Yesterday, as I was taking my morning walk, I listened to one of my favourite preachers, Joel Osteen, speaking on the topic “Be Comfortable with who you are” and it struck a strong and important chord in me. Not only that it struck a cord, it reminded me of an incident from where I got the above caption.

It was in December 2017, I believe-Yuletide. I has just recently taken delivery of a new official car, a BMW 640i, a car I’ve always wanted to own, a dream car, so to say. A fast and powerful sports sedan, the Grand Coupe is so aggressively built that it’s always rearing for a race. All the driver wants to do is to race once the engines are fired. So, this harmattan Sunday morning, I elected to travel from the Island to Ikeja to attend Mass at my “Home Parish”, St. Agnes Catholic Church. And one of the reasons I occasionally took that trip (with all the churches on the Island) was to fire my BMW!

So, this particular morning, I headed out taking my time to drive gently until I got on the 3MB (Third Mainland Bridge), where I could kick down the pedal and fire the engines. Right after the Dolphin Estate, as I made to join the 3MB, a Mercedes Benz 850 McLaren pulled up to my side. The sound alone stirred my spirit and before the driver gave me the thumbs up, my adrenalin was already pumping. I shifted the gears to Sport Mode and we zoomed off.

I noticed the dude smile. May be he felt sorry for me; I don’t know, but he surely looked down on my intention to engage him. To be fair to him, he gave me a head start and after like 500 meters he came wailing monstrously towards me. I took off, he took off too. Then, he flew past me-and that was it! I didn’t see him again (I only heard the wailing of his engines) until the end of 3MB. Nice guy, he slowed down by Oworonshoki Bridge, gave me another thumbs up and took off. I followed him like a wounded lion, but he was gone. He had a better, bigger, faster car. A V12 Engine!!! Mine was only half the capacity of his.

But here’s the thing: I went after this guy who was heading towards Ojota, probably out of Lagos, instead of my destination, Maryland, Ikeja, where St. Agnes is located. By engaging in that NEEDLESS competition, I not only missed my way or veered off my route, but I also got to Mass late, after doing a rigmarole to find my way back from Ojota to Maryland. Don’t also forget the risk I took racing on the not-so-smooth 3MB with all manner of drivers and potholes! Stupidity in high octane.

Now, this is what happens when we involve ourselves in unnecessary competitions. In such circumstances, we tend to take stupid risks, lose our focus and end up worse than we were or ought to be. You don’t even have to take up every challenge. If you have a plan, you will not but rather stick to your own agenda.

Your classmate builds a mansion. Instead of rejoicing and thanking God with him, you want to build a mansion. Or your neighbour drives a brand new Bentley, you discard all you had planned for the year to buy a Bentley unbeknownst to you it’s a gift or an official car. You see a friend in a Private Jet and you immediately want to fly one too. You send your kids to schools you can only ill-afford because a colleague’s kids are in that school. You don’t know the spouse’s employers probably pay for their kids to attend the school. And so on and so forth.

Do not get me wrong: I have not said competition is wrong per se. No. There is something called healthy competition. That is good, when kept within due bounds. You want to challenge yourself to do more, go further, fly higher, etc, etc. You want to be the best in what you do-in your industry, in your team, in your class, in service delivery or product manufacturing. You want your kids to be the best behaved, smartest, best in their class, etc, etc.

The key is this: Do not go out of your way or over-reach yourself just to keep up or be better than the Joneses! As we say in Nigeria, “no go dey do pass yourself”! Davido says “run your race”!!!

Imagine the unnecessary and avoidable risks I took racing an unknown driver heading to an unknown destination on a Sunday morning in an Ember Month rather than focusing on going to Mass, for which I had properly prepared and actually set out! At the end of the day, I missed my turn, went further out of my route, had to find my way back and, of course, I was late. Just negodu!!!

Please take a moment or two to think about this. You will realize, at the end of the day, that some of the competitions we enter are unnecessary, imprudent, even dangerous and costly!

If this message has blessed you, share it with your friends and remember to avoid unnecessary competition.

Have a blessed day!

Mr Oprah is a Vice-President at Airtel Nigeria

• Mary Odili, victim of executive lawlessness

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Mary Odili, Justice of the Supreme Court (JSC), has been in the news in the last one week for the wrong reason, through no fault of hers.

A woman with impeccable judicial records, Justice Odili has all the qualities of a good judge, ticking the boxes in judicial temperament, intelligence, ethics, courage, integrity, experience and education.Advertisement

As a judge, Odili applies the law to the facts and understands how a judicial decision affects human beings. Above all, she is a judge of immense courage, always willing to do what the law requires of her even when the course of action is not popular. In rendering justice, she has consistently shown compassion, empathy and respect for the essential dignity of all persons.

