Finding justice: The Nigerian way

The prevailing security lapses in Nigeria could make for a hit comedy if not for its serious nature. The seriousness of the situation notwithstanding, some have found that they cannot help but chuckle at the antics of those involved.

The first comedy skit, albeit a light hearted one, was served by the antics of the former speaker of the Nigerian house of reps, who appeared to forget that the immunity powers that shielded him while in office, expired immediately his tenure elapsed. The former Speaker, protected by a retinue of federal police and State Security Services (SSS) agents, first refused to honour the invitation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which have been investigating him for financial impropriety while serving as speaker, then his, state assigned, security detail moved to resist with force, any attempt to arrest their principal.

What followed was a grand comedy of sorts, with the EFCC and Bankole jostling to outdo each other on the national stage, while the rest of Nigeria watched in awe. Nigerians laughed for a bit, then stopped laughing, many asking how one man can be more powerful than the state, and how someone who is back to being an ordinary citizen can use the state’s machinery against the state. It suddenly wasn’t funny anymore and even those in the media that were backing the former speaker knew this. Still, it took the intervention of the Inspector General of police to calm nerves.

Mr Bankole won that first round, and the EFCC was forced to lick its wounds and nurse its bruised ego as the Police Chief prevailed on them to allow the suspect come to them on his own terms on the Monday following that weekend. The EFCC, smarting from another act of disrespect from a Nigerian politician, albeit one that a Wikileaks document had reported telling the US Ambassador that the commission is a toothless bulldog, that can only bark, raided Mr Bankole’s home a day before the agreed upon date and took Bankole into custody.

At the time of writing, Bankole have been charged to court, granted bail, rearrested almost immediately, charged to another court together with his deputy, and granted bail yet again, only this time with very stringent conditions, which he has since met. Like many other politicians before him, and expectedly, Bankole is back to being a free man. His tale, the tale of hundreds – if not thousands – of the political class where perceived corruption is concerned, is practically over – having dropped from the front pages of newspapers. now enter the lengthy court cases that never end with conviction, hence Bankole’s mien. 

However, those who felt slighted by Bankole’s mien and his seeming light-hearted dismissal of the ability of the state to hold him to account, were more flustered when the aforementioned Inspector General of police, whose men are generally believed to be losing the war against Islamic extremist sect Boko Haram, made a declaration that the faceless group’s days are numbered. Many laughed at the comedy of the IG’s statements, wondering how he and his men intend to go about “smoking them out” in the stated one week. That laughter turned to tear barely 48 hours later when a Boko Haram suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the national headquarters of the police in Abuja the Nigerian capital, barely missing the IG whose convoy was said to be the target of what is a new dimension to terrorism in the country. Several people are said to have lost their life in the attack, the first of its kind in Nigeria, and the trauma of shredded body parts that littered the vicinity of the strike is yet to abate.

Just as similar times in the past, the Nigerian government and police authorities were quick to make the usual proclamations: “the perpetrators of this dastardly act will be fished out”, “no stone would be left unturned in unravelling those behind this heinous act” and so on. However, the proclamations also sounded hollow and weak, comical if you will, for Nigerians are used to them, just as they are used to the fact that nothing has ever came off them.  Nigerians are used to hearing about the setting up of one committee or the other, but have never ever learnt of the finding of these committees or panels of inquiry, for it is either the file that contains their submission get missing or they get disbanded once public interest wanes... And life goes on, with no lessons learnt, with no one ever made to give account for anything.

Before we dismiss EFCC’S list

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I read with interest, not just the list of ‘corrupt’ politicians recently released to political parties by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but also the comments posted to the web by others who read the list before me and felt like venting.

For most of the commentators, the grouse is not the amount of money – staggering by the way – that those who made the illustrious list are alleged to have pilfered from our collective pocket, but with the EFCC, for having the temerity to conceive of such ill-thought-out-list in the first place. They barraged the commission for allowing itself be a tool in the hands of politicians who want to keep perceived opponents from challenging them in the polls.

The leaning of most of the commentators did not come as much of a surprise, for I have come to associate my countrymen with that unequalled ability to look but see very little, an ability that stems from an uncanny compulsion to defend those who common knowledge depicts as the chain holding our collective will in perpetual enslavement.

While it is not my intention to hold brief for EFCC, I however find something fundamentally wrong with Nigerians who allow themselves be constantly beclouded by politicians and their antics. A say this because the EFCC rightly called the list and ‘advisory’ one. As such, the list as presently constituted, is supposed to provide information about individuals who have cases to answer in court, to political parties that may want to field them in the 2011 general elections.

True, these individuals remain innocent until proven guilty. However, one thinks it is in the interest of the political parties and the electorate to know the status of people who might be interested in public office. On the other hand, if we all pander to the argument that asks that they remain unnamed, if elected, wouldn’t some guilty ones (again) enjoy the immunity that comes with political office, thereby defeating the aims and objectives of the EFCC.  

I don’t know, but it seems we as a country have become so used to corrupt leaders that thoughts of not having them in power elicits in some a mild kind of madness.

I believe the EFCC is bent on preventing the situation highlighted above and should be commended for having the will to draw up the list as it is.

As for those on the list, I doubt if they have any reasons to worry, if they are innocent, for the innocent have no reason to fear the law. However, something of import should be said here, cases against some of the accused that would have been concluded a long time ago, continue to drag as they (the accused) continue to use every available legal loopholes to prolong it. It is instructive to note that, had they allowed the cases to run at a natural phase, they probably would be free men now.

I do not really know any of these people on a personal basis, perhaps with the exemption of Ndudi Elemulu, who I was opportune to meet while serving as a NYSC member in his home town and Chimaroke Nnamani who held sway over my home State Enugu for eight, perhaps, not very productive years, so I will not presume to know the strength of their moral character. That said, I gladly leave decisions about their guilt to the law courts. However, I dare to state that anyone with a sense of decency would have fought tooth and nail to clear a good name, not fight to postpone the outcome of a case that seeks to clarify just that.

Nigerian politicians seem to lack positive ambition, not that they are not ambitious in other ways, as they seem very interested momentary gains. Most are willing to grab what they can without recourse to posterity. I usually cringe, when I recall the euphoria that greeted the emergence of Chimaroke Nnamani as governor of Enugu state in 1999. I was among those who saw the young medical doctor as a breath of fresh air. I believed, with his charisma and education, that he would ascend to the national pinnacle after serving Enugu state, but I believed in a dream that probably did not believe in itself as Chimaroke, the EFCC claims, went on to steal N5.3 Billion from Enugu state’s coffers and effectively constrained  himself to the dregs of Nigerian politics. I am yet to hear of a bill the supposed senator sponsored in the years he has so far spent in the that not-very-much hallowed chambers.

As for Elumelu, I really cannot say. For a young man whom I recall, as chairman of the House Committee on Power, seemed to embody the new Nigerian spirit, especially during the public hearings for his power probe, a EFCC indictment for corruption does all kind of harm to his image. Like I said before, I know him too sparingly to be a better judge of his character, but I still feel the disappointment of believing in his star too. I hope the allegations against him turn out to be false, so we don’t get to ask of him, “where is our money?”

Let all those in the list have their day in court. They should stop running away and clear their names as Fani-Kayode is trying to do, and if they cannot, they can always swallow their collective pride and follow the Lucky Igbinedion, and recently, Ibru example – Plea-bargaining, that great gift the law provided for criminals everywhere.