The Public Complaints Commission was set up bythe Federal
Government to interface between individuals and organizations in any area of disagreement.
In this interview, Chief Obunike Ohaegbu, the FCT Commissioner of PCC, says about
five organizations are facing prosecution. He also speaks on the efforts to
decongest the FCT prisons. Excerpts:
Recently, you visited
Kuje Prisons in FCT. What is your impression and what efforts are you makingto
ensure that things are done right?
I visited Kuje Prisons in January 2003 and discovered that
the people there were more than the number that ordinarily should be there, and
that something had to be done about that. So the first thing I did was to go to
the then Chief Judge of FCT, I went with him to the prisons that point, he
released 13prisoners awaiting trial
and then twenty something of them he
gave directive for accelerated hearing. But I thought that we still needed to
do more because if you notice in other states the governors actually once in a
while grant prerogative of mercy to inmates and that is not done here in the
FCT because the power to do that is in the president who is more like the
governor of the FCT but he has dedicated some of the functions to FCT minister.
Unfortunately, however, the power to grant prerogative of mercy was not part of
the powers that have been delegated to the FCT minister, so you find that the
president who is busy governing the entire country, will not have time to
actually visit Kuje Prisons to find out what is happening. So, I wrote to the
Attorney General of the Federation who is the Attorney General of the FCT. I
requested that he should recommend to the president to establish a prerogative
of mercy committee to recommend on the people who he can grant mercy within the
FCT and the president has actually done that with the Attorney General of the
Federal as the chairman of the Committee.
How many complaints
have you received and how have you investigated them?
In
June, we treated over 200 cases the ones we received and the ones we initiated.
What we do here first because of this legal maxim that says the other party
must be heard is to write to the other party that so-so matter have been
complained against you and we want you to respond. When we sent that letter,
you are now expected to utilise theopportunity to let your own side be heard Section
5, Subsection 7 of the Public Complaints Commission Act said that any letter
written to any respondent; the respondent has 30 days to respond. That is not all
because Section 8, Subsection 2, of the Act criminalizes failure to respond. So
when, we write to the respondent, then, as a reminder, after 30days, we write
and remind you that you have not attended to us and you are committing an offence
and give you another seven days grace.People have this erroneous impression that the Public Complaints Commission is a toothlessbulldog, so you find out that when they receive thatletter, they say what will they do? But when theyrealize that failure to respond, they are committingan offence, most of the respondents will call us andsay, ‘oh, when we got the letter, it was already late’or, ‘we didn’t receive the letter’ or, ‘it was passed tothe wrong person’ and all that.I usually say, ‘thank God, you are the one informing me what we intend to do and it didn’t get to the wrong person. I think the response has been very wonderful and I must observe thatSection 8, Subsection 2 of the Public Complaints Commission says failure to respond is a fine of N500 or imprisonment of six months or both; the Act was actually promulgated in 1975. As at 1975, I am sure you know the value of N500, so we have now formed a very strong synergy with the Commissioner of Police of the FCT to compilethe names of people we consider recalcitrant respondents, people who find it difficult to respondto us, for prosecution.
Before the end of this month they are going to be arrested andprosecuted because six months imprisonment and N500 is within the jurisdiction of the magistratecourt; we don’t have to go to the Attorney Generalor anybody; the Commissioner of Police can handlethat.I must mention at this point that we are notprosecuting people for the matters that werereported against them. The prosecution is forfailure to respond to us, ignoring us feeling thatnothing will happen. The matters that werereported against them are still pending beforePublic Complaints Commission and, once we finishwith their prosecution, they will still come back tous to continue with the matter that actually led tothem being arrested and being prosecuted.
How many people do you
intend to prosecute?
We have five recalcitrant respondents, we justcame on board
after 13 years without commissioners. We try to create awareness,
informNigerians of what we do and the possibleimplications of not responding to
us. I believe andin the opinion of the
management here in FCT thatone year is enough for people to know what we doand
that is the reason; we organized within oneyear two seminars. So we are
starting with the firstset of prosecution now.
Can you name the
recalcitrant respondents?
What I can tell you at this point is that two heads of
government agencies and three managing directors of private companies are to face
trial but you will get to know them as soon as we forwardthe matter to the
police. I am saying this so that itdoes
not jeopardize police investigations into the matter.
What are the challenges
facing your office and howhave you been able to surmount them?
The first challenge is awareness, public perceptionof Public
Complaints Commission. We areaddressing
that aggressively.The second one, I am sure you found it difficult tolocate
this place before now. Public Complaints Commission had two buildings in Area
1; unfortunately, a former minister of the FCT chased them out of that place
because he said the place was residential area, that there shouldn’t be
offices, and because we had no commissioner, there was no alternative
arrangement and that was why an institution that was making use of two
buildings ended up in two flats here.
You can see how congested it is, but I am grateful to the management of
FCTA now. They are making arrangement to find us an alternative office accommodation,
the minister of FCT has actually given us land where we are going to build our permanent
site. Another issue is the general issue of funding. I am confident that
something will be done about that. Even the two seminars we had, the one we organized
last year and graced by the founding fathers of the Public Complaints
Commission, General Yakubu Gowon and Alhaji Maitama Sule, and the Ike Oha
Ndigbo, the Deputy Senate President,
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, and the one we organized this year attended by
Babangida and Adams Oshiomhole, the Niger State governor and the Head of the
European Union delegation, among others, were financed from my private resources
and even the newsletter that we are publishing. But the leadership of fact, the
leadership of the National Assembly has assured us that things will improve.
Do you have the power
to investigate financial crimes?
If you look at the Act establishing us … as a matter of fact,
I just had a meeting with the head of one of the financial institutions and if
a complaint has to do with crime, what we do is refer to the relevant agency. I
have referred quite a number of cases to such agencies. At the end of the day,
the complainant claims he lost N60 million as the bank fraudulently converted his
money. He explained that when he complained, what the bank did was to after two
years give him N20 million without any compensation and the bank was now saying
that he is the one indebted. So what I did was to refer the matter to the EFCC which
wrote me back to say the matter is better treated elsewhere because it is not
strictly a criminal offence. I have requested to meet with the CBN governor for
him to personally intervene in the matter. If you call that economic crime or financial
crime it may not be too wrong and if say we are handling it, it may not be too
wrong as well.
How have you intervened
on the petition by the ex-CBN workers that claimed they were unlawfully disengaged
by the apex bank?
As a matter of fact, it is not as if they complained to us. I
acted pursuant to the provisions of Section 5, Subsection 2 of the Public
Complaints Commission Act that gives me the power as the commissioner to initiate
investigation. When I learnt they were trying to demonstrate because they had
not had the opportunity to be heard, I rushed to the scene and addressed
them. I have written the CBN governor requesting
an appointment to sit down with him and discuss the issue.
Culled from Sunday Vanguard newspaper November
10, 2013
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