This is the same judge that the government embarrassed on Friday. Nigerians are outraged, no doubt, going by the seeming universal condemnation of the orchestrated assault on her Abuja residence. The move has been severely condemned from all quarters for being unconstitutional, illegal and an affront to the entire judiciary.

Yet, I blame Nigerians for her ordeal.

Why?

Because for too long, we have overindulged the whims of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government and the Odili saga is a natural consequence of that overindulgence.

A joint panel recovery unit of the Federal Ministry of Justice comprising the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Justice, we are told, sought a search warrant from the FCT Chief Magistrate after a so-called whistleblower, Aliyu Umar, claimed that he observed some illegal activities at No. 9 Imo Street, Maitama Abuja. Chief Magistrate Emmanuel Iyanna, approved the request on October 29, 2021.

Nobody was told what the illegal activities were and nobody, not even the Chief magistrate, cared to ask. Armed with the search warrant, the security operatives marched off to Justice odili’s residence with all the swagger they could muster like children sent on a larceny expedition by their father, who noisily kick the front door open.

It is instructive that the Chief Magistrate who issued the vexing search warrant without any name on it revoked it same day, accusing the government of misleading the court.

It is also good that everyone is claiming ignorance of what happened. The leadership of the EFCC and Police have all distanced themselves from the tragi-comedy.

Appearing on Channels Television on Friday night, EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, said: “It is not an EFCC thing. I have called all the security and law enforcement agencies in the country and they also denied that anybody has been sent to the house to carry out any search or arrest.”

Really? So, what happened? Is this another case of “unknown soldier” saga?

Nigeria’s all-powerful Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has also distanced himself from the shenanigan, pledging to make himself available for investigation if need be. Who will probe the man who has become, literally and figuratively, the Nigerian state writ large? If you believe that, you will believe anything!

It is also interesting that the Presidency is playing deaf and dumb.

But most scandalous is the fact that it took the Supreme Court four days to react to the egregious assault by agents of the Nigerian state controlled by the executive, a co-equal arm of government, not only on the person of Justice Mary Odili, but the entire Nigerian judiciary.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court Director of Press and Information, Akande Festus, condemned the siege calling it unlawful and uncivilised, an impunity taken too far, and a shameful show of primitive force on an innocent judicial officer.

Good! But what stopped Chief Justice Tanko Muhammad from personally calling out those who not only debased the judiciary but whimsically violated the rights of the second most senior judicial officer in the country?

Of course, he cannot and we know why. The process that catapulted him to his high office is tainted by the same scandal he is expected to condemn.

Nigerians have themselves to blame for the way Buhari is treating them. Wittingly, we became cheerleaders, clapping and dancing, even as the government continued to trample on our rights, acting with impunity, beyond its powers. Instead of three arms of government, which is what the Constitution envisaged, we now have only the executive, with the judiciary and legislature acting as mere parastatals of the presidency.

When Buhari says jump, the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief Justice of Nigeria ask, how high sir.

This tragedy started in October 2016 when the government orchestrated what has gone into history books as the worst assault on the Nigerian judiciary with the midnight raid on the homes of some senior Nigerian judges, including Adeniyi Ademola and Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court in Abuja, as well as Sylvester Ngwuta and John Okoro of the Supreme Court, by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).

Four days after his utter humiliation, Justice Ademola pointedly blamed Malami for his ordeal.

In an October 11, 2016 letter addressed to the then Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, the embattled judge stated: “What is more intriguing in this whole episode is that I see it as a vendetta/revenge from the Hon. Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN). Whilst I was in Kano between 2004-2008 as a Federal High Court Judge, he was involved in a professional misconduct necessitating his arrest and detention. However, with the intervention of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Kano Branch, the allegation of misconduct was later withdrawn by me.

“Consequently, the NJC referred Abubakar Malami (SAN) to the NBA Disciplinary Committee for disciplinary action. It was as a result of this he was denied the rank of SAN by the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee for the period of four years until when he produced a fake letter of apology, purportedly addressed to me. It was then he was conferred with the rank. Since the above incident, Abubakar Malami (SAN) has threatened to revenge and swore to do anything to bring me down.”

Was any attempt made to investigate this weighty allegation?

No!

Instead, Nigerians cheered and clapped for their anti-corruption government.

The consequence? Emboldened, three years later, Buhari went for Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen and disgraced him out of office using, as usual, trumped-up charges of corruption.

