How to curb mounting judgment-debt

According to Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami (SAN), Nigeria’s judgment-debt has risen to N150 billion. He requested for N30 billion yearly budgetary allocation to offset it. Is N150 billion the correct figure? Why is the amount so high? Lawyers tell ERIC IKHILAE how the problem can be solved

 

Sometime in September 2008, four Naval personnel attacked a young lady – Uzoma Okere – for allegedly obstructing the convoy of their principal – Rear Admiral Harry Arogundade – on Victoria Island, Lagos.

Okere was battered, her clothes were torn and she was bundled into their vehicle.

Horrified by the incident which was captured on video, the Lagos State Government, through the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), intervened.

Okere also sued the Navy and its men at the Lagos State High Court. At the end of the suit, Justice Opeyemi Oke awarded N100 million, in damages against the defendants.

In October, this year, Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State awarded N50.2 million in damages against Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA), formerly the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (FETHA), for medical negligence.

Mrs. Ifeyinwa Awada and her father, Nwugo Chimere Nwugo sued the hospital and its management when she lost her child at birth. Mrs. Awada claimed, in court documents that the hospital acted with negligence in attending to her while she was in labour, which resulted in the death of the baby in her womb.

A consultant gynaecologist, who was on call the day Mrs. Awada was scheduled to be delivered of her baby, simply left the hospital to attend to his personal needs, without informing anyone. The hospital was also said to have refused Nwugo’s request to move her daughter to another health facility. With no capable hands to attend to her, Mrs. Awada lost the baby.

In yet another case, Emmanuel Monday Jack had gone to the Mararaba, Nasarawa State branch of Access Bank Plc, on January 2, 2018, to withdraw money from his accounts to pay his children’s school fees. Jack could not, and upon enquiry from the bank’s Customer Service Officer, he was told his accounts had been blocked, owing to an ongoing investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The bank’s officials held him down and invited EFCC’s operatives to arrest him. Jack was detained in EFCC’s Abuja facility between January 3 and 5, 2018 and later moved to Lagos.

At the EFCC office in Lagos on January 9, last year, he was handed to Stephen Oyoyade, who claimed to be investigating a petition, dated November 22, 2017, from the law firm of Hycinth Odu & Co, written on behalf of the Managing Director of Denob Bureau de Change Limited, Martins Osarenwin-damwem Efe, alleging conspiracy and obtaining of 25,000 pounds under false presence.

During investigation of the petition, Oyoyade wrote Access Bank, with the phone number (08083036160), which was said to be linked to a bank verification number (BVN): 2221839668, said to belong to the suspect, Segun Obileye, and requested the bank to block the account.

When Jack was taken before Oyoyade in the EFCC Lagos office on January 9, 2018, the investigator told Jack to write a statement, shortly after, he returned to announce that Jack’s case was that of mistaken identity, and that the mistake was from the bank, whose Branch Manager in Wuse II, Abuja identified him (Jack) as the person they were looking for.

Jack returned to Abuja on January 11, last year upon being freed by the EFCC. He consequently sued for unlawful detention and blockage of his accounts. On October 28, 2019, in a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/260/2018, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja awarded N10 million damages against the EFCC and Oyoyade for unlawfully detaining Jack and blocking his accounts.

Justice Ekwo also declared as unconstitutional and a flagrant violation of his right to access his property, the freezing of Jack’s salary account: 0035169815, savings account: 0050118458, and child’s account: 0738369772 with Access Bank Plc.

The above incidents, including the infamous $9.6 billion award against Nigeria and in favour of an Irish firm – Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID) Limited – by an arbitral panel that sat in London, constitute a few of the many instances where, out of sheer negligence and abuse of power, state officials have caused the government to lose funds that ought to be deployed to the provision of social amenities, to the settlement of judgment debt.

On September 8, this year, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Niyi Akintola, said another $1billion judgment debt hung on the Federal Government over the sale of the defunct Nigeria Telecommunication (NITEL).

Akintola told the government to brace for more judgment debts already entered against the country on account of contracts awarded but were cancelled.

Akintola spoke while featuring on Fresh FM’s Political Circuit, a live interview programme in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

He said a $237 million judgment was entered against Nigeria by an arbitration panel in the United Kingdom in 2003, in a case brought before it by an Ibadan-born entrepreneur, Chief Bode Akindele, against the Federal Government over the cancellation of the contract for the purchase of the defunct Nigeria Telecommunication (NITEL).

Read Also: Nigeria’s judgement debts rise to N150billion

Akindele, according to Akintola, who described Nigeria as “a country where anything goes” successfully bought NITEL from the Federal Government for $237 million and paid one third of the sum.

He said Akindele’s refusal to “play ball” and part with some shareholding for some interests in government at that time led to the contract being called off for no justifiable reason, prompting the legal battle before the arbitration panel.

Akintola said further that accumulation of interest since 2003 when the judgment was given would have shot the debt up to about $2 billion.

 

Malami, Bamidele lament impact of judgment debt

 

Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami stressed the effect of this distasteful conduct by state officials when he alerted the nation that judgment debts owed by the Nigerian government stood at about N150 billion.

