We are Compassionate Tigers

SQUIB INTERVIEW

“WE MAY BE TIGERS BUT WE ARE COMPASSIONATE”
Dave Ajetumobi Esq.

SQUIB: You are the Vice Chairman of NBA, Ikeja. We would like you to tell our readers a little more about you, your educational career, family life etc.

V.C: Thank you very much. My name is David Akinyemi Ajetumobi. I am an Ijesha man anyway, I was born in 1963, 13th of March to be precise and I had my primary school up to primary two in my town. From primary three to six, I schooled in Lagos. At least I have been in Lagos close to 34 years now. So, I’m qualified to be a bonafide Lagosian.

SQUIB: You are from which town and state?

V.C: I’m from Ijebu-jesha in Osun State. I did my A’ levels at what is now known as Lagos State Polytechnic {LASPOTECH} formerly called Lagos State College of Science and Technology {LACOSTECH}

SQUIB: Which year was that?

V.C: That was from 1981-1984. Then I entered the University of Ife in 1985. I was there till 1989 when I proceeded to the Law School, Lagos. I was called to the Nigerian Bar in December, 1990. I did my National Youth Service in Calabar in 1991. I was the legal officer to the National Electoral Commission in Calabar then. Thereafter, I worked with the chambers of Edema Ubong & Associates in Calabar. It may interest you to know that I served in Calabar with the NBA Ikeja’s former Chairman, Adekunle Ojo. From there, I moved down to Lagos, worked briefly with the chambers of Chief Bola Akinyele and Co. Thereafter, precisely in 1993, I started my own practice. I have been in practice since then.
SQUIB: Thank you so much, I’ll take it that you are married?

V.C: Yes, I am a nationalist. I believe in Nigeria. I had to cross the Niger to catch my wife. My wife happens to come from Umuahia, Abia State. So, I am a national character.

SQUIB: You are presently the 1st Vice Chairman of the NBA Ikeja, have you held any post in the Bar before?

V.C: Yes, I was the publicity secretary under Dr. Bisi Ade-Ademuwagun’s tenure as Chairman of the NBA, Ikeja. That was 2002 - 2004. Thereafter, I became the 2nd Vice Chairman under Adekunle Ojo as Chairman in 2004 - 2006. In the lifetime of that administration, I was saddled with an added position as the secretary of the law week.

SQUIB: Well, as 1st Vice Chairman NBA, Ikeja, I will ask you about your office but before proceeding, how do you see the NBA itself and your branch of the NBA?

V.C: NBA as presently constituted I can say affirmatively, is in comatose. In a situation where we have a president who is not a member of the NBA in the real sense of it, a stranger in the saddle, you don’t expect such a person to perform. He has being dissipating lots of energy defending lawyers nominated for ministerial positions, defending Ribadu that he should not be allowed to go to any course now, etc. I don’t think that is really the reason for the existence of the NBA. The lives of members have not been touched positively. Individual members are going through lots of stress. They are not feeling the impact of the NBA.

SQUIB: Assess the state of human rights appreciation in Nigeria.
V.C: I think that the judiciary in general has been doing their best in promoting human rights by protecting citizens’ rights in court. But one cannot say the same of the executive because many of them did not come to power properly. They rigged the elections. So, from such a group of people that were not actually voted into office, you don’t expect them to respect human rights. It was worse under Obasanjo, though Yar adua has improved on it, I don’t know how far he can go. Between 1999 and 2007, I think we recorded as many human rights abuses as we recorded under any military dictatorship, because ‘Baba’ (Obasanjo) the former president, did not believe in the rule of law. Any judgement that did not favour him, his Attorney-General would reverse it and grant him interim injunction.

SQUIB: Not even under Yar’Adua?

V.C: Of course, not even under Yar’Adua. There are people that have been killed. Extra judicial killings by the police, nothing is happening. We have reports, petitions written to us to intervene in some extra judicial killings by the police. Nothing has been done. We have contacted the authorities. It seems the authorities have taken the positions of the ostrich, see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil. So, I can’t really say on the executive side that there has been respect for human rights and rule of law as such, but the judiciary has been trying its best in that regard.

SQUIB: How much involved is NBA Ikeja and specifically your own office’s involvement?

V.C: Yes, thank you. Since we introduced the Law Clinic, lots of people have approached it for help. NBA Ikeja has an arm to take care of rights encroachment by anybody for that matter whether government, private or corporate persons. For instance we have petitions of people that were oppressed by government, premises were sealed by local government or even the state government and town planning authorities. We have people oppressed by individuals using their positions and connections. We have marital issues that we had to intervene on the petition or complaint of one of the spouses. Then there was a case of some ladies that were randomly arrested on the allegation that they were indecently dressed.

SQUIB: Indecently?

V.C: Yes, indecently, so our members have been attending courts. As at today, we only have one of the cases pending.

SQUIB: Which members?

V.C: Members of the Human Rights Committee. We have made arrangements for our members to be in court at every adjourned date.

SQUIB: For, which case?

V.C: The case of the girls that were arrested for indecent dressing and were charged to court. We felt that there is no provision in our law that dictates how you should dress. Though, you may have it in English law, but in our law, we don’t have such. Hence, it is an attempt to have these people dehumanised and to oppress them. Because when we say the rate of armed robbery is increasing in the state, you now turn to people instead of chasing the armed robbers away, you are looking at the ladies that dressed indecently. Will that solve the problem of armed robbery? It is like chasing shadows. So, we have to come to the rescue of these people. I know my secretary in particular, is always in court for these cases.
SQUIB: Who is your secretary?

V.C: Emmanuel Otobo. He is there to represent us in most of these cases. And wherever an NBA presence is announced, it has its own effect in any court.

