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1986 was a turning point in the lives of India’s Christian women.

That year the Indian Supreme Court
ruled that women possessed equal inheritance rights with men. Prior to
that time the Christian inheritance law stipulated that the daughter of
a man or woman who died intestate was only entitled to the lesser of
two options: a quarter of the share of the inheritance due to a son; or
the sum of five thousand rupees. The driving force behind annulment of
that chauvinistic law was Prafullachandra Natwarlal (P.N.) Bhagwati, in
his position as India’s Chief Justice and Head of its Supreme Court.

A head start

His was a privileged upbringing.
Bhagwati, the eldest of seven sons, was born in 1921 to a lawyer father
who “always taught us that we should be hardworking, honest and
straightforward; and we should devote ourselves to studies” and a
mother, who, despite not having much education,

“was a highly devoted person,
highly dedicated, and gave us wonderful training”. (The senior Bhagwati
would later sit on India’s Supreme Court). The upbringing clearly left
its mark on the sons. Jagdish, one of Bhagwati’s brothers is an
influential economist and Professor at Columbia University, while
Sanat, another brother, is a world-acclaimed neurosurgeon and former
President of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery.

The making of the lawyer

The lawyer started out a
scientist. In 1941, at the age of twenty, Bhagwati bagged a first class
degree in Mathematics from Elphinstone College in Bombay (now Mumbai).
After this he enrolled for a Masters degree, also in Mathematics. But a
chance encounter (while he was studying for his MA) with Indian
nationalist icon Mahatma Ghandi would change the course of his life
forever. “After hearing [Mahatma Ghandi] on 8 August 1942, I gave up my
studies, joined the freedom struggle,” he tells me. “I was in jail –
British jail – for one month. I was released, but I didn’t stop
participating in the freedom struggle. There was a warrant for my
arrest, I went underground, hunted by the police.” For several months
Bhagwati remained in hiding. Eventually, in 1943, the arrest warrant
against him was withdrawn, and he made the decision to “take law, and
give up mathematics.” I ask him what the transition from Mathematics to
Law was like. His answer comes instantly. “Law is basically a matter of
scientific deduction, and mathematics gave me very good training for
the purpose of analysis and deduction.” The evidence for this is
incontrovertible: he graduated with a first class in Law from the
Government Law College, Bombay.

The Emergency

In July 1960, Bhagwati became a
Judge of the Gujarat High Court. Seven years later he became the Chief
Justice of Gujarat. In July 1973 he was elevated to the Indian Supreme
Court, just like his father had been. But barely two years into his
career at India’s highest court an event would happen that would be one
of the most significant low points of his judicial career. The then
Prime Minister, Indira Ghandi would, on the advice of the President,

declare a “State of Emergency”
which essentially allowed her to rule by decree, and automatically
rendered the courts powerless in the affairs of the country.

“It was an abuse of power by
Indira Ghandi to declare emergency. There was no justification for it,”
he tells me, obviously still riled by the action. He adds that there
was nothing the judiciary could do “because the power was given by the
Constitution to the President to declare emergency.” But the lawyer in
him would not permit silence, even then. “In several judgments I gave I
criticized the action of Indira Ghandi in declaring emergency.” Those
were dark days for India. Indira Ghandi arrested tens of thousands of
opposition members, jailed them without trial, and made amendments to
the Constitution. The Emergency period eventually ended in March 1977,
after almost two years.