The prudish, cavalier, humiliating and barbaric manner Onnoghen, head of an independent arm of government, was shoved aside, notwithstanding that the government failed to secure prosecutions for most or convictions for any of the judges earlier accused speaks to how much Nigerians have become accomplices to the crimes committed by the government against them.

It didn’t matter to Nigerians that Buhari’s move against Onnoghen was not merely unusual, it was also unlawful. They clapped, danced and made merry on Buhari’s anti-corruption altar.

On March 19, 2021, two years after he was disgraced out of office, Onnoghen revealed that he was a victim of the 2019 presidential election.

“Prior to my suspension, I was confronted with no allegation. There were rumours that I met with Atiku (Abubakar) in Dubai. As I am talking here today, I have never met Atiku one on one in my life. As if that was not enough, I was also accused of setting free, high-profile criminals, whereas I ceased to be a High Court Judge as far back as 1978,” the ex-CJN said.

Five years after the midnight raid on judges’ homes in 2016, law enforcement agents again invaded the private residence of the country’s second most senior judicial officer, Justice Mary Odili, on the preposterous and bizarre allegation of illegal activities.

Barely one year to the 2023 elections, Justice Mary Odili, who may well become the CJN by the time the elections are held is being hounded and Nigerians are behaving as if they are surprised and pleading with Malami to carry out an investigation.

Good luck Charlie, as Ghanaians would say. But, mark my words, this is only the beginning of Justice Mary Odili’s ordeal. What happened to her is not an accident. Those who orchestrated this assault will not rest until she gets the Onnoghen treatment. The corruption allegations are loading and when they are unleashed, we will be out on the streets once again, gyrating to the lyrics of Buhari’s anti-corruption orchestra.

Déjà vu!

Truth be told, Nigerians have overindulged Buhari’s executive indiscretions.

By Deborah Iniye Warrie Esq.

WHAT IS DNA?  DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that contains the genetic code in the chromosomes of the cells of living things. It thus determines the particular structure and functions of every cell and is responsible for characteristics being passed on from parents to their children. The DNA molecule consists of two strands that wind around each other to form a shape known as a double helix.

NOW, WHAT IS A DNA TEST? It is a test, which, among other things, is used to identify someone or to show that people are relatives.

WHAT IS A DNA PATERNITY  TEST?

According to the Wikipedia DNA Paternity testing means:

“The use of DNA profiles to determine whether an individual is the biological parent of another individual. Paternity testing can be especially important when the rights and duties of the father are in issue and a child’s paternity is in doubt. Tests can also determine the likelihood of someone being a biological grandparent. Though genetic testing is the most reliable standard, older methods also exist, including ABO blood group typing, analysis of various other proteins and enzymes, or using human leukocyte antigen antigens. The current techniques for paternity testing are using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Paternity testing can now also be performed while the woman is still pregnant from a blood draw.”

A DNA paternity test is nearly 100% accurate at determining whether a man is another person’s biological father. DNA tests can use cheek swabs or blood tests. You must have the test done in a medical setting if you need results for legal reasons. See OLAYINKA v. ADEPARUSI & ANOR (2011) LPELR-8691(CA)

“To my mind, the paternity of the disputed res has not been determined, anybody can be awarded custody of a child but the most important thing is that if a party is claiming paternity it is trite that a Court of Law should be allowed to determine same on proof of evidence relating to paternity, which could only be done by referral for a DNA test of the parties involved. After such a test the Court has a duty to declare the actual father of the child in dispute, in consonance with the evidence at its disposal.”

Also, prenatal paternity tests can determine fatherhood during pregnancy. Can scientific DNA testing be conducted on a deceased person in a paternity dispute? YES. Before dealing with the question above, it is necessary to first and foremost indicate what does DNA paternity testing entail? In a DNA paternity test, the result (called the ‘probability of parentage) is 0%, when the alleged parent is not biologically related to the child, and the probability of parentage is typically 99.99% when the alleged parent is biologically related to the child.

What is the legal procedure to get a paternity test performed?

Depending on the circumstance of the case, the party involved can file a motion, asking the Court for a DNA test to be conducted. Or the Court can suo motu (on its own accord) order for a DNA case to be conducted. See ANOZIA v. NNANI & ANOR (2015) LPELR-24277(CA)

See the case of Olayinka vs Adeparusi & Anor (2011) LPELR 8691 CA, where this Court, per Denton West JCA, held: “…If a party is claiming paternity, it is trite that a Court of law should be allowed to determine same on proof of evidence relating to paternity, which could only be done by referral for a DNA test of the parties involved. After such a test, the Court has a duty to declare the actual father of the child in dispute in consonance with the evidence at its disposal. DNA, as the molecule that contains the genetic code of any organism hereditary and has become a euphemism for scientific analysis of genetic constitution, to determine one’s roots. where one is a minor (not mature adult) and his paternity is in issue, the Court can order the conduct of a DNA test, in the overall interest of the child, to ascertain where he belongs.”