SQUIB: Who are these members of the committee, like how many of you?

V.C: On the paper, we are very large, we are many, close to fifty. But when the chips are down, we are less than ten who are active. The active ones include: Mr. Emmanuel Otobo, Mr. Lateef Abdusalam, Dr. Pascal Obunah, Mrs. Asagba, Mrs. Bode, Mrs. Gloria Nwaeze, Mr. Charles Okungbowa, Mr. Gbenga Ajayi and Mrs. Stevenson.

SQUIB: What are the modus operandi of your committee, how do you work?

V.C: Yes, since I took over as head of the committee, I have made it a matter of policy not to attend to anybody that just come and say something has happened to me. You must put your complaint into writing so that on the strength of the complaint, we tackle the problem. We ask them to back their complaints with all necessary documents (if any). Then, we deliberate on the complaint and assign the complaint to one of us who will follow it up. Then I myself, personally will follow up the job to make sure it is done. In some cases, the real problem of some of the complainants is sheer poverty. For instance, there is one Mr. Fabunmi. He was a complainant in a case before Magistrate Court 1, Yaba. Somebody was charged to court for demolishing his house that was under construction as well as his blocks that he bought to the site. The accused jumped bail. Unfortunately, the defence lawyer was there insisting that the case must be struck out when his client had jumped bail. I discovered that Mr. Fabunmi spent his pension from Nigerian Railways Corporation to buy that land and to make the blocks. If the case was struck out, he would have lost everything. It was in the course of this trouble that he lost his son. The magistrate gave only one adjournment. I called the man to come to the NBA secretariat at Ikeja. There and then, we listened to his complaints, we assigned Mr. Abdusalam to follow up the case. The next adjourned date, we were at Court 1 to inform the magistrate that NBA was interested in the matter and the magistrate graciously granted us the privilege of having the matter adjourned until we intervened decisively. We visited the site, met the land owner. We discovered that the land was sold to somebody else by the landowner. On the strength of the sale, the people moved into the site and demolished the blocks and every structure on the site. The man didn’t have anything. At a point in time, he could not afford the hospital bill of his son in the hospital. Then, his son died. It was quite a pathetic case. Eventually, we were able to discuss with the landowner and negotiated that he should be given two plots so that he can sell one and use the other to build. The land developers (omo oniles) did not agree to that but later gave the man one plot. The man came to the meeting to show appreciation. And this assignment was carried out without collecting a dime from him because it is a human rights committee matter. Since I took up the headship of the committee, we have only received the sum of ten thousand naira (N10,000) which is not enough to even file some cases we have so far filed.

SQUIB: You filed cases in court?

V.C: Yes, I have a case file here pending in the High Court. Some tenants at Ketu wrote to us. The landlord wanted them out. They were served statutory notices, but he couldn’t wait for the tribunal to intervene, he now wanted to use the local government authorities to evict them. Then, he served them with the notice the premises was bad and was unfit for human habitation. At that point, we took it up and we wrote to the council authority. We appeared before the customary court because we knew that the plan was already concluded to evict them. The notices were just mere formality. We informed the customary court that the matter was pending before the high court because we had filed an application before the high court of Lagos State and told that any attempt for their court to treat this matter would amount to contempt of the high court. They listened to us. To my surprise, recently the customary court gave order again that the house should be sealed. I went to the court to intimate them with the fact that they are joking with fire.

SQUIB: Under your leadership of the Human Rights Committee, how many cases have you handled

V.C: We have handled quite a lot. We don’t joke with cases that concern our colleagues. For instance, Mr. Obideku was attacked by the police, beaten up and was later charged to court.

SQUIB: He was beaten up, what did he do?

V.C: They said he committed traffic offence and when he tried telling the police that they were wrong, they descended on him mercilessly. After charging him to court, they stopped coming because they can’t substantiate that case. It was this committee that defended Obideku until the case was struck out. There is also a case of a lady lawyer who was convicted by a customary court for failure to pay lock up shop due. Myself and other members of the committee went to that court, we spoke with the panel and explained the situation of things to them. They (court) said they were ready to reverse themselves. The only unfortunate issue was that lady was very flippant, she really created a scene in the court during court proceedings. We will never support any member who engages in such disruptive activity. We told her to apologize to the court but she refused. It was at that point we backed-off from her case. Though we expended our time and money on the case but we will never support any lawyer to disrespect the judiciary at any level.
A case of child abuse was reported to us. The man was a divorcee who later re-married. He had the custody of his daughter by his first wife who he denied access to the girl. His new wife severely beat up the poor girl who was just ten years old. When we had of the case, we wrote a petition to the nearest police station and the father of the girl was arrested. The man now sent for his brother who is an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) thinking that the man would be able to cajole us into dropping the case. At the end of the day, the man gave an undertaking in writing that he would no longer deny the girl’s mother access to her and that the girl would no longer be maltreated again. He also agreed that the girl would be free to spend the holidays with her mother.
Another case with us is that of David Oboth, formerly an okada rider. Now, he is an amputee. He had an accident and was hit by a truck in the right leg which had to be cut off. We intervened on his behalf in the court case made against the truck driver but we noticed that the accused had jumped bail. Ever since, the man had no source of livehood. But we learnt from the company of the truck driver that they had paid N250,000.00 to David’s lawyer who unfortunately had vanished into thin air. We are looking for him. The truck is still with the police.

SQUIB: People call the NBA, Ikeja the tiger branch, why is it so?

V.C: Our name does not mean that we are wicked and wild. It is an appreciation of our timely and positive response to lawyers’ welfare and national issues. We have compassion for people and our branch is very patriotic.