Justice for the common man

In 1985, barely a year after the
assassination of Indira Ghandi, Bhagwati was appointed the Chief
Justice of India. During his eighteen-month stint as Chief Justice, he
introduced the revolutionary concept of “Public Interest Litigation” to
the Indian Justice system. In layman’s terms that would mean simply
“Justice for the ‘common man’.” The concept arose out of Bhagwati’s
long-standing personal views regarding what the true role of the
judiciary ought to be: “The judiciary has the responsibility to serve
the common man because the judges are in charge of administering the
law. Judges have to give effect to the law, they have to interpret the
law, and therefore judges must have the interest of the common man at
heart. Judges must feel [and] know what the common man wants.” Apart
from the women’s inheritance laws judgment, Bhagwati considers two
other Public Interest Litigation cases the highlights of his tenure as
India’s Chief Justice. One involved Maneka Ghandi, daughter-in-law of
Indira Ghandi, whose passport was seized by the government, to prevent
her from travelling abroad. “She filed a petition in the Supreme Court
challenging the forfeiture of her passport, and I, speaking on behalf
of the Supreme Court held that the right to go abroad is a part of
personal liberty. It is a right guaranteed by the Constitution of
India, and no one can be deprived of that right except by procedure
established by law, a procedure which is reasonable, fair and just,”
Bhagwati recounts. “Forfeiture of a passport without giving any valid
reasons is contrary to fundamental (human) rights. And therefore I set
aside the order of the government of India, and said that the
forfeiture of the passport was invalid.” He says the judgment “gave a
new meaning to the Constitution of India, which was not there, which
was not even intended by the makers of the Constitution. I expanded the
reach and content of basic human rights.” The second case dealt with
environmental degradation, which he tells me was a recurring theme in
the cases he handled as Chief Justice.

Limestone quarrying was polluting
the land and water in a hilly region in Northern India, and causing
rapid deforestation. “A public interest litigation was brought before
me,” Bhagwati says. “I appointed a Committee of 3 persons, geological
experts, to examine and make a report to me. And on the basis of the
report after hearing the parties I directed that this limestone
quarrying must stop. The hill slopes which are barren, they should be
reforested again, so that greenery is again established. The water of
the river should be cleaned up, so that the people get the benefit of
clean waters.”

A lifelong passion

Judgments like these, together
with his efforts in helping create a successful Legal Aid Program in
India earned him the unassailable reputation he holds as one of the
world’s leading human rights jurists. Today, at 88, neither his mental
alertness, nor his passion for promoting human rights, have waned. He
is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (has been a
member for 18 years), a position which requires him to travel “three
times a year – twice to Geneva, once to New York; one month each time –
to attend the meetings of the [Committee].” He remains actively
involved with several non-governmental organizations, and continues to
travel extensively on missions for international human rights
organizations.

During the recent visit to Nigeria
(he was here twenty years ago as a guest at an African Chief Justices
conference) he emphasized the need for Nigeria to emulate India and
allow Public Interest Litigation to flourish in Nigeria, “because that
will bring basic human rights within the reach of the common man.” He
also advocated the creation of “an annual exchange of lawyers and
judges between the two countries.” This he premised on the startling
similarities he sees between both Nigeria and India. “I’ve found that
there is very much in common between Nigeria and India – the legal
system is very similar, problems of the people are similar.” All are
equal Bhagwati also has advice for Nigeria and India, both
multi-religious countries, prone to religious violence. “If you profess
one religion you must also respect the other religions also, because
all religions are about different paths leading to the same goal,
namely, realization of God.

Therefore no one religion is higher than another,” he argues. That principle is one that he applies in his personal life.

When I question him about his religious persuasion, he says,

bluntly: “I’m not religious in
that sense. By birth, Hindu, but I’m a universal person. I believe in
all the religions, all the religions are about different paths leading
to the same goal, the divinity.” It is very clear that a belief in
equality is a significant driving force in his life. His has been an
existence devoted to demonstrating that all men (irrespective of class
or caste), like all gods, are equal. One can only wish that the
religious fanatics of Nigeria, and of India, will someday very soon,
grasp this simple truth.

From
all indications, ripples from the last wave of the crisis rocking the
People’s Democratic Party in Adamawa State have not come to a halt.
Even though party leaders have insisted on a no- crises claim, the
obvious however, indicates otherwise.

Recently, Bamanga
Tukur, a member of the acting president’s Presidential Advisory
Committee and one-time governor of the old Gongola state, joined
several others to voice his anger and frustration on the state of the
party under its chairman, Umaru Mijinyawa Kugama.

Mr. Tukur told newsmen in Yola that the PDP in Adamawa State has been hijacked and its activities are now shrouded in mystery.

“Kugama and his
people,” Bamanga Tukur said, “have taken the PDP out of the public
domain, because we can no longer see the PDP. Maybe they have gone to
lock it somewhere in Mayo-Belwa, I don’t know.

