS IN NIGERIA) By Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire

PART ONE:

INTRODUCTION: The method and procedure I advanced in this thesis explain two contradictory phenomena. First: when the EFCC or the Nigerian police arrests ex-Governors or highly placed figures, none of them stays more than five days in EFCC cell before being released. Second: when they arrest ordinary or lowly placed people, they could be locked up for up to six months in detention.

The difference is that the ex-Governors could afford expensive lawyers who would normally follow the procedure I recommend here, whereas the average people, if they are able to hire lawyers, hire those lawyers that for one reason or the other fail to follow these steps.

The Governors and the other powerful people know in advance that they are going to be arrested. They see it coming. They prepare for it. They have their lawyers ready. Those lawyers are thus able to file papers immediately their privileged clients get arrested and, sometimes, even before they are arrested. Such timely or preemptive lawyering forces the EFCC or the police to follow the constitution and arraign the rich and influential clients within 24 or 48 hours after they were arrested. And the court takes over and grants bail.

Once you are able to move your case quickly from the Executive to the Judicial arm of the state, you eliminate much of the political and non-legal motivations behind your arrest and detention. The judicial outcome is predictable because it follows legal principles and procedures that are largely non-personal, whereas the outcome of executive actions or decisions is based more on a much unpredictable and highly personalized discretionary process. Thus, moving your case timely from the Executive to the Judiciary is the key to justice. And the greatest challenge in the Nigeria’s criminal justice system is being able to make that transition fast enough.

Even in cases like Speaker Dimeji Bankole’s case, where the Presidency was perceived to be the driving force, and Ifeanyi Ubah’s case, where a well-coordinated and combined corporate interests like Access Bank Plc. and Coscharis Group with significant elements of political power to back them up, drove the entire process; the suspects were able to come out of detention within a relatively short time period. What made the difference was that the suspects were rich and could afford to hire lawyers who followed the procedural steps set out in this paper.

Poor people cannot afford the same quality of legal representation. And they languish in detention needlessly. But it is not really a matter of how rich or how poor you are. My recommendations here are meant to level the playing field and even a poor person with a lawyer of average competence can avoid being locked up for a long time in detention.

Thus, this is to share with you something you need to know in order to help yourself or your friends and relatives if you were to get arrested by the police, the EFCC or the other agencies in Nigeria. And please, don’t be so naïve as to think that this does not concern you. It does. Unlike most other countries in the world, if you live in Nigeria or you are in Nigeria, you don’t really have to do something wrong in order to be arrested. Indeed, the people who do bad things in Nigeria are less likely to be arrested because the real bad people know and plan in advance how to avoid arrests. It is probably the innocent and unsuspecting people like you that get arrested in Nigeria.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS TOPIC?

One thing we all have in common in Nigeria, apart from death, is that any of us can be arrested, detained and tried by the State. This is an equal opportunity misfortune. That is to say; it does not matter whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, connected or not connected. You can get arrested anytime in Nigeria. And when arrested, you will face the ugly side of the Nigerian criminal justice. Awolowo was arrested. Gani Fawehinmi was arrested many times. General Oladipo Diya was arrested and condemned to die. General Obasanjo was arrested and condemned to die. General Yar’adua was arrested and he died in prison. If these powerful men could get arrested, then you too could.

Some people make the mistake of thinking that they are so peaceful, so laid-back, too quiet, always at home, always minding their business, don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke cigarette, don’t womanize; and that they would never do anything to get arrested. That’s not true. You will be deluding yourself to think that way. For instance, the Blackberry phone you are using, which you bought second-hand, has been reported stolen and the police are tracking that phone without you knowing it. Your employer has just been arrested by the EFCC and they are looking for his secretary to arrest her too, just to pressure your employer. And you happen to be that secretary. In Nigeria, the police would arrest you if they are looking for your husband, your son, your brother, your sister, your employer, your co-worker, your relatives, and cannot find them. Such an illegal detention is meant to force the person the police are looking for to turn himself in.

They can arrest a church functionary if they can’t find the Pastor. You only have to be unlucky and in a wrong place at a wrong time to be arrested. You could be set up and be arrested just because somebody else is interested in your boyfriend or in your girlfriend. If you don’t pay rent to your landlord, your landlord could report you to the police to be an armed-robber. If you don’t bribe the police and other government officials, you could get arrested on a trumped up charge. If you live in Washington, for instance, and you quarrel with the wife of the Nigerian Ambassador in Washington, you could get arrested when you visit Nigeria or your relatives could get arrested in Nigeria for that.

Even if you are so lucky never to get arrested in Nigeria, your relative may get arrested. Once arrested, you are faced with the criminal justice system. From my experience, it may not be the arrested person that worries the most when there has been an arrest. It is the relatives. It is the girlfriend. It is the wife. It is the siblings and parents. It is the friends that have to run around in confusion over what to do.

Most of the time that I got called upon to intervene as a lawyer after an arrest has occurred, it was not the arrested person that contacted me. Rather, it is the family members that do the worrying and the running around. So, you need to read what I have to say here about the criminal justice, as it may help you in the future.

If you are a lawyer, particularly the young lawyers, please pay attention to what I am about to share with you here. It would help your clients and it would make your work easy. If you are not a lawyer, that’s even better. Even if you plan to hire a lawyer, it helps if you know what I am about to share with you. Then you can know what to tell your lawyer and what to expect of him when you hire him or her.

(TO BE CONTINUED):