At a budget defence session, before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Malami noted that judgement debt was mounting, with no budgetary allocation to address it. He sought a N30 billion annual allocation to that effect.

Malami said: “The Ministry of Justice was mandated to take inventory and explore avenues for the payment of judgement debt. This has arisen because it was only in 2017 that the sum of N10 billion was disbursed for the payment of judgment debt as an operative.

“As it stands, the sum of over 150b remains unpaid prompting beneficiaries of this sum to keep mounting pressures on the ministry. I hereby request that you intervene on this long-standing issue by appropriating the sum of N30billion annually to mitigate this challenge and to forestall approved interest and unwarranted litigations arising from our failure to effect payment.

“It is in public domain that we are today contending with P&ID judgment prompting us to swiftly moved to action to save the country from a $9.6b judgement debt. I want to state on record that no budgetary provision existed as it relates to contentious issues relating to the defence of the federal government for the purpose of setting aside this quoted demand and others.

“This is a clear sign and demonstration of the fact that the Federal Ministry of Justice work under very difficult circumstances for the purpose of addressing issues with huge financial demands leading to circumstances where no budgetary provision exists for the purpose of addressing the challenges that kept arising day-in-day-out.

“In any event, there is a glimmer of hope within the foreseeable future we shall triumph over this hazard of international conspiracy and dramatic irony that is packaged for the purpose of creating a serious economic setback for the country.”

The committee Chairman, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, noted that his committee was “worried about the judgment debt profile of the country, which keeps soaring by the day, as there were no budgetary allocations to handle such; and that it was a matter of concern to the Committee.

“It is on record that the last allocation the Ministry got for judgement debt was in the 2017 Appropriation Act where the sum of N10 billion was appropriated. The Committee is deeply concerned with the failure of our government to service its judgement debt as expected, which has put our image before the international community at stake. The Committee would strive to ensure that budgetary provisions are made in order to offset the debt burden,” he said.

However, law experts have attributed the growing judgment debt to the inability of state officials to abide by the rule of law and act decorously in most cases.

They also blamed it on the lack of patriotism on the part of the officials, who are mostly propelled by self-interest and whose loyalty is not to the state. They suggest deterrent measures.

 

The cause

 

The Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), Prof Muhammed Tawfiq Ladan, noted that the problem of judgment debt was because, in the past, many state officials and heads of parastatals behaved very irresponsibly, and people thought they could get away with anything.

Ladan cited the P&ID case, which he blamed on the recklessness of state officials. He added: “you enter into a contract with a company, the company had already incurred some losses and also borrowed money to execute part of the contract. All of a sudden, you fail to discharge your own part of the obligation, what do you expect.

“At a point, where we needed to enter into a negotiation, we failed to do that. So, as a nation, at a point when we needed to get ourselves an arbitrator to peacefully arbitrate on our behalf, we did not do that. We dismissed it as rubbish and we believe that they can go nowhere with us.

“Meanwhile, the cumulative interest on the award given, in terms of the judgement and the loses they (P&ID) were incurring was rising. Don’t forget that the company borrowed money from the bank, and interest is rising by the day. The loss is not about the arbitral award given, but what contractor or investor was actually facing.

“So, they (the company) made a case for all this accrued money to be built into the arbitral award against Nigeria. And it rose to $9.6billion. We can’t pay that kind of money, because that amount is practically the life wire of our annual budget. It is a key chunk of our national budget, which means we won’t be able to do anything if we give away such amount of money,” Ladan said.

A rights activist, Dr. Halim Abdulhakim, decried the conduct of most government officials, who, he noted, do not care to play by the rules, and are often less concerned about the effect of the negative outcome of their actions on the state.

“It is quite sad that most state officials often trample on the rules and act arbitrarily. Those most guilty of this are the officials of the various security agencies. They do not care whether or not your rights are violated. They don’t care about the impact of their bad conduct on the society.

“I was recently involved in a case. My client was unlawfully detained. I went to intervene. The policemen were adamant. We threatened to sue. Do you know what one of them said? He told us that if we sue and damages are awarded, it will not be settled from his pocked. He said it is the government that will pay. Can you see why they will continue to abuse our rights and not care?

 

The way out

 

As a way of addressing the challenge of mounting judgment debt, Ladan suggested that the government should impress it on its officials the need to be prudent in their thinking and act responsibly always.

“So, I think it is about financial prudence and a sense of responsibility on the part of those in governance at all levels. So, we need to put our house in order otherwise, we will be getting these kinds of cases and it would have no end. I don’t think it makes any sense,” the NIALS DG said.

Abdulhakim said the way out was for the government to be firm and not to hesitate to subject any official, whose action or inaction results in judgment debt, to punishment where necessary.

“My suggestion will be that individual officials should be made to pay judgment debt that arises from his/her negligence. If necessary, their gratuity and pension should equally be deployed to settle judgment debt incurred due to their conduct. I believe such a measure will deter many,” Ladan concluded.