“On a serious note,
as a chieftain of the party myself, I don’t know where the party is, I
can’t see it and I don’t know why. But if you like, this view is shared
by many. So, we are waiting to see Kugama’s magic wand that would give
the party electoral victory without coming to the public domain,” he
said.

Mr. Tukur, who is
also the Chairman of African Business Roundtable, accused the party
hierarchy in the state of high-handedness and called on the national
secretariat of the party to intervene and wrest the party before it
collapses.

Expectedly, Mr
Kugama was not amused. He described Mr. Tukur’s utterances as
unfortunate and wondered why the elder statesman would stoop low to
castigate his leadership.

“I am not wont to join issues with elders,” Kugama said. “His Excellency, Bamanga Tukur is a father to me.

But it is quite
amusing for highly placed elder statesmen to say that the party has
been taken out of the public domain. Our party, the greatest political
party in Africa, is about the most conspicuous institution in Adamawa
state. How on earth would somebody say the party is inaccessible when
opposition parties in the state have all melted into the PDP?” The
party chairman said hardly would a day pass when his leadership do not
receive decampees in their hundreds.

“As a matter of fact, receiving decampees has of recent been added to our daily chores, that is a fact,” he said.

Boni Haruna stays in AC He is not far from the truth.

Recently, some
members of the Action Congress crossed to the PDP in their thousands.
Saleh Kingir, a governorship aspirant in 2006, for instance, led
thousands of his supporters from the northern senatorial zone to defect
to the PDP.

No fewer than seven
out of the nine AC members in the state assembly are also said to have
dumped their party for the PDP. Leader of the defecting legislators,
Gidado Sajo Gella,

representing Mubi
South, said their decision is linked to the leadership style of the
Murtala Nyako-led PDP government in the state.

“Our former party,
the AC, has lost focus and that is why our leader, the immediate past
governor of the state, Boni Haruna asked us to return to the PDP
because that is where we belong,” he said.

However, political
pundits say they could not make head or tail out of Mr. Gella’s sudden
change of opinion about the Nyako government, seeing as he recently
described it as an epidemic.

Mr. Gella confirmed
that former governor, Boni Haruna and his political mentor and former
Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, have parted ways.

“Tell everyone in
clear terms; Boni Haruna has left Atiku, having discovered that Atiku
is a selfish man,” he said. “Boni, if you like, is the most loyal
governor I have come to know. I mean, you have been in this country,
you know what happened between Atiku and former President Obasanjo and
how Boni stood the chance of gaining presidential favours if only he
had betrayed Atiku, but he stood and fought to the end”.

Mr. Gella said Mr. Abubakar’s visit to Mr. Obasanjo dealt the death blow to the relationship between Messrs Haruna and Abubakar.

“Boni Haruna had
warned Atiku, pleading with him not to visit Obasanjo in Otta farm, but
he would not listen because he was driven by his blind desperation to
rule Nigeria by all means.” Mr. Abubakar eventually made good his
return to the PDP last week at a public ceremony in Abuja.

Abubakar’s local opposition

A PDP source in
Yola said Mr. Abubakar is being drafted into a grand plot to scuttle
the presidential ambition of former military president, Ibrahim
Babangida. Yet, a return to the PDP might be the easiest of the hurdles
to Mr. Abubakar’s own ambition. Mr. Kugama told journalists in Yola
that Jibril Aminu, Grace Bent and Mohammed Mana (senators from the
state) and other stakeholders have unanimously agreed not to allow the
former VP from re-entering into the party.

As the dust of
Atiku’s return continues to settle, facts are emerging as to why Mr
Haruna, who presently holds the reins of the AC structure in the state,
might have decided to revolt against his political godfather. A source
said when the former governor was docked by the EFCC on allegation of
misappropriating about N80 million, Mr. Abubakar did not care to come
to his rescue or even commiserate with him while in detention.

It was popularly
held that Mr. Haruna’s meticulous records keeping got him off the EFCC
hook when he tendered documents that implicated a lot of people,
including some family members of Nuhu Ribadu.

