Well, Nigeria’s team at the ongoing Africa Nations Cup met stiff challenges so far and the country can only hope for better days ahead (I genuinely believe so). While some people find it easy to make a case for strong criticism, others simply recycled vague allegations and to make matters worse Patrick Ekeji, the Director General of NSC was making legal threats to anyone who criticise NSC. He said and I quote, “ …that the time had come for the NSC to use all legal instrument at its disposal to protect its image from the utterances and activities of people who he said have turned the act of disparaging the NSC into a pastime as well as a means of livelihood…insisted that the criticisms were baseless.. The decision to include elite athletes in the National Sports Festival & sack Secretary-General of Federations were met with criticism. “
Preamble
Firstly, Nigeria is in democracy and the government are led by people representatives and those individuals must act within established laws of the land as enacted by the legislative branch. However, there comes time when those laws failed to meet the current needs of the people where it becomes useless and hindrance to development. As a result, the people representatives in the legislative arms of the country leadership are empowered to amend and create new laws.
Nitty Gritty (koko in Yoruba slang)
If people are fed up with useless policies and rules then they must be heard by all reasonable legitimate means (I think that is one of democratic principles). For example, if a house of representative individual failed to follow up on constituents’ grievance, then, the question, whether it is reasonable to approach the media and if so, what is disparaging about it? Again here, Nigeria Sports development policy turned out to be a piece of cotton candy where with one bite the whole policy melted as noticed in the Olympics Games and God forbid at the ongoing Nations Cup. Is it time for people to use the same media NSC, the House of Assembly and the Presidency used to take up their positions and make announcements? I think so.
Ekeji Threat (alleged)
NSC was established by a federal legislative act and nowhere in such act that NSC was required to (or) becomes a corporate body under Company and Allied Matters Acts (Chapter 54 of Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria) to be able to bring an action in civil court to repair its corporate image (if any). Based on NSC act, the entity is a commission within the executive branch of the federal government and its’ actions (Policies) are reviewable by the legislatures and the Presidency.
It will be surprising however, in private law, whether NSC can bring action directly in a civil court because a Commission generally is at the convenience of a seating government to partake a highly technical aspect of governance, as such it has no image of its own (to protect), rather it is the Attorney General that can bring action on behalf of the federal government for any alleged tarnished Federal Government (via NSC) image if practicable (I doubt it will prevail).
To do otherwise mean NSC is above public scrutiny and I doubt sincerely whether Ekeji threat can ever materialise into any legal victory. Imagine, the seating government telling opposition that they lacked any right to criticise. Is Nigeria in dictatorship? Frankly, this threat suggests that NSC really need a competent legal adviser as soon as possible because going forward with establishing new rules for federation require this need as a necessity.
Going forward
Clearly, Nigerians whatever their motives as suggested by Ekeji are within their democratic right of dissent to disagree with policies that affects them and the onus is on the federal government to mitigate such disenchantment with meaningful policies to meets current needs of the populace.
Go Eagles fly high.
I rest.
Dr. Rashid A. Balogun, CPA, LLB(Hons.), LLM(London)
