Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, is an erudite legal scholar and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He was until recently, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-corruption. In this interview with MAYOWA SAMUEL, he speaks on the passing of the Petroleum Industry Bill, saying it is unjustified, insulting and lacks respect for the Niger Delta people. He also speaks on the bill to criminalise illegal protests and government’s attempt to control the country’s social media.
The oil producing regions are not satisfied with the recommendations of the PIB. Do you think the 3 % being offered to the oil producing states is justified? What is your opinion regarding this?
Not only is it not justified, it is insulting, it shows total lack of respect for the people of the Niger Delta. It shows that you disregard and disdain them. They should not have done that. Let us be frank, this country is being sustained by the resources of the Niger Delta, there is no question about that. If we were not in the same country, the people of the Niger Delta will be using their resources by themselves alone.
We are in the same country, we are saying the whole country must benefit from it but I don’t think it is right that people from another part of the country who are beneficiaries of these resources in the Niger Delta to tell the people of the Niger Delta that these your resources, we are going to give you 3% and we will take the rest away, they are the one dictating to the people of the Niger Delta.
You only do that to people who you have no regard for, who are just a little bit better than slaves. I hope it will go back to the 5% which I still think is very small, I was expecting 10%, then ultimately the only solution to all these is to go back to the 1963 constitution when Nigerians were entitled to 50% of their resources, 20% went to the federal government, 30% goes to a central fund where states that are lacking in resources will then be compensated with that 30 %. Even that 30%, the states that produce the resources will still get but they will get the least from it, whereas, the others that do not have enough resources will get the bulk of the money from it but the producing state will get a percentage.
In the first republic, the north was very vast but did not have enough resources for its vast population, so they get 40% of that 30%. There were four regions, the western region got about 25% of it, eastern region got about 16%, mid-west got around 6%, that was how it used to be; and I think we need to go back to that because under that system, you the owner and producer of the resources will have 50% clear cut, to show that you are the owner.
Then to support the federal government, which is the government for all of us, you send 20% to the FG, then 30% was reserved for all the states but the states that were lacking in resources or in terms of money getting a larger share of the 30% and that was fair, that’s what we need to go back to.
So, all these issue of people from one part of the country, telling those who are producing the resources that you can have 3%, I find that insulting and I think that sort of statement should be withdrawn
A bill presented last week at the House of Representatives by Rep. Emeka Martins, (PDP-Imo), seeking to criminalise unlawful protests in Nigeria and proposing a five-year jail term for unlawful protesters has been passed for a second reading. Whose interest do you think this bill is intended to serve?
I won’t think of individuals, I’m thinking of situations. We all know that the right to demonstrate goes also with the right of association and they are all part of the whole concept and practice of democracy. That’s why it’s put there in the constitution that it is a right.
But if you look at the constitution carefully, you will notice that there is a section that qualifies all rights. There are some major things to which theses rights are subject to, so the rights are not absolute but they are rights.
The last #EndSARS movement, the idea was good, and that was to end the impunity, oppression and brutality by a group of policemen who seem to take their work in good faith but saw it as a way of oppressing and dehumanizing people. That’s quite understandable, but the way some of the protesters went about it, you recall, it ended up in what I will regard as an illegal demonstration.
For example, going to block roads such that many people could not go to work could not even go to the market to buy food, preventing people from going out to shop, to me, that’s an illegal demonstration; imprisoning them at home because you are aggrieved about something; you then punish innocent people.
For me, at that stage, there was an illegality in the way that protest was handled. If you take the case of Lekki Concession Company Limited, they are not the people the protesters were protesting against; they are innocent people, they are just people doing their work, earning a living, providing a service but the protesters went there and blocked them, took over their facilities, properties and assets of a private company, they couldn’t earn a living anymore; they deprived them of earning a living.
For me, those are breaches of the right of protests. You cannot exercise your rights to protest by breaching other people’s human rights. Every right has a limit and the problem is how to be able to determine that limit without restricting that right unnecessarily. I think those are the areas I could consider there could be an illegal protest; otherwise, protest as such is the exercise of a constitutional right. I don’t support it because its orientation is against freedom of assembly. The law will control the mind of people towards trying to constrict freedom of movement. I’m not saying we should then legislate anything. I think the law we have right now in the constitution are enough to take care of the sort of situation that occurred at the #EndSARS, we don’t need any new law for that.
“Ultimately the only solution to all these is to go back to the 1963 constitution when Nigerians were entitled to 50 percent of their resources, 20 percent went to the federal government, 30 percent to a central fund”
Definitely, you see this as another case of duplication of laws if this law is passed.
Yes, I think it is completely unnecessary to have a law specifically on illegal protest because the emphasis now will become on illegal rather than the right to protest. The emphasis is on the right to protest and we have enough laws to limit that right if it begins to be harmful to the rights of other people, the laws we have now are enough for that.
Can the same be said about the social media bill, the controlling of what is being posted on social media? Also, why bring down Twitter when you can actually clamp down on the person that posts a particular offensive tweet which the hate speech law already provides?
I’m afraid I’m not with you on the Twitter matter. I think Twitter was going too far in the way it was behaving as if there are no laws, no rules, you can invade another country and create a circumstance and facility that can be used for very dubious and dangerous activities without any control.
I think Twitter went too far, it was no longer recognizing the sovereignty of states and heads of states. I’m sorry Nigerians are complaining that their means of livelihood were affected. Well, I hope they resolve the matter soon but there is a stage that there should be dignity and respect for the sovereignty of a country. If an organization like that with no type of backing from any state, that is, just a business organization sitting on its own, they cannot invade our space and provide opportunity for attack on our security and endangering the safety of the country. I think Twitter deserved what it got.
What’s your opinion regarding the regulation of online new media?
These online institutions like Twitter, Facebook and so on are not the usual type of businesses and I think we just have to learn to adapt our laws to that. I think some form of regulation of their activities is necessary and if they are making a lot of money out of Nigerians, there is no harm if they pay some tax into the country but I’m not in favour of their being removed or their businesses being stopped, it’s not something serious like this issue of national security and disrespect for head of state. That was a serious thing; you can’t just come from nowhere and do that. These are all just young boys in their 20s and 30s, at times, they are not matured enough to know what they’re doing even though they control the major conglomerate.
This bill is coming from a PDP member. Normally, if you hear something like this, you will automatically believe it’s coming from a member of the ruling party. How will you interpret this?
Yes, it should be the government that should be interested in suppressing things like this and not the opposition. It is quite unusual. The only thing I can say is maybe the man has a very fervent belief in what he is doing and he may be doing it on principle rather than out of power. That can be the only explanation because normally, the opposition will not be proposing such a bill.
