Mohammed is a scion of one of Nigeria?s most celebrated Commissioners of Police, Abubakar Tsav. He is an associate at Mike Ozekhome Chambers. We recently caught up with him and he spoke about a book he will soon unveil about the life and times of his late dad among other issues.

Mohammed, we learnt that you were doing a book, about your late dad, Commissioner of Police, Abubakar Tsav. What sort of book are you writing and when are we expecting the book to hit the shelves?

Thank you. Actually, the book has been done. It was co-authored and will soon be presented publicly. It is a book about his life and times; about his service to the country as a Policeman. It will be an interesting read because we explored so many things about his time in the Police and practically, about his life.

So, when are we expecting it?

Well, just a few more days to tie up the preparations. It has been printed and we are waiting for some signals to go ahead with the public presentation. Once the appropriate date for the presentation is fixed, you will be communicated. We are working at securing an appropriate date with his service constituency and all other law enforcement constituencies so that we get the proper date and venue for the for the book launch.

So what is the focus of this book?

The focus of the book is basically his life and times. It is on how how junior or new police officers can get inspiration from a well celebrated police officer. It also captures the essence of serving with integrity.

Talking about integrity and at the same time looking at the incumbent government and the way it has handled the issue of rule of law in Nigeria. From your own experiences as a lawyer, how will you rate the government in terms of adherence to the rule of law?

You see, I have known (President Bola) Tinubu over a period of time. I have studied his style over a couple of years, especially when he was the governor of Lagos state, and when he stood up against the military regimes that came in. But now it turns out that he is more like becoming a despot himself because in a democratic situation like we now have, I do not expect that the President, who is known to have fought the military, would now come and start taking actions that will undermine democracy. He is not adhering to the rule of law, and that is the main bedrock of democracy. I think that President Tinubu is undermining his own democratic credentials.

But he is someone that many Nigerians see as having a very beautiful democratic credentials, coming on the background of NADECO, but you are not giving that pass mark?

No! Coming from recent trends, especially with the issue of state of emergency in Rivers state, which he proclaimed, well, he has the powers to do that under the constitution. That is not the problem. But the Issue of sacking, or do I say, suspending the governor, the House of Assembly, then the deputy governor. No? I don?t think he has such powers. In as much as the law is concerned, there?s a law that says, you can take certain actions but get the enabling law to back it. However, what I am concerned about is suspending a governor and the legislature. Suspending the governor is totally out of it. You can appoint an administrator to take over the affairs of the state but then he can still work with the governor. Because when you say you are suspending the governor, you did not elect the governor. It is the people of Rivers who elected the governor. So how can you suspend him? Are you trying to say that the people in the state do not know what they wanted before they elected the governor? So I think President Bola Tinubu got it wrong.

Why do you think he took that course of action?

Could be that as president, he has come to terms with the enormous powers of the president and now feels that he can test them. He now forgets that even in the exercise of such powers, you must exercise discretion and exercise proper judgment. But for now, I think he is throwing caution to the wind, and I would not want to say that he is acting somebody?s script. Ordinarily, a serving minister who is in open conflict with the governor of his home state should not really be in government anymore, because you cannot be in government and be fighting another. You cannot be a Minister of FCT and be fighting the governor of the state. And obviously, it will seem as if the FCT Minister has the ears of the president, and may actually be the reason what is going on the Rivers had continued.

You have raised an issue here. You said the president has powers to declare a state of emergency, but does not have the powers to remove the governor. Now that he has done it, what remedy is there for the people of River states?

Well, you see, as a lawyer, all our remedies always end up in the courts. However, there is a cartoon that is in circulation which depicts President Tinubu as the executive, Senator Godswill Akpabio, the senate president as the legislature and Wike as the judiciary. That cartoon suggests that these three people can manipulate whatever transpires in those arms of government. So, if you ask me what the Rivers people are going to do to remedy the situation, well, they can go to court to challenge the action, or, they can be patient and see what he does after six months.

As a practicing lawyer, do you really see any action in court challenging this getting the support of the of the judiciary, of succeeding in any case, in any way at all, given what you have known of the judiciary since the 2023 presidential election?