“Boni”, says a
source, “took his laptop to the EFCC and showed how prominent citizens,
including Ribadu’s family members, benefited from the alleged
misappropriation.” In Michika, Mr. Haruna’s local government of birth,
the entire AC structure, led by the duo of the immediate past Deputy
Speaker of the state assembly, Adamu Kamale and former Commissioner,
Rhoda Buggi, decamped to the PDP and were received by Mr. Kugama at a
colorful ceremony at Marwa Square.

Eyes on the governor’s seat

However, from
within its fold, the PDP has continued to grapple with various
contending forces. Mr. Kugama explained that the bedlam within the
party is understandable. “You know, politicians have for a long time
become used to booty sharing once a government is formed,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the present governor does not understand that language.
He believes that state resources are for the collective good of all
citizens.” The PDP in Adamawa state so far, appears to have been
shredded into several camps, each jostling for the Dougirei Government
House. With the election year drawing closer, several such camps are
strategizing in order to wrest the party structure.

Former governor,
Mr. Tukur, was alleged to have insisted that his son, Auwal D. Tukur,
has waited for too long to govern the state and therefore must be given
a chance to take the reins of power in 2012. For Jibril Aminu, the cap
fits only one man – his political godson and minister of state for
Foreign Affairs, Aliyu Idi Hong.

These and several
others, jostling for the same seat, see Mr Kugama as an impediment
owing to his loyalty to the incumbent governor.

One of the key
contenders, Abuja-based Umar Ardo, has been in the vanguard of battling
the Kugama-led party executive. To this end, it is alleged that
virtually all party members who became disgruntled are organizing
around Mr. Ardo. These people are insisting that the state executive is
illegitimate and called for its dissolution and the immediate
reconstitution of another one.

As various
aspirants and their cronies strategize to wrest power, it appears smear
campaign is the veritable tool for outwitting each other.

The party’s secretary in the state, P.P. Elisha, said the PDP
membership cards revalidation exercise carried out recently was not
aimed at prosecuting any group. He said the party is only replacing
expired cards and not necessarily issuing new membership cards. Mr.
Abubakar and his aides were however able to procure new membership
cards for Sanusi Alhaji Musa Hong, a party stalwart, “The hullabaloo
needs not to be. What is important, at the moment is that the political
class should close ranks and support the present government,” said
another leader of the party in the state, Sanusi Alhaji Musa Hong.

We
met at a cosy apartment in West London, having spoken in the morning
and agreed to a chat about his decision to return home to Nigeria. On
arrival, we reminisced over some things that happened in the past and
our previous encounters, and then we sat down for an interview that I
can only describe as candid, sincere, and truly no-holds-barred. I was
allowed to ask any question I wanted and I had a promise that I will
get a sincere answer.

Nasir El-Rufai has
been on exile, but the time spent abroad seem to have done him some
good as he looked fresh, calm and seemingly overflowing with energy and
passion to implement change. The first question I asked was why he has
chosen this weekend in April to return to Nigeria. Mr. El-Rufai
explained that he had planned to return to Nigeria in December of 2009,
but friends and family prevailed upon him not to return because of the
ill-health of president Umaru Yar’Adua and the whole fall out was
described as not being a conducive time.

It was also
conjectured that with the threat to his life in the past, and the
chaotic state of the national polity at that time, no one would be held
responsible if anything happened to him and in fact, devious people
might take advantage of the situation to wreak havoc and get away with
it.

As he talked, my
ears were listening and my eyes were taking in the body language of a
man who now seems to exude the confidence of a successful matador, one
with wisdom and understanding about the best time to strike. Mr
EL-Rufai expressed his disappointment and disgust at the way Nigeria
has been run down and on the verge of becoming a failed country.

He stated that
there is no better time than now to return to his beloved country after
he has been forced into exile by people he loved, respected, campaigned
and put himself on the line for. He told me that the only passport he
has is Green and it’s Nigerian. He has never contemplated or given a
thought to seeking asylum anywhere in the world or desired citizenship
of any other country, especially considering the fact that it would
have been easy to do that.

