Absolute powers

By Gabriel Amalu

Lord Acton, a 19th century British politician, historian and moralist was correct when he posited in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” In another version of the saying, William Pitt, a British Prime Minister (1766-1778) said it thus: “unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”

Clearly, in whatever fashion the statement is represented, the Nigerian socio-political conundrum presents a caricature of power, as those in power abuse it, as their power increases. Of course, power is used here to include, authority-power, deriving from laws of the state, and raw-power, arising from forceful appropriation of power, by non-state actors. In both instances, the tendency is that as power increases, moral rectitude decreases, and the result is abuse of power and privileges.

Within the past week, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, was intercepted and forcefully brought back to Nigeria, to face his trial before Justice Binta Nyako, at the Federal High Court, Abuja. Kanu had jumped bail, in 2017, after an attack on his country home by the Nigerian Army. Shortly after jumping bail, Kanu surfaced abroad and continued his campaign for the independent state of Biafra.

Over the years, Kanu has become an icon for many Nigerians, particularly the younger generation in the eastern part of the country and beyond. As the quality of life in the country deteriorated, many Nigerians at home and abroad, turned to Kanu’s separatist agenda as the panacea for the poverty of leadership that has reduced the country to a beggarly nation. Before long, words such as ‘supreme leader’ were used to describe Kanu by his die-hard followers.

With a lot of people increasingly beholden to his campaign, Kanu became emboldened to openly challenge the authority of the federal and the state governments, which he considers as forming part of Biafra. From mere rhetoric, the Biafra agitators were allegedly morphing to an armed group, under the auspices of the Eastern Security Network (ESN). Expectedly, both the federal government and state governors within the axis of defunct Biafra began to panic, at the potentials of Kanu’s antics.

As is usual with power, it is possible that Kanu in turn began to truly see himself as potentially the leader of the Biafra nation in the making. The success of the recent sit-at-home order, by IPOB, on May 30, in memory of the genocide committed against persons of the former Eastern Nigeria extraction, during the Biafra-Nigeria war, must have equally given the impression to the powers-that-be that Kanu, if unchecked, could become a potentate of the Igbo race.

To add fillip to the burgeoning crisis, a leader of the ESN, Mr Ikonne, was killed by security agents in Imo State. Emboldened by the widespread support from sympathisers at home and abroad, the agitators made the fatal error of engaging in direct military confrontation with the Nigerian security agencies. According to media report, the supreme leader, in exercise of powers he thought he has, allegedly gave order that in retaliation for the murder of Ikonne, a thousand heads should be sacrificed.

Of course, all the reports remain mere allegations, and it is possible that Kanu would be able to prove his innocence, when confronted before the court of law in a free and fair trial.  On the part of the federal authority, the challenge is what to do with Kanu, who has become a pain in the ass in the past few years for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, and the governors of the southeast and the security agencies whom he had ridiculed as incompetent?

With Kanu in custody, would the federal government fall into the temptation of exercising absolute powers over him, by treating him as an enemy fugitive, who does not deserve the privileges of fundamental rights accorded by the 1999 constitution, (as amended)? To show how tempting the option of exercising absolute powers over Nnamdi Kanu and company can be, the 1st Vice President of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr John Aikpokpo-Martins, in a bizarre jurisprudence, argued that the “President is constitutionally bound to crush” secessionist agitators.

Aikpokpo-Martins hinges his disarticulated argument on the premise that having sworn to protect the constitution, the president is ipso-facto empowered to crush any person whom he bethinks opposes that constitution. If one may ask the learned counsel, what then is the role of the court, as provided in section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), if the president can unilaterally crush persons who hold views opposed to the constitution?

If the media report of what Mr Aikpokpo-Martins said is true, then one can describe the learned advocate as a curator of the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For, he was in essence saying that if you have power you must employ every means to protect and preserve it. Thankfully, the president does not appear to be interested in crushing all those advocating for dissolution of Nigeria, since as in the Kanu’s case, the matter is being pursued before the court of law.

Of course, crushing armed insurrection against the state, which the government should legitimately pursue, must never be equated with crushing separatist agitations, when it is pursued in a peaceful manner. If the converse is the case, then the constitution is a bundle of confusion. For it provides in section 39(1) that: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”

To argue that a Nigerian cannot legitimately hold a dissenting opinion about the viability of the country as presently constituted, is to turn logic on its head. That clearly is a legitimate opinion as envisaged by the constitution. Indeed, if those who hold the view, can convince the majority to reason alike, Nigerians have the inherent constituent power to determine how they are governed, and that includes the power to dissolve the country as constituted.

What President Buhari and other state actors must come to terms with, is that majority of Nigerians are disenchanted with the state of the nation. Of course, the way out of the logjam is a matter in dispute. While some believe that President Buhari is charting the course adroitly, some others believe his tactics is at the root of the crisis, and people like Nnamdi Kanu, Sunday Igboho others have consequently lost faith in the Nigerian project.

This column therefore urges President Buhari not to resort to authoritarianism to solve the crisis. He must abjure turning a bad man, by the corrupt appropriation of absolute power.