Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

Fear rules the land these days. The people live in fear. Whether in or out of the house, they are afraid because they don’t know when that kidnapper or robber will strike. Even though many of us live in fortresses, we no longer feel safe behind our high fences. The walls we built round ourselves to protect us have become our prison yards. As we go out daily, we pray that evil will not befall us; that we will return home safe and sound. When we do, we heave a sigh of relief and thank God for His mercies.

On the road and at work, we say the same prayer. ‘’Father, oh Lord, protect us from those watching us with evil intentions’’. Our prayers for protection and preservation have been doing wonders, if not many would have found themselves in the lair of hoodlums. Hardly a day passes without news of kidnapped or missing persons. We have seem to come to terms with it as a way of life. We tend to believe that these things must happen and when they don’t happen, we are shocked. Isn’t that strange? We are shocked by what should ordinarily not move us, while we feel unconcerned when calamity befalls people.

Parents either kill or sell their children. Some also use their children for money rituals. This is the depth to which our society has sunk. Human lives no longer have value. To hoodlums, killing is nothing; they seem to derive joy from this dastardly act. Why are people so bestial? Why do they kill or kidnap people? Is it for money? The ready answer will be to say it is for money, but we will be missing the point by so doing. Something must have informed a person’s decision to become a killer or a kidnapper or a robber. Some have blamed it on poverty; others on the devil. What this shows is that these people are psychologically troubled.

In the past few years, these maniacs have made the country unsafe. We all live with our hearts in our mouths for fear of the unknown. When the Niger Delta militants were granted amnesty in 2009, we thought we had seen the end of kidnappings and all sorts of killings, only for some faceless goons in the Southeast to start their own. Then came Boko Haram. The Southeast goons have made kidnapping their business and they are making a kill from it. They kidnap people and get their families to pay huge ransom. They are smiling to the bank, while many households are wailing over their losses because at times, those kidnapped are killed. In some instances, they collect the ransom and still kill their victims.

Pioneer deputy governor of Anambra State, the late Dr Chuddy Nwike, was one of such victims. After kidnapping Nwike, the kidnappers demanded $30 million ransom. The family negotiated and they agreed to collect N5 million. The family took the money to the designated place, hoping that Nwike will be released as agreed. He was but the family got only his body. As I write this on Tuesday night, his killers have yet to be found. Of course, this is no longer a case of kidnapping but murder for which those involved should be brought to book because it might have been done deliberately as revealed in the confession of one of those arrested over the abduction of Prof Kamene Okonjo, mother of Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The suspect killed his victim, a woman, to avenge, according to his accomplice, the death of his brother. Was the brother killed by the slain woman? he didn’t say. It seems there is no part of the country where they cannot strike. Abeokuta, Abuja, Enugu, Warri, Ilorin, Umuahia, Kano, Kaduna, you name it, they have been there. Many people are abducted daily on the streets or in their homes that we don’t get to hear about. These hoodlums are so brazen in their daredevilry that they can operate anywhere, even if security operatives are around. Does it mean that our security agents cannot match these hoodlums who have spread their tentacles far and wide?

They struck in Lagos on Monday night when they kidnapped Ejigbo Local Council Development Area chairman Kehinde Bamigbetan, who was on his way home. Bamigbetan is not your typical politician, who could be said to have had a run in with his opponents to warrant his abduction. Until he served former Governor Bola Tinubu as chief press secretary (CPS) a few years ago, he was a reporter doing his job quietly. Even as CPS, he was not a loud person. He preferred to allow his work speak for him. So, why will anyone kidnap such a person? It appears the spate of kidnappings is not going to stop any time soon. So, the government must rise up to the challenge of smoking out these monsters.

The nation cannot continue to be held by the jugular by some criminals who think that they can use the weapon of fear to cow everybody. The insecurity in the country is not something for the government to gloss over. It should rise up and act now before things get out of hand, that is if they have not already. Those in power should not think that because they have security men at their beck and call, they are safe from the reach of these criminals. They should show concern over what is happening because what comes round have a way of going round. They may have an army guarding them today, but will they enjoy that privilege for life. Once they are out of office, they are as vulnerable as those of us who look up to them for protection today.

In as much as I don’t want to heap all the blames on the government, I cannot shy away from the fact that it is not doing enough to address the security challenge. The police, which should lead the campaign against kidnappers and other criminals, are not alive to their responsibility, yet they enjoy huge support from the states. Virtually all the states are trying to outdo one another in order to meet the needs of the police, yet we are not getting results from them.

