Festus Keyamo is one lawyer who barely needs any introduction in Nigeria. He is not unknown to both the government and the masses. His credentials as an activist make it the more so. Having had more than his fair share of controversies, the radical lawyer cum human rights crusader no longer shies away from them. And now as a Private Prosecutor with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Keyamo is again in the eye of the storm. Street Journal’s Publisher, WOLE ARISEKOLA and WOLE ADEJUMO were at the lawyer’s Anthony Village office. It was a no holds barred interview and Keyamo in his usual element proved to be the reporters’ delight he has always been. Among the many issues he touched were his relationship with Nuhu Ribadu, the former EFCC Chairman and why Ribadu does not have his sympathy, why he took up the new EFCC job as well as some of the cases of corruption being prosecuted by the EFCC like that of Senator Rashidi Ladoja, Chief Kenny Martins and many more as well as the end result he hopes to achieve.
Written by Femi Falana Thursday, 15 January 2009 12:23
(Being the paper presented by Femi Falana at the Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture organized by the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association held at the Oranmiyan Hall, Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja on 15 January 2009)
INTRODUCTION
The theme of the 2009 Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture/Symposium would seem to suggest that the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association believes that constitutionalism can be a mechanism for re-inventing the Nigerian state. In view of the fact that the National Assembly has, once again, commenced the process of amending certain provisions of the 1999 Constitution this programme could not have come at a more opportune time than now.
Read more: Constitutionalism and The Re-Invention of the Nigerian State