You see, throughout my study in law practice, I doubt very much if the Nigerian judiciary have outstanding and fearless judges anymore. In my time in the judiciary when I started my practice, about 37 years ago, we had judges like Justice Niki Toby. We had judges like Karibi-Whyte, Augustine Nnamani, name them. They were outstanding judges. They were fearless. They gave judgment the way it ought to be given. And if you noticed, in their time, even if the judges sit and pass judgment, there were always one or two dissenting judgments in the panel. But right now it is as if the whole plan Is unanimous in a judgment which ordinary shouldn?t be the case, because you must have different schools of thoughts and the panel is always made up of different schools of judicial thoughts. So you can?t really expect that all those judicial thoughts would streamline and come as decision. But right now, what we are having is that anytime they take a sensitive matter to the Supreme Court, or to the Court of Appeal, to the Supreme Court, you find that all of them are unanimous. However, I am sure that there are judges who will rise to maintain their integrity still in the system. There are some who are fearless and who will stand up for justice. Generally, I think the judiciary is being politicised and that is not healthy for the country. When you see judges, who ordinarily should be secluded from the public, attending social function with politicians, that is enough reason to be worried.

But they are humans too?

We are not saying a judge cannot go to social functions like birthday parties. But they can attend them as official functions, not on private functions. You see that when you go on private functions, you can easily be influenced there, but if you go on the official function, nobody can point fingers at you as being privately influenced. So I still feel that we don?t have fearless judges or justices, who deliver judgment not minding who you are.

What you are saying, in essence, is that there are no independent minded judges. So, if the judges, or, if the judiciary is politicized, what hope do ordinary Nigerians still have in the judiciary?

You see, when we sit and look in that direction, we now have to become philosophical by going for divine intervention. We know today that so many judgements are written overnight. So if we have a crop of judges, who may have been influenced, then, it is only God?s intervention, divine intervention that can twist a man?s mind and make him change. For instance, as that cartoon depicts, if one man is holding the judiciary, and he has his wife on the bench, it gives room for a lot of insinuations which are not healthy for the judiciary. This is because it is not Impossible that so many things that may happen in her court may be discussed in the other room first before the court takes a decision.

Let me ask you this. You mentioned the FCT Minister here. A few days ago the Body of benchers presented him with an award and he made a call on the body to sanction lawyers that criticise the judiciary. How do you feel about that?

How do you sanction somebody who has proof of what he?s saying? Unless you are making allegations that you cannot prove, that is when you can sanction the person. But if you are sanctioning somebody who has proof of what he?s saying, how will you go about the sanction? To sanction such a person means that you are even becoming more corrupt; you are going deep down, further down the despot lane, because the man is speaking the truth. There are certain things that shouldn?t be going on that have been going on in the judiciary. So if somebody like the FCT Minister comes out and asks you to sanction critics, you need to look beyond the call. The person he asked the Body of Benchers to sanction is a professor of law. Is he saying that a professor of law does not know what he?s saying? You know, sometimes you have a proper facts about what is going on, but you don?t want to bring it up because you don?t want to ruffle feathers. But when you bring this out into the public, whoever is involved will now be a lot more cautious.

The views you hold on the Judiciary doesn?t really give hope to a lot of people who may want to take their cases, especially political cases, to the judiciary. However, also seems to align with the views of Dele Farotimi in that his book about the corruption in the judiciary. Do you align with him?

You see with Farotimi, yes, he has written a book giving his account as he sees them. However, he did provide the evidence to back up what he was saying. You know, if you are making allegations of against somebody, you need to have proof before you go publishing. So, you got to have your facts handy. You must provide the proof so that everybody who reads will say, yes, this man is saying the truth. You see, I know for sure that we lawyers have the good, the bad and the ugly. And you have lawyers who actually influence judges. There lawyers who actually carry gifts for judges. I will not point fingers at any lawyer, but they know themselves. Recall the raid on judge?s residence in Port Harcourt and Abuja under President Buhari? Those raids were successful because they brought out evidence. They found foreign currencies in huge denominations in their offices. But then, first and foremost, this is proof. A judge?s chamber is neither a bank nor a bureau de change. So when you say that you have a proof about the judge, you must be very sure that you can present that proof when you are asked to do so. You can even see that children of judges are recruited as judges too. So it is a trend that erodes integrity of the judiciary.