I wonder if the Inspector-General

of Police (IGP) is still there. If

he is, he should wake up from slumber. The police get vehicles, communication gadgets and even subvention from the states to facilitate their job of crime fighting, yet they find it difficult to work. What is their problem? What is the essence of all this support by the states if the police cannot deliver?

We cannot continue to wring our hands in frustration over our inability to tame the excesses of kidnappers, Boko Haram and other criminal elements and at the same time be wasting money on equipping the police. No, there is no sense in doing that. If the police cannot make use of these equipment to curb crime, it will only be logical for the states to stop wasting money on them.

Kidnappers are on the rampage and they are not ready to stop because of the easy money they are making. It does not matter to them that they waste lives in order to make this easy money. To them, it is all in the line of business and so the end justifies the means.

As long as there is easy money in kidnapping because people are ready to pay ransom secretly, they will continue to brave the odd to get it. Should the government continue to watch as these people perpetrate criminality? The answer is obvious; there is nowhere in the world where criminals are given a free hand to operate and ours cannot be different.

It behoves on the government to break the back of kidnappers and other criminals by applying the force of law. We have allowed them to operate for too long and they have come to see themselves as being above the law. But nobody is above the law. We must make them know this by bringing them to book no matter what it takes.

In his lifetime, the late Dr Tai Solarin was a thorn in the flesh of the military junta. Just like the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), he stood up to the military whenever he thought it was overreaching itself. Then something happened in 1992 or thereabout. There was this rumour that the American Ebony Magazine carried a story about some millions of dollars stashed abroad by the late Mrs Mariam Babangida..

The rumour was so rife that everywhere you turned to you were hit by it. Expectedly, the security agencies were interested in getting to the root of the matter. How did the rumour emanate? Is it true that Mrs Babangida kept such mind-boggling amount abroad? The security operatives invited some people, including the late Solarin for questioning. Instead of a discreet investigation, they went public, at a stage, with the probe all in their quest to put the late Solarin in his place.

Those who watched the crude grilling of the late Solarin on air by a faceless inquisitor will not forget the bitter enterprise in a hurry. To the faceless man’s questions, the late Solarin kept saying that he heard people discussing the issue inside the bus and decided to call on the government to do something about it. The interrogator was not satisfied. The only thing he was interested in was to discredit the late Solarin in the eyes of viewers. His intention, which was obvious, was to prove that the late Solarin was a liar and rumour purveyor. In all this, the press was not caught on the wrong foot because it knew where to draw the line between rumour and what to publish as news.

The faceless voice was unsparing in his attack on the late Solarin : ‘’A man of your calibre…your education; you heard such rumour in the bus and you are spreading it…’’ Whenever the late Solarin tried to respond, the inquisitor did not allow him because his brief was to rubbish the renowned educationist and humanist before the public. He failed woefully in his mission because in such matters, the highly perceptive public knows who or who not to believe.

Despite its might, the military did not try to regulate rumour mongering because of the Ebony incident. Twenty-one years down the line, some people are trying to mystify rumour mongering and confer it with the status it does not deserve. Their action is directed against the press which needling in recent times the Bayelsan government and its overlord in Abuja have not been comfortable with. There is more to the plan of the Bayelsa State government to outlaw rumour mongering than meets the eye. I don’t know what the government intends to achieve with the law in a state where poverty walks on four legs. Is this the law the people need? The answer is NO.

The best that Governor Seriake Dickson can do for his people is to come up with laws that will lead to the improvement of their lot. Laws that will make it easy for the poor man’s child to access good education, potable water and state-of-the-art health facilities. What does he want to do with an anti-rumour law, which main target are journalists? Before he thinks he has ingeniously come up with a law that will deter journalists from plying their trade, let me quickly remind him that journalism does not thrive on rumours. It is the larger society that engages in such past time. And with due respect, His Excellency too is no exception. Can he swear that he never engaged in dem say, dem say before, to borrow his words.

Dickson is, however, not the original owner of the words, dem say, dem say, I no see I talk. This is a catch phrase among the populace whenever they suspect that someone likes gossiping a lot. If you ever watched the Village Headmaster those days, you will get what I am talking about. Amebo, a character in the series, is a good example of dem say, dem say. In our society, we have many people like that. They tell you stories which are hard to believe, but then you are at liberty to ignore them and go your own way. With Dickson’s proposed law, the governor is saying we should no longer ignore such people, but send them to jail. I hope he has enough prisons to keep the dem sayers when the time comes. As I mentioned earlier, journalists do not engage in rumour-mongering. We speculate. But since there is a thin line between rumour and speculation I fear that many of us may run foul of the Dickson law when it comes into effect.