I quizzed him about
the people he loved and campaigned for, who drove him into exile, and I
saw a change on his face as a frown formed, with what I could only read
as deep-seated hurt in his eyes. Mr EL-Rufai said he was hurt and
disappointed by the fact that he campaigned and supported Mr. Yar’adua
and till today could not understand how the man could turn against him.
He believed that the people after his life were agents of the president
and he could not find a tenable reason for the assumption that he was
any threat to the man.

Mr. El-Rufai did
not mince words in declaring that he is sad that he made the mistake of
believing Mr. Yar’Adua could do Nigeria some good as President. I asked
him if he feels guilty for the failure of this regime and whether the
likes of former president Olusegun Obasanjo share the feeling of guilt.
He said he feels partly responsible for the disappointing failure of
the current regime as someone that campaigned and drove the agenda of
seeing the Mr Yar’Adua become president. He said he believes Mr.
Obasanjo feels the same sense of responsibility, but quickly added that
every Nigerian that has failed to fight against Mr. Yar’Adua’s
embarrassing government should also be held responsible for the state
of the nation.

I pointed out that
there were allegations that the PDP rigged the election anyway, and Mr
El-Rufai’s quick answer was, Yes, no doubt the election was rigged and
every political party tried to rig the election in 2007, but PDP was
more successful; though he still believes that even if the election had
been free and fair, PDP would still have won because of the wider
spread and the financial muscle of the party.

I listened as he
philosophized, quoting Plato, “those who are too smart to engage in
politics are governed by those who are dumber”. Then he dropped all
subtleties and declared that a large number of people in government in
Nigeria today are failing not just because they are dumb with no plan
to better the lot of Nigerians but also because a sizable number of
them are criminals out to milk the nation dry.

As I asked more
probing questions, he became even more combative, alleging that there
is no explanation for the kind of criminals governing Nigeria to remain
in office, and his decision to return to the country is to ensure he
makes life uncomfortable for them as well as ensure they do not get
re-elected in 2011.

How will you do
this, I asked Mr El-Rufai, and his response was detailed as he revealed
a clear strategy of education and enlightenment of young Nigerians with
a view to inspire them to take their future and that of the nation in
their hands. Mr El-Rufai believes that if young Nigerians can be
galvanised to start the revolution that will change the nation, the
impact on the nation will be massive.

He express a
conviction that politicians and those who control power and government
in Nigeria at the moment are old and a core group of them can be
described as a the group of ’66 because they have all been recycled in
one form or the other from 1966 and still have a strangle hold on how
the nation is governed. They have robbed and ruined the nation and
should no longer be allowed to hold sway on how the nation progresses
from here on.

I asked Mr.
El-Rufai a pointed question on his political ambition, and the response
was that he wanted to see a groundswell created that will lead to a
wholesale change in the quality of people elected in 2011. He intends
to hit the ground running by empowering and inspiring young Nigerians
to change the course and direction of the nation. He is working in
alliance with a group that will make this become reality and they are
in alliance with other civil groups that have teams around the country
to implement the change.

I was not satisfied
with his response and I asked him whether he will be interested in
becoming the next President of Nigeria, and that brought out the first
sign of elusive or evasive response throughout our entire conversation.
He would not say no, consistently insisting that there are better
candidates that he will be looking to support. When asked to mention
names, he expressed belief that someone of the calibre of Nuhu Ribadu,
the erstwhile chief of EFCC will be a fantastic candidate. Since Mr.
Ribadu is a close friend of his, I asked him if they have discussed it
and Mr Ribadu is interested in the position, Mr El-Rufai said Mr.
Ribadu is yet to take any such decision.

I probed him again
on why he would not say yes or no, he stated that his stance is that
Nigeria deserves the best President to turn things around. He believes
that in a nation of about 150 million people there will surely be quite
a few that are better than him, and since he is working with a team of
people that are extremely competent and experienced, he expects the
emergence of a leader that will be worth supporting in the weeks to
come.

Mr El-Rufai was
very clear on the need to have a complete change so that the nation can
have a fresh new start in 2010. He believes that the young people of
Nigeria can make that happen so that the “criminals and thieves” in
high places will be swept out of government for new men and women of
character and integrity to take the rein of power. He said the change
should impact the states and national assembly, especially the senate
and house of representatives.

