PRINCE Abdul-Jabar Bola Ajibola was the attorney general of the Federation and minister of justice under the military regime of Gen Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. In this interview with Sunday Sun at his Abeokuta residence, he spoke on a range of issues affecting the stability of the polity. Read excerpts of the exciting report:
What was your childhood like?
I grew up like a normal child in the care of my parents. Incidentally, my father happened to be the former Olowu of Owu in Abeokuta here. My mother was a devout Muslim who coached me up in the philosophy of life together with my father. I learnt a lot from them. I finished my primary education at Owu Baptist Day School from about 1945/46 till 1950. Thereafter, I left for Baptist Boys High School (BBHS), where I did all my secondary education. I left BBHS in 1955 and left for the United Kingdom in 1958 to study Law. I obtained my Bachelor of Law (LLB) and was called to the English Bar.
What was remarkable about Obasanjo who happened to be your junior in school?
The remarkable thing about him came fortuitously by just sheer coincidence. There was a time he was given the opportunity to serve as a Librarian of the school and he took it very seriously. He worked all day throughout that time as our dedicated Librarian. That gave him the opportunity to be very studious and dedicated to his work and himself too. So, he was from that very moment very versatile. He worked all the time. He inculcated that idea of service to all those in the school and then he went to serve in the Army and then to serve the whole country. Service, as far as Obasanjo was concerned was priority. Service, to Obasanjo, is what we can say is legendary. He is a devoted servant of Nigeria. He served Nigeria in so many capacities.
As elite who studied in an advanced country where democracy is the order of the day, why did you serve a military government at home?
Oh, well, at that time, the whole concept was a kind of aberration. We believed we could reform the whole country and that we could make it better, that we could serve better and be more dedicated and to be of good service to the entire nation. I still stand by that approach. Throughout the time I served as attorney general and minister of justice, I’m yet to see someone who has done what I did during the time that I served. I served virtually free of remuneration. As a matter of fact, I served for six years, three months, 20 days, one and a half hours. During all that period, I was paying back to the government 35% of my salary so that they could try to govern better than before. I also was paying 25% to the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) which happened to be my root. And thereafter, the rest 40% I spent on the less privileged. I gave to disabled people including the blind and others who were in one way or the other unable to satiate their needs. I did all that for those six years plus. That was what I did.
But I deliberately accepted to serve in order to show our people how to serve one’s nation selflessly. And I still think of myself as someone who has uniquely done that during my own time because having practiced law for 23 years, I had enough to live on. And with that, I was not ready to take any money from anybody. As a matter of fact, I did something unique at that time because I engaged people to serve the government from my own purse. One is called Ojukwu, the other one Sowunmi and the third one, I have forgotten the name now. But I was paying their salaries throughout as I was serving because we were busy with the laws of the Federation of Nigeria as well as the Nigerian Monthly Law Report which was very much a project that I wanted to complete before my tenure ended. I accomplished it and I paid for it from my purse in order that Nigerians may still have it till today and they still have it.
In your assessment, can President Muhammadu Buhari win the anti graft war?
I think he has a good chance of fighting corruption. But my advice to him is to set up a strong committee of good Nigerians with high integrity, saddle them with this idea of recovering the loot first. The recovery of the money is also very, very important as well as ensuring culprits are prosecuted. The priority is the EFCC and ICPC must be all out in trying to recover the loot first. They must lay emphasis on recovering the money, from those who have stolen, whether the money is in Britain or in Dubai or in Switzerland or America. They must try to recover the loot. Once the loot is recovered, that would ease the serious situation we are in now. Thereafter, culprits must be prosecuted and such a thing should never repeat itself.
How did you feel when President Buhari indicted the Judiciary as his headache in the anti-corruption war?
That is the reason he must back himself up with facts and figures and it is not enough to allege, it is also important to prove the allegation beyond any reasonable doubt. He must pick some of the cases that look very obvious in this circumstance of an attempt to recover the money and the impediment being faced from the court, and ask the judiciary itself to look into the matter and decide on what to be done. It happened during my time too. And what we did was to set up a Commission of Enquiry which Justice Kayode Esho headed. And we found a lot of judges wanting. And that was how some of them were dismissed. And that cleared the air and improved the situation.
How did you feel and what did you do when the military government you served annulled an election won by the late MKO Abiola?
Once I gave myself the good clear understanding that I was there to serve selflessly and to serve to the best of my ability, and to correct the iniquities going on, I felt that I have accomplished these. I felt very happy that I went in there and performed and I performed to the best of my ability and performed very well. I decided to go into the whole matter just to show them that people could still serve well in any circumstance, military or civilian, there are people who could still serve to their best and very well. And that was exactly what I went in there to do. That was what I did at that time and nobody can dispute that.
The question is instructive because the victim of the annulment, MKO Abiola, was your kinsman…
Well, you see, the Abiola matter is a very long story. He happened to be close to me. Close to me in the sense that he was one of my juniors at the BBHS. Secondly, he happened to be a Muslim like me and also a devout Muslim. Again, he happened to be patriotic, taking good care of situations even within our Egba land of which I am also keenly interested. But he was fond of me. He believed in me and my ability to perform. There was a time in my life when I was bereaved because my first daughter in life died. I then decided I should leave Nigeria for the time being and settle somewhere else. Abiola quickly took the matter up to the extent that I was invited by the government in The Gambia to come in and serve as their chief judge. But after a while, things settled down and I politely refused to go further. But, in fact, when (former) President Ibrahim Babangida invited me to serve as the attorney general and minister of justice, the first person he told about it was MKO Abiola.
And MKO Abiola came all the way to Port Harcourt from Lagos to tell me about the invitation. He urged me to please accept the invitation to demonstrate to them that regardless of any position, they could get good products from us, from Abeokuta and good performers, civilian or military, that we could perform very well. Believing that I could do it, he was very, very much interested in my taking up the job and pleaded with me to please take it in order to demonstrate to these people that we are capable, we are competent, we are good, we are efficient. That was what I did. I got there. It was like I came, I saw, I conquered. And that was what I did. I laid a good record there. And all the attorneys general that came there after me could testify that I left a good legacy.
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