Medical Procedure

To perform a paternity test at DNA level a blood sample is required from the mother, the alleged father, and the child. Children of any age can be tested. Unlike the traditional blood tests where the child has to be six months of age, there is no age limit with DNA. Paternity testing can be performed on unborn children. Prenatal paternity testing can be performed with the amniotic fluid or a chorionic villus sample collected from the mother’s womb prior to birth or with fetal tissue. Paternity testing can also be performed using postmortem specimens.

Deceased DNA Testing

It is possible to perform paternity testing by comparing DNA profiles from the child and an alleged father or mother who is deceased. To establish parentage,  forensic samples from the deceased individuals are required postmortem for paternity disputes or estate claims. However, prior to commencing testing it would need to be established whether a sample is available from the deceased party.

Who Collects the Sample from the Deceased?

The sample collected from the deceased for DNA testing may be a hair follicle, fingernail, or blood sample. However, a written consent from the deceased party’s family or relative must first be obtained before commencing the test.

What if there isn’t a sample available from the deceased?

A relationship DNA test can be used in cases where an alleged parent is not available for the testing of a direct parent-child relationship. Extended relationship DNA testing can be carried out to determine whether there is a relationship between the persons being DNA tested. Testing can be performed between individuals who may share common relatives, such as siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, cousins, etc.

MOST PROMINENT CASES WHEREIN DECEASED DNA TESTING WAS USED BY THE COURT

In the matter between D v M and two others, Held in the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Johannesburg, under case number: 30619/2015, the Court after considering the application brought by an executor of the estate of a deceased person, in terms of which the executor request that the High Court ordered the mother of a minor child as well as a minor child to subject themselves to a DNA test, in order to establish whether another minor child of the deceased was, in fact, the biological child of the deceased. In this matter and various other matters before it was established that a High Court with the necessary jurisdiction may be approached as in the matter of D v M and two others to force the parties to subject them to DNA testing and even to exhume remains of a deceased person to enable DNA test to be done.

Nield-Moir v Freeman [2018] EWHC 299 (Ch) – the Family Law

In this case, Colin Birtles died intestate leaving two daughters Janice and Lorraine.  In accordance with the statutory intestacy provisions, they stood to inherit the estate equally between them.  However, Janice alleged that Lorraine was not the deceased’s biological daughter which, if correct, would have meant that she inherited the whole of the estate herself.

She told the court that her father had told her this was the case during his lifetime, producing various witness statements from others in support. Lorraine defended, stating that she was born during the period of the deceased’s marriage to her mother (raising the common law presumption of parentage) and he was named as her father on her birth certificate.  After their parents’ divorce, he also paid maintenance for her until she was 16 years old. She said the allegations were ‘nothing but gossip and hearsay. She refused to consent to DNA testing. The court had to decide whether they had the authority to order that DNA testing should be carried out. There was no clear legal authority. The judge did not go so far as to compel it but made an ‘unless’ order requiring her to either submit to the test or the court would draw inferences from her refusal.

Other Instances:

DNA testing can be useful in other ways and not just to resolve estate disputes after death.  In the case of Anderson v Spencer [2018], EWCA Civ 100 in 2018 the deceased was diagnosed of bowel cancer, which could be hereditary. Therefore, the applicant wanted to establish his parentage as he was advised that if the deceased was his father, he should undergo a colonoscopy every two years.  The Court of Appeal agreed with the High Court that it could. In 2016, the Privy Council in the case of Re Baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill 2016 GWD 20-360 held that DNA evidence collected for a family research project could be used to resolve a Scottish succession dispute.

DNA TESTING CAN ALSO BE USED IN RESOLVING CRIMINAL CASES

State v. Williams, 458 So. 2d 1315 a Locus Classicus.

On August 22, 2007, a state appeals court in Baton Rouge the capital city of the U.S. State of Louisiana, ruled that Archie Williams (an accused wrongfully incarcerated for 37 years in prison and released on March 21, 2019) had a legal right to DNA testing that could prove his innocence in a rape and attempted murder case for which he was convicted in 1983.  The ruling came nearly a quarter-century after Williams was convicted and 11 years after attorneys for Williams filed the first legal motion seeking DNA testing in the case.