Rumour is like gossip or hearsay which is passed from hand to hand and may not be true. Speculation involves speculating and guesswork. Journalists worldwide write speculative reports even when they are sure of their facts in order to protect the source of their story. This is the gamut of the matter and therein lies the threat in the planned Dickson law. When the Buhari/Idiagbon regime promulgated Decree 4 in 1984, its intention was clear – to gag the press. Even when the press published the truth, it still went in for it. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor, the two bruised faces of the draconian law, were imprisoned by the late Justice Olalere Ayinde for publishing a true but speculative report about ambassadorial postings.

The truth of the report did not avail them in the circumstance. The judge saw what the reporters wrote as rumour because the postings had not been announced before the story was reported. If the press has to wait on the government before doing its work, then it will be left with carrying only press releases from the office of its spokesman. The press cannot afford to do that if it wishes to remain relevant and continue to serve the people. Does Dickson think he can succeed where the military failed? Why is he so much interested in this dem say law rather than thinking of how to improve the lot of his poverty-stricken people. Hear him at the inauguration of the Public Information Management Committee in Yenagoa on March 21 :

‘’A bill seeking to make malicious rumour mongering and misinformation of the public a punishable offence has become imperative in view of the ever-increasing rate of rumour-mongering and its attendant consequences on individuals and the state in general…of course, we are aware that the existing laws provide for offences such as criminal defamation of character and so on. But we are going to come up with a legislation to punish dem say, dem say people’’. May God help him. But before he derails, may we advise him not to embark on this unfruitful venture because it will rub off on him in a way that he may not like at the end of the day.

Yes, people may be goading

him to go on with the law

because as they may tell him, ‘it will be the best thing to happen since the creation of the state’, but they will not take the flak with him when the heat comes. Such people have started already. For instance, the committee chairman, Chief Spero Boma-Jack, has pinpointed the dem sayers. In response to Dickson’s speech, he said : ‘’People who do so (dem sayers) are those who have the opportunity to hear from the horse’s mouth but choose to make insinuations that contradict government’s good intentions and policies’’. Whether you do good or bad, people will always talk, but does that make what they say an offence punishable under this proposed law?

There is no benefit to be derived from this planned law and the earlier Dickson realises this, the better for him and his administration. There is no need wasting tax payers’ funds on a legislation that will not put food on their tables. What Bayelsans need is succour from their years of suffering, shattered dreams and dashed hopes, not a law which will not serve any useful purpose.

Isn’t it an irony that Dickson wants to militarise our democracy when generals who used the same trick yesterday but failed are today champions of democratic tenets? It is not too late for him to retrace his step before he finds himself on the wrong side of history. It is unfortunate that some of our colleagues even see anything good in this mischievous proposal. It will soon dawn on them that they are being used to justify the need for this bad and offensive legislation.

The job of the attorney-general and minister of justice is defined by the Constitution. Of all ministers of the Federal Republic, the attorney-general’s office stands out. It is the only ministry mentioned in the Constitution and the duties thereto spelt out. The attorney-general of the federation personifies the government. It is the mirror through which the government is viewed at home and abroad. What this means is that the attorney-general must not only be so in name but also in character. Unfortunately, in recent times we have not been lucky with the calibre of people picked as our attorney-general.

These people may have the requisite qualification, but they seem to fail in the area that matters most – integrity and character. The office is not all about law. It must reflect the wishes of the people at all times by marrying law with public expectations. The public good; nothing more and nothing less should be the desire of the chief law officer. In many cases, some of our attorney-generals have failed this litmus test. Their desire is not to serve the people and use the law judiciously in public defence, but to serve their masters and endorse infringement of rights.

Yet, the attorney-general is expected to promote and protect the people’s rights not to preside over their infractions. Save for two or three attorney-generals, who have held office since the advent of democracy in 1999, others have been mere tools in the hands of the government they serve. At times, they misadvise the president or sit on appeal over court judgments. They, as lawyers normally say, ‘’pick and choose’’ which verdicts to obey. This is how powerful some of our attorney-generals have become. Because of their new found power, some forgot where they were coming from all in the bid to satisfy the president who appointed them.

Ironically, of all our ministers, the attorney-general ought to be the one who should not be beholden to the president. But, alas, what do we get? A subservient attorney- general, who is ready to bootlick in order to keep his job. Even those with solid background before coming to office, turned jelly after becoming a minister. Nigerians will not forget in a hurry these two attorney-generals, Bayo Ojo (SAN) and Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), because of the way they ran the Ministry of Justice in their own time. Ojo, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), virtually turned himself into a one-man appeal court, telling the president and his party the verdicts to obey and not to obey.

