“We Are Close to Anarchy” | Chief Mike Ahamba, SAN at 80
Chief Mike Ahamba, SAN, turns 80, and The Beacon sat with him for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of Nigerian law, politics, and the country itself. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria since 1992, a veteran of the nation’s most consequential election petitions, and a politician who puts law at seventy per cent of his life and politics at thirty, Ahamba speaks with the authority of a man who has watched the system up close for half a century.
He explains why he believes Nigeria is close to anarchy, tracing it to the collapse of ethics and quality in the legal profession, the overcrowding of the bar, and the erosion of the standards he met when he came into practice. He reveals that he was the lawyer first approached to challenge the 1993 election on behalf of the ABN, and why he refused the brief as a disservice to the nation.
The conversation moves through the reforms he says the judiciary needs, the contest over the appointment of a substantive Chief Judge and why he insists the office should pass by seniority, and his account of how he came to respect Muhammadu Buhari after years of opposing him. He gives a first-hand history of the 2003 presidential election petition, his claim about when ballot-box snatching entered Nigerian elections, and how safeguards were later removed from the Electoral Act by the National Assembly.
On the economy and insecurity, Ahamba is blunt about the security vote, the difference between banditry and Boko Haram, and why he opposes state police as a solution. He explains leaving the APC and returning to the PDP on principle, his view that the South East must send its best rather than its richest to the centre, and closes with a charge to young Nigerians: prove yourselves in small things, and stop waiting for the old to leave.
This is essential viewing on Nigerian law and the judiciary, election petitions and electoral reform, the security debate and state policing, party politics in the South East, and what one of the country's foremost legal minds wants remembered at 80.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open: we are close to anarchy
00:47 Turning 80: the moment he dedicated his life to justice
03:02 Why the quality of legal practice has fallen
06:54 The reforms the judiciary needs
13:11 The fight over appointing a Chief Judge
16:49 How he became friends with Buhari, after opposing him
20:00 Inside the 2003 presidential election petition
23:42 How electoral safeguards were stripped from the law
29:16 On the judgment he says was wrongly decided
31:00 The economy, insecurity, and the security vote
35:12 Why he opposes state police
36:23 Joining APC in 2013
42:43 Winning a House seat through the court in 1979
46:42 The South East should send the right people, not the rich
46:59 His message at 80: prove yourselves, stop waiting for the old to go