The case stems from a December 1982 attack at a woman’s Baton Rouge home.  An unknown assailant pushed his way into her house, raped her and then stabbed her.  The victim and a friend (who entered the home during the attack) were both asked to identify the perpetrator in lineups.   The victim was shown in 17 different photo arrays.  In the first two, she did not identify Williams, but his photo was in the last three consecutive photo arrays, and she identified him in the last one (Williams’s was the only photo shown in more than one photo array).  He was convicted in April 1983 based on the victim’s identification, even though he did not match her initial description of the perpetrator (among other factors, Williams is about a half-foot shorter than the perpetrator as described by the victim).  Years after he was convicted, the analysis showed that Williams was not the source of bloody fingerprints that the perpetrator left at the crime scene after stabbing the victim.

In December 1996 after unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Baton Rouge District Attorney to agree to DNA testing without a court order, Williams’s attorneys filed a motion in state court asking for DNA testing.  That motion was denied, as were at least nine others over the next 11 years that were filed in state and federal courts. Even after the Louisiana Legislature passed a law in 2001 explicitly granting access to post-conviction DNA testing, prosecutors opposed Williams’s motions seeking testing, and the courts denied testing.

At Williams’s trial, prosecutors noted that motile sperm were collected in the victim’s rape kit.  DNA testing was not available at the time, but prosecutors said the sperm came from the perpetrator and that Williams had the same blood type as the perpetrator.  In court filings in recent years, the Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office had switched course and said DNA testing on the sperm would not prove Williams’s guilt or innocence, since the victim might have had consensual sex with her husband.  Motile sperm, like that collected from the victim immediately after the attack, is only present for a few hours after it is deposited.  In court filings, the Innocence Project had said that if the victim had consensual sex shortly before the rape, there could be two men’s DNA present (the victim’s husband and the perpetrator), and DNA testing could reveal both profiles – still proving whether or not Williams is innocent.

On March 21, 2019, the prosecution joined Williams’s attorneys in requesting that his convictions be vacated. The motion was granted, the charges were dismissed and Williams was released—36 years after his arrest. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar C. Moore III, told Williams in court: “As a representative of the state, I apologize.”

In March 2020, Williams filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages for his wrongful conviction.

DNA testing exonerated nine people in Louisiana in the last eight years.  In four of those nine cases, DNA didn’t just prove that wrongfully convicted people were innocent – it helped identify and apprehend the true perpetrators of the crimes.  In nearly 40% of the 206 wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing nationwide, DNA also helped identify the true perpetrators of crimes. It has been shown that DNA can exonerate the innocent while also helping identify and apprehend the guilty, in the interest of justice, public safety, and confidence in the criminal justice system.

CONCLUSION FOR LITIGANTS

Conclusively, although a Court of Law can be approached in order to either force compliance from a person who refuses to provide a DNA sample or even to exhume the body of the deceased person to enable DNA testing to be done, DNA sample obtained from siblings, Grandparents and Uncle/Aunts can also provide a report to prove paternity, and the results from such testing will be admissible in a court of law. See ROYORK (NIG) LTD v. A.G & CJ, SOKOTO STATE & ANOR (2017) LPELR-42506(CA)

“The position of the law is that evidence is admissible when it is relevant to the issues and when it is also competent. The usual catchphrase is: “that admissibility of evidence is governed by relevance”.

What makes a piece of evidence relevant is when sufficient facts relating to the piece of evidence or documentary evidence are copiously pleaded. This goes to show its relevance to the case of the party in question and once the piece of evidence is competent, that is to say, that there is no legal bar to its admissibility, then the document is admissible. ” Per FREDERICK OZIAKPONO OHO, JCA (Pp 23 – 24 Paras A-B)

However , it is advised that you approach the office of a legal representative, should you have the need to establish paternity in any case, to ensure that the correct process is followed. This is because, under the Human Tissue Act 2004, DNA is considered a ‘designated material’ and as such, DNA can only be collected from the deceased by an authorized person in a Human Tissue Authority (HTA) licensed premises.

Also, there are human rights issues in all of these cases. Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 protects our privacy and our family life. Does this extend to privacy over parentage?  There is not much Strasbourg case law on the point.

A case in Switzerland in which the Swiss Supreme Court had ordered that the body of a deceased person was to be exhumed for DNA testing was challenged and the court held that the right to privacy under Article 8 could not prevent DNA testing of a deceased person to establish parentage.  (The Estate of Kresten Filtenborg Mortensen v Denmark (dec.), no. 1338/03,§  ECHR 2006-V Estate).