Aondoakaa was something else. He became a tin-god under the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua. He too ‘’picked and chose’’ which verdicts to obey. But he would best be remembered for his role in the long absence of the late President Yar’ Adua from home before the God-fearing and unassuming man died in Aso Rock in May 2010. Aondoakaa led the ‘’cabal’’, apologies to former Information Minister Prof Dora Akunyili, , who did everything to conceal the true state of the late President Yar’ Adua’s health. At the height of the crisis, he propounded the theory that the president could rule from anywhere in the world. It was a way of carrying too far the joke that ‘’wherever the president is, the presidency must be’’.

It is expected that others who come after them will learn from their mistakes and do everything to avoid the same pitfalls. But the present Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), seems to have learnt nothing from his predecessors. Adoke appears to be in a hurry to beat the unenviable records of Ojo and Aondoakaa. Sometime last year in the heat of the preparations for the Edo State governorship election in July something terrible happened. Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s private secretary Laitan Oyerinde was killed in his Benin home. One year after the dastardly act, the security agencies have not been able to get the killers.

The police and the State Security Service (SSS) have come up with two sets of suspects who they believe killed Oyerinde. In this confusion, the public does not know who to believe between the police and SSS. Which of the agencies is holding the real suspects? We cannot say for now, but the police release of rights activist David Ugolor, who they initially described as the principal suspect, shows that the outfit did not do its homework well before parading him and others for the alleged crime. With this development, is the police claim that they have the real suspects still tenable? Worried by what is happening, Oshiomhole has repeatedly accused the police of bias in their investigation. The police, he alleges, have not been up and doing in getting to the root of the case because they have a hand in it.

In a situation like this, the police and SSS are expected to collaborate and not dissipate energy quarrelling over who has the right to investigate murder. My people have a saying that ‘’it does not matter who sees a snake between a man and a woman, the important thing is for the serpent to be killed’’ . Going by the wisdom in this altruism, does it really matter who has the power to investigate a crime as long as the perpetrators are caught? At the public hearing of the case by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions on February 27, Mr Thompson Olatigbe, who represented Adoke, said the attorney-general’s office is ‘’confused’’ over the matter.

Olatigbe, the Deputy Director of Public Prosecution before his curious transfer two weeks ago, said : ‘’The police and SSS forwarded two ‘believable’ reports to the attorney-general’s office. We don’t know which one to act upon. We are confused. We need further investigation. We have two reports and both are convincing but we don’t know which to believe’’. The next day, Adoke denied that his office is ‘’confused’’, vouching for the police report. His position led to the face-off between him and Oshiomhole at the Council of State’s meeting some days later. The matter took a dramatic turn with the purported transfer of Olatigbe from the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) to Planning, Research and Statistics.

I didn’t believe this report when

I read it in The Punch of March

20, so I was waiting for Adoke to deny it. Two weeks after the publication, that denial has not come. So, it is safe to assume that the report is true. It does not take a seer to tell us why Olatigbe was suddenly transferred after his testimony before the House panel. He was moved because he spoke the truth and Adoke is not comfortable with that. When did it become an offence for people to testify in parliament? Can somebody be punished for testifying before a legislative body? What happened to legislative immunity under which those who appeared before the parliament or any of its committees are covered?

As the country’s chief law officer, Adoke should know better. It is an offence for somebody to be punished for testifying in parliament or in court, except he wants to rewrite the law. The House should not keep quiet over this issue because it borders on its powers to summon witnesses over any matter. But if witnesses are given the Olatigbe treatment, nobody will come forward in future to testify. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) should also take Adoke up over this matter.

Nobody is saying that Olatigbe should not be transferred if his employers so decide, but the redeployment should not be made to look like punishment for his certain actions, as in this case. Why did Adoke transfer Olatigbe? I know that he will have a story to tell, but he will find it difficult to convince the public, who knows that people like him cannot stand the truth as spoken by Olatigbe before the lawmakers last February 27. Adoke, remember Bayo Ojo; remember Aondoakaa. Where are they today?

Presidents have wide powers; they have the power of life and death. They can give life and they can take life, but they cannot create life. Only God can create life. The enormous powers that presidents wield derive from state authority. As custodians of the sovereign power of their states, their word is law. When they speak, they do so with authority and whatever they say is final. Nothing to add, nothing to subtract. It takes the fear of God not to misuse these powers. As mortals, we are easily carried away by small things, especially when we find ourselves in a position to determine other people’s fate.