He could not find
any reason why men and women in the senate and House of Representative
who are paid millions of Naira annually will continue to fail the
nation the way they do now by not delivering legislation that will move
the country forward. He expressed sadness at the number of people found
to have committed one crime or the other and yet have been allowed to
contest and win elections. He wondered why Nigerians expect anything
good to come out from criminals, thieves and fraudsters who have forged
documents and committed crimes not only in the country but also abroad.

He said we deserved
the government we have because we have failed to act and take civil
action against the people in government, but now is the time to move
against them so that we turn the country around into a nation we can be
proud of.

Before we wrapped up the conversation, I raised the issue of
allegations of corruption against him; his response was short and
sharp; that all the allegations were false and designed to malign his
person and track record in public service. He emphasized that he has
never committed any fraud while in service, never taken any bribe and
never abused or misuse his powers while in office. He did concede that
he approved a land application from his wife – then he asked a
rhetorical question, whether anyone will refuse any Nigerian their
rights when they have applied and followed due process, only because
the person is their wife? He said his wife applied like any other
Nigerian, followed due process and met all requirements, so there was
no basis to reject her application.

The dramatic search for James
Ibori, the former Delta State governor who has been declared wanted for
financial misdemeanour, by the Nigerian Police and the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), may be nothing but a ruse.

Sources who spoke with NEXT over
the weekend said that not only is Mr. Ibori hiding in Agbor, a town in
his home state, but the two anti corruption agencies, the EFCC and the
police, are aware of Mr. Ibori’s whereabouts. Contrary to reports that
the former governor has been hiding in his country home in Oghara, he
is allegedly hiding with a friend of his in Agbor, a small town which
is about 2 hours away from Oghara.

Multiple sources in the Nigerian
security circles told NEXT that the EFCC is aware of Mr. Ibori’s
current location and that this would not be the first time that the
anti corruption agency would be feigning ignorance of his whereabouts.

“The EFCC knows that Ibori is not
in his hometown. When the EFCC first said that they were looking for
Ibori and went looking for him in Oghara, they knew that he was right
here in Abuja. He was at that time in the Kwara Guest House, in
Asokoro,” a source said.

The police’s charade

Behind the elaborate display
shown by the Nigerian police in a bid to arrest Mr. Ibori, was an
apparent decision to do the contrary, sources said. Security sources
who spoke to NEXT said the authority chosen to effect Mr. Ibori‘s
arrest, showed that the police was not really interested in arresting
the former governor.

“If they really wanted to arrest
him, why would they pick the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG),
for works and for operations to be in charge of the operation? Why not
use the DIG in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation Department,”
a security source queried.

“The police intelligence is fully
aware of Ibori’s movement but there appears to be the lack of
operational will,” our source added.

The police spokesman, Emmanuel
Ojukwu however denied that the police has any knowledge of Mr. Ibori’s
current location saying that the police is still looking for the former
governor.

“We are still looking for him
wherever he is. I cannot say that the police is aware of where he is
but all I can say is that we are looking for him,” Mr. Ojukwu said.

EFCC responds

The EFCC also says that it is at
the moment working on a new strategy to beat Mr. Ibori to his game. A
strategy which the commission says it is no longer interested in
sharing with the Nigerian public.

“We don’t want to discuss this
because every information we give out gets back to him [Mr. Ibori],”
the spokesman of the commission, Femi Babafemi, told NEXT in Abuja.

Mr. Ibori’s spokesperson, Tony
Elumunor, however said that Mr. Ibori’s current location is not
relevant and should not be a subject of public debate.

“The man you are talking about is
a private citizen and he is not on the run but simply obeying the court
ruling which asked that everyone should maintain the status quo,” Mr.
Elumunor said in a telephone interview with NEXT.

In the last two weeks, media
reports have placed Mr. Ibori in several places; Oghara- his home town,
the Niger-Delta Creeks, and as having escaped the country en route
Dubai. The latest location,

has in history served as a refuge for a larcenous prince who ran away from his home town.