This was also considered in Nield-Moir v Freeman and interference with Lorraine’s human rights was considered justified as a means of protecting the public interest in the accurate resolution of resolving inheritance disputes.

CONCLUSION FOR LEGAL PRACTITIONERS

There is an abundance of developing case law in this area both in the context of the Court of Protection and estate disputes generally.  Therefore DNA testing is likely to become more and more commonplace and the courts appear to be more readily inclined to order where consent is not forthcoming.  With increasingly complex family structures, the propensity for these sorts of cases is only set to continue.

Reference List:

1. https://primsol.lawpavilion.com
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing;
3. http://unistelmedical.co.za/paternity-parentage-testing
4. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/dna
5. https://www.nvrlaw.co.za/NewsResources/NewsArticle.aspx?ArticleID=2965
6. https://www.paternityforlife.co.uk/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_paternity_testing;
8. http://unistelmedical.co.za/paternity-parentage-testing
9. https://dnaq.com.au/https://dnaq.com.au/deceased-dna-testing
10. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/10119-dna-paternity-test
11. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/DNA%20test
12. https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Deoxyribonucleic-Acid
13. https://innocenceproject.org/state-appeals-court-grants-archie-williams-dna-testing-to-prove-his-innocence-11-years-after-he-first-asked-a-court-for-testing/
14. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5529.
15. https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx
16. https://www.wrighthassall.co.uk/knowledge-base/dna-testing-in-wills-and-inheritance-disputes

For more legal advice and tips, follow DEBBY G CONSULTS ON 09018561398 https://wa.me/message/6OOIP3WVZXE6G1 OR https://www.facebook.com/DEBBY-G-Consults-123260913269689/ OR @dg.consults_2021 on Instagram

By Muiz Banire SAN

If there is any subject that is favourably competing with the state of insecurity in Nigeria today, it is certainly the issue of presidential zoning in the coming 2023 elections.

The only other issue tailing that will be issue of the entitlement to the collection of the value added tax between the federation and some states.

This issue of value added tax collection, just as that of rotational presidency, has largely pitched majority of the Northern states against the Southern states. In virtually all conversations recently, this issue of which region or zone the next president of Nigeria should come from is domineering. It is a major discourse amongst the politicians as well as practically all other stakeholders in the Nigerian project.

In fact, it has transcended the traditional strugglers for power, into the various ethnic groups and individuals. To this end, the Governors of the two regions of the country have publicly come out to state their respective positions; while the southern Governors believe that the presidency must naturally be zoned to the southern part of the country, the northern Governors are of the view that it must be opened to all. Thus, the crux of the ‘agitation’ is simply whether the southern part of the country should exclusively be entitled to the slot come 2023, or the ticket be made free for all, irrespective of the region or zone you are from.

This is equally an issue that I have perfunctorily commented upon in recent past but not in a formal manner that I intend to do now. Although there has been legion of comments from several quarters and individuals on the subject, of interest to me however are those of two of my colleagues that I read of recent. In a seemingly controversial manner, the two erudite scholars will appear to be on a war path on the issue but to mind, their positions are easily reconcilable and sustainable.

The first to fire the salvo is my friend and brother, J. S. OKUTEPA, SAN who contended in his submission that “Nigeria does not need ‘power shift’ but ‘leadership shift’, ‘character shift’ and ‘attitude shift’; a shift in ‘the way we do things’. Nigeria does not need Igbo, Hausa/Fulani or Yoruba power shift because it is an insult to the collective sensibilities of the more than 240 other tribes that are part of the Federation of Nigeria. Nigeria does not need a ‘power shift’ to any of these so-called majority ethnic nationalities of Igbo, Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba because leaving power in the majority ethnic groups has led to deteriorating political, social, and economic developments as the majority ethnic groups have successfully nurtured corruption. Come 2023, let us avoid power shift… we cannot continue to operate a lawless system and expect good results and development… it is the leadership shift we need”.

This position of the learned Silk used to be my position until recent unfolding events, particularly that of justifiable secession and restructuring clamour. My thought has been that we must not emphasize our diversity at the expense of our unity which should be our strength. However, observing unfolding events convinces me otherwise.

That is to say that if the unity must be promoted and sustained, all parts of the country must be positioned to believe in the unity and indivisibility of the nation. Of course, there are several ways of achieving this but the most potent is where they are given the proper recognition in the scheme of things in the country, particularly with regard to the occupation of public offices. Beyond the allegation of nepotism that is rife in the country, the obvious fact is that the number one political office of the country is in the last six years plus being in possession of a particular region of the country, precisely the northern region. The expectation, therefore, is that the office will naturally move to the southern part of the country.