The president does not only determine the fate of his people, but also that of his nation. We are all at the mercy of the president. We go, if he tells us to go; we come when he tells us to come. Though we voted him into office, we are at his beck and call once he assumes power. When one occupies an office as high as that of the president, it is easy for him to be carried away by his new found powers. In such a situation, it is easy to misbehave because power, though sweet, is an intoxicant. Those who got drunk on it ended up as bad leaders. Check : Idi Amin; check: Sani Abacha; check : Augustine Pinochet.

These were leaders who abused their offices. They had the opportunity to write their names in gold, but they chose to write them in the blood and sweat of their people. They were bad leaders and today, they occupy prime places in the hall of infamy. What is in power that makes people to lose their senses? Is it the office that changes the occupant? Or is it the office that brings out the true nature of the occupant? No matter how we look at it, one thing that is certain is that some people tend to change once they are privileged to hold a small office. As soon as their status changes, they also change, showing their true colours. So, it may be wrong to say that it is the office that changes people.

No matter the office we occupy, people will always be themselves when the chips are down irrespective of their background. It is easy to forget our humble background when things appear to be rosy for us. We tend to forget the sufferings of the past; we tend to forget that we were once like those now complaining about happenings in the country. We perceive those complaining as our political enemies who don’t wish us well. If only we could pause and reflect, we will remember that we also passed that road. Then, our grievances were genuine and we took the government to the cleaners for its unpopular policies!

But now, we perceive the government in a different light because we have been invited to ‘serve’. What kind of service is it that will make us discard our principle for filthy lucre? Must public officials live by bread alone? By this, I mean should they always be guided by what they will ‘eat’ in whatever they do or say? I am at a loss over how some people change overnight just because they have found themselves in government. As president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan is surrounded by many lieutenants. He has them all, ministers, special advisers, senior special assistants, special assistants and so on and so forth. But is the president getting quality advice from these people? Whether or not he is, that na im toro.

The buck stops at the president’s table. As the principal, he is liable for what his agents do. This is the burden of leadership. He cannot hide under the guise of what his aides did in order to exonerate himself from blame. Was the president under the influence of any advice when he granted state pardon to his former boss, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha? Or did he do it sou moto? What informed the president’s decision to pardon the former Bayelsa State governor? Was there a petition from the once popular Governor-General of Ijaw Nation? On what grounds did he seek the pardon? Is it that he has turned a turn new leaf and will never steal public funds again if he finds himself in power in future?

When the rumour started making the rounds last Wednesday that the president had granted Alamieyeseigha pardon, many were dumbfounded because it was the last thing they ever expected our so-called meek and genial president to do. Alamieyeseigha brought shame to Nigeria when he was caught in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2005 for money laundering. The British legal system, which is no respecter of persons, dealt with the case the way it should. But before his pending trial could be concluded, Alamieyeseigha escaped from London dressed like a woman. How he did that still beats the imagination up till today.

He thought once he got back home, everything would be forgotten, that was where he made a big mistake. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo ensured his impeachment and trial. He entered a plea bargain and got away with a slap on the wrist. As if that is not enough, he has been granted state pardon, meaning he never committed any crime. Ha-ha.

Instead of being made to rot in jail, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment and asked to return billions of naira and also forfeit some properties to government. This punishment, which many consider inadequate, is what the president has now wiped off with his ill-advised pardon for Alamieyeseigha. For the opprobrium that Alamieyesegha brought to this country abroad, he deserves to be treated like the common criminal he is for life. He does not deserve this pardon.

It is a gross abuse of the

president’s power under the

Constitution for him to have pardoned Alamieyeseigha. By this act, Jonathan has breached the Constitution which he swore to uphold. Yes, the Constitution allows him, in the exercise of his prerogative of mercy in Section 175 to grant people pardon, but he ought to be mindful of how he uses the power. He should be conscious of public feeling on such matters and as such think deeply before naming the beneficiaries of state pardon. This is why in his oath of office he swore “that I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions.” Has Jonathan lived up to this oath in this case?

What has Alamieyeseigha done since he was convicted eight years ago to show that he has learnt his lessons? I don’t know except to be seen in the president’s entourage now and then. If that is the only criterion for granting state pardon, then it is a big shame that some 53 years after our Independence, we have not got our priorities right.

What is stopping the president from granting state pardon to Lucky Igbinedion, Tafa Balogun, Cecilia Ibru, James Ibori and their ilk? Yes, what is stopping him?

With what the president has done, we should declare amnesty for all ex-convicts, no matter what they did. After all, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. But it is not too late to right this wrong. If Jonathan could reverse himself on the renaming of the University of Lagos, there is nothing to stop him from withdrawing the pardon he granted Alamieyeseigha in the public interest.