But that?s a trend in Nigeria. It happens in the military, the police; it goes on in the civil service as well. In some places once a worker passes on, thy recruit one of his children into the organisation?

That notion is two edged, because sometimes the kids genuinely want to go into that profession. You cannot stop them, because that is genuine intention. But the ones that have been put in there because of their father?s influence, that is where there is an issue. The person is not even prepared for that profession and you are bringing them in because his father or mother was this or that. Your kids must show genuine interest to go into that profession before you say, Okay, let?s give him/her a chance. And even at that, such kids are supposed to be drilled a lot tougher than the other people to ensure that this is what they really want to come in and do. It?s not like taking this thing for granted. That is where we want to make the demarcation.

At this moment, I am sure you are aware that we have a Supreme Court justice whose son is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and the son appears before the mother in the Supreme Court?

You see, like I said, you cannot make it look as if the judge is going to be biased towards his son, but it is not impossible, and you cannot stop the son from appearing before his mother. An SAN is entitled to appear before any court in Nigeria, so if the panel comes up with the mother or the father or the father is only appropriate and right for the judge or the justice to recuse her or himself on that ground so as not to be thought of as being biased. He or she can ask to be replaced on the panel. That is what I expect a judge who finds himself or herself in such situation to do. So now you don?t want people to start making allegations at all, even if that lawyer did his job and won the case because of his tenacity. You now say his mother was here.

So let me ask you, generally the way Nigeria is moving. Do you have any hope that Nigeria will walk into the 2027 general elections, peacefully, without rancour?

You see, from the disposition of our president, Bola Tinubu, I am not sure he will let us have free and fair elections. Because there are videos that went viral where he was with his close allies and was saying, grab it, run with it. That suggests that he is most likely to do that in 2027. And if you notice, some of his appointments are people who are most likely, probably, going to play strategic roles in that election. That is what I see with the extension of the tenure of the Inspector General of Police. Recall that the Police Act itself was amended within a few hours to accommodate his tenure to get to 2027. So, is he saying that there are no other better police officers that could replace the IG right now? I mean, I?ve seen other IGPs who left according to the time they were supposed to, either as a result of their age or as the end of the tenure of the service they put into the police. So what?s so special about this present IG that he cannot go and he cannot get somebody else if it?s looking for somebody from with a Yoruba name. There are so many lined up. This is also an indictment on the National Assembly, amending the law within hours, first reading, second reading, and third reading. Not even a public hearing. That was unprecedented.

Are you confident that this National Assembly is independent enough to deliver to Nigeria the kind of laws that will change the country?

The National Assembly has disappointed Nigerians. We had expectations that this Assembly will be better than the one led by Ahmed Lawan. We called Lawan?s senate a rubber stamp. Akpabio?s own is worse than a rubber stamp. It does not give hope for any progress. I think the only the only thing that they have perfected is the art of sending prayers to email boxes of senators. You know what that means.

Lastly, at the beginning of this republic, 2023 there was expectation that with the wave of opposition that we had, and they kind of people who came into the opposition lawmakers, that perhaps you?re going to see a more robust National Assembly, but it seems that what we have is just a plain rubber stamp.

Actually, you see on these issues, sometimes I don?t know whether PDP is APC or APC is PDP, because the way the opposition defects from one party the other, and vice versa, worries me. When they don?t get what they expect in a party, they jump to the other party when their expectations fail, they jump again. So it is the same people with the same ideas, with the same connections and with the same callings that jump from one party to the other, and they are still the same ones who are instigating the leaders in the National Assembly and the parties to do what they are doing. They are the ones doing their bidding, because if we are talking about politicians in other jurisdictions, you see that when they lose their elections, they still remain in that party, or they resign and leave politics altogether. Why is it that here we must continue seeing the same faces being recycled, either from APC to PDP or from PDP to NML, from NPN to PDP, or from Action Group to AD etc. They just put them in a box and shuffle them and bring them back in different forms. We cannot go anywhere with this system. (Daily Sun)

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