This is what is being described as rotation as opposed to the treatise of Okutepa, SAN on leadership shift. The learned Silk’s position is simply that we should not be bothered by the region or zone the next president of the country is emerging from but rather focus on the content of the potential leader. The import of this is that such competent leader can come from any part of the country.

This argument is indisputably sound where the question of nationalism and patriotism is settled. In other words, it is feasible where the inhabitants of the country see themselves as one. Regrettably, however, this cannot be said of our nation which historically, in the first instance, is a conglomeration of several ethnic nationalities that are not well-knitted. Even if the reality of that evolution was not foreseeable and preventable, same cannot be said of subsequent events to the country’s independence.

The expectation would have been that with time, the differences in us as men and women from different ethnic nationalities would have been dwarfed. Unfortunately, our leaders, over the years, have not succeeded in promoting this ideal but rather actively done otherwise. Today, nobody can pretend that the diversity is staring us more in the face as agitation for restructuring of the nation and secession continues to grow.

This fact convinces me, therefore, that there certainly must be an arrangement in place capable of engendering the confidence of all if the origin of the potential president must not matter. It is the absence of this thought that preliminarily flaws the contention of my brother Silk and necessitates the rotation of the presidency amongst the different regions and probably zones. Thus, my hitherto view of allowing the emergence of any Nigerian as the president of the country has changed. As indicated above, this is not only premised on the historical evidence of the existence of different tendencies in the country but even recent glaring facts of seeming domination and oppression in the country.

The implication of this is the creation of multiple suspicions amongst the different ethnic nationalities. This is now more pronounced mainly between the major regions of the north and south of the country. Altercations along those lines of diversity is now a recurrent decimal in virtually all discourses in the country. This ugly development is certainly unhealthy for the nation.

Thus, to assuage the feeling and allay the fears of the other region, it is expedient that the presidency must be allowed to shift to another region if we mean well for the nation. It is equally essential that this must be done in order to promote the unity of the country crucial to her development. Our leaders need to heed the admonition of the former President of the USA, Bill Clinton, offered to the residents and people of America as a farewell message on his leaving office, quoted in Udemezue’s work and which is apt to the Nigerian situation, to the effect that “… we must remember that America cannot lead in the world unless here at home we weave the thread of our coat of many colours into the fabrics of America.

As we become ever more diverse, we must work harder to unite around our common values and common humanity…. In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation”. In line with the above, my view is that the presidency must shift to the southern part of Nigeria. In the course of preparing this script, I stumbled on another of my colleague’s work, which is that of Sylvester Udemezue, titled, ROTATIONAL PRESIDENCY IS A MANDATORY REQUIREMENT OF THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION AND A NECESSARY PRE-CONDITION FOR STABILITY AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION (a rejoinder to J.S. Okutepa, SAN).

This work substantially mirrors my thoughts on the subject and I was willing to adopt the reasoning therein in toto as mine but for the volume and the editorial policy of my publisher that forbids same.

I, therefore, will encourage my readers to locate the full version of his thoughts which are not only scintillating, well researched, pungent but fantastically articulated. In fact, I had sought his permission to just simply run the article in my column but for the editorial policy that will not permit. Hence, my decision to reecho his thoughts which substantially align with mine but for the extensive legal basis graciously provided by him to all the questions. The starting point of this discourse is the grundnorm, the Constitution of the country which a lot of commentators have relied upon in insisting that rotational presidency is unknown to the Nigerian Constitution and therefore ‘illegal’.

This was the loud position of the northern Governors also. The apostles of this view often forget that it is not everything that the Constitution of the country provides for. It is only the Nigerian Constitution that I have seen to be this voluminous. Constitutions simply contain the fundamental basis of organization and not the details. In responding to this question, the great scholar, Udemezue, deployed the preamble to the Constitution in conjunction with relevant and germane provisions contained in Chapter 2 of the Nigerian Constitution on Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.

The preamble to the Nigerian Constitution stipulates that the country must be organized and run on the principles of freedom, equality and justice for the purpose of the unity of the country. Further, the Constitution recognizes and reminds all his subjects of its supremacy which implies that the affairs of the country must be run on the strength of its provisions.

By Owei Lakemfa

BAUCHI seems to retain its innocence. An urban city that remains infidelity with its better rural half. As you race out of the city, small beautiful hills run before you ending up at the feet of the enchanting Gubi Rock, paying what may be an eternal homage to their chief.

What pointedly reminds you that you are in a modern Nigerian city is its hordes of commercial motorcycle and tricycle operators who clog the streets in a ‘poor versus rich’ combat with motorists. They seem oblivious of traffic rules and appear deaf to the horns of motorists who want to assert their fundamental right to be on the road.

It was on this visit that I got to know that the alias of Governor Bala Mohammed whose billboards litter the roads, is ‘Jagaban’ and that ‘his people’ want him to contest the 2023 presidential elections. I was in the city to deliver the keynote address of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU Bauchi Zone “State of The Nation Summit.”

The quite perceptive six universities in the zone; University of Jos, Bauchi State University, Gombe State University, Federal University, Kachere-Gombe; Plateau State University and the host, Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa University, ATBU, believed that such a summit was urgent.

It is part of their efforts to draw attention and find solutions to the suffocating  problems of the country which include a heavily indebted and collapsing economy, a degenerate state of education, failed security system and an increasing sense of hopelessness among Nigerians.

ASUU National President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who said the security situation is so bad that many Nigerians are afraid to travel by road, revealed that the union is mobilising the populace to support a bill it is sending to the National Assembly titled: “Bring Back Your Children.” The import is to midwife a law that would compel all those leading or  who want to lead the country at any level, to have their children enrolled in schools in the country, not abroad.

The chairperson of the summit, Professor Omotoye Olorode was at home; he was in a university he had spent his 1983 sabbatical, and some of his old students were now professors in the institution.  He recalled that in 1984, ASUU organised a State of the Nation summit which produced a widely circulated communiqué titled: “How to save Nigeria.”

He said that publication showed that: “We saw all that has happened, coming, because that is what we are taught to do.” ASUU, he recalled, organised similar summits in 1992 and 2001 making the same warnings and demanding a change of direction, but that theirs was a voice crying in the wilderness to which the ruling elite were deaf.

He said when a country is in crisis, its intellectuals have a duty to analyse the issues especially the root causes, speak up and join in the struggle for a solution. He regretted that while in 1984, the country had a synergy of the academic, labour and young people, the ruling elite including in the military had worked hard to break that unity. Olorode, 80, however, added that the struggle to emancipate the country must go on adding that it is an inter-generational duty.

In my address, I told the summit that Nigerians live in times when education is the bedrock of development, when we accept that available schools are insufficient and that the phenomenon of out of school children is unacceptable, yet we close schools due to the advance of terrorists and bandits.

That even when some schools are open, we have lost the courage to tell parents to send their children rather than keep them at home. The simple reason is that we cannot keep the schools safe from marauders who rob, kidnap and kill.

Also, that we live in times of hyper-inflation when food is in short supply and many are hungry, but many farmers are at home or in Internally Displaced Persons Camps yielding ground to insurgents, bandits and terrorists. I pointed out that in large parts of the country, the state and the citizenry have abandoned the farms to bandits who sow fear, culture death and reap very rich harvests of ransom.

I also posited that we live in times when the Nigerian would need at least a three-day dry fasting before embarking on a road journey. That while in the past, we complained about the inadequate and poor state of the roads, today, we have abandoned many of these roads to bandits while in some cases, even workmen repairing roads or building new ones are kidnapped along with the armed security provided for them.

I also pointed out that we live in times when we complained that the telecommunication coverage in the country is limited, but due to activities of bandits and terrorists, some states in the country shut down telecommunication services. So the populace in such places are not only deprived means of communication but that if under attack, will be unable to call for help.

I recalled that three years ago, I interviewed a veteran trade unionist for a book I co-authored on the privatisation of the power sector, entitled The Light In The Tunnel May Be A Coming Train. He told me a shocking story of how in parts of Katsina State, parents were withdrawing their children from school and handing them as apprentice to bandits!

In this instance, the loss of the classroom is the gain of the forests as such children were being made to transit from the classroom to the forests; from being taught with the chalk to counting bullets; from being taught how to handle the pen, to how to handle the gun. For them, power will flow not from knowledge or the pen, but the barrel of the gun.

Based on these, I posited that while we can talk economics and education, politics and governance, freedom of speech and the fundamental right to movement or even about the future, what may condition all these, is security or lack of it.

My conclusion was that we need a minimum programme of free, accessible and qualitative education and  healthcare, rural development and transformation, the right to work, food and shelter and a general mobilisation and military training for Nigerians to defend themselves, their families and communities based on a pro-people ideology.

I pointed out that while we can tackle general insecurity, our greater challenge is tackling the greed, prodigal and poverty-inducing misrule in the country by the political elite who hold the country hostage. So, Nigerians need to organise and mobilise to chase out those causing us pain and suffering. I concluded that we are in desperate search of solutions that are within our grasp.