Governors as dictators

By Gabriel Amalu

The coronavirus pandemic has provided an excuse for democratically elected governors to wear the toga of dictatorship, and act arbitrarily without remorse. The most assertive of the recent undemocratic conducts took place in Rivers State where Governor Nyesom Wike, by an executive fiat, directed bulldozers to pull down a private property allegedly used for an unlawful purpose. In making a case against the owner, an indigene of Rivers State, Wike acted as the accuser, the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner.

To justify his conduct, Wike alleged that the owner of the hotel broke the laws of Rivers State, when he opened the gate of his hotel for business in disobedience of the lockdown order issued to stop the spread of corona virus pandemic. Subsequently, it was alleged that the hotel was a haven for cultists, amongst other high-level criminality. No doubt, the allegations against the hotel owner are very serious, and if the accusations are true, many members of the public would condemn the owner, especially because of the debilitating effects of such criminal activities on the society.

But that will not exculpate the governor and indeed the state, should the aggrieved owner of the hotel approach the court for redress. Of course, Wike as a lawyer knows that however well founded the accusations against an accused maybe, he is deemed innocent until he is proven guilty, under the 1999 constitution (as amended) and the criminal laws of our country. So why did Governor Wike not resort to the law instead of arbitrariness in dealing with the alleged criminal infractions of the accused person?

Perhaps, because by virtue of the immunity clause in the 1999 constitution (as amended), the governor cannot be sued in his personal capacity because of the infraction. In Abacha vs Fawehinmi (2000) F.W.L.R. 594, Pt. 4; the Supreme Court per Ogundare JSC held: “The immunity granted under section 267 of the 1979 constitution relates to civil or criminal proceedings where a suit is commenced against such an official in his personal capacity. It does not apply where the official, as in the instant case is sued in his official capacity.”

So, the owner of hotel may have a case to claim damages against the state, even though he may have infringed the regulation of the lock down and other sundry crimes as alleged. And the courts, may be persuaded to award huge damages against the state because of the manifest dictatorial action of the governor in complete disregard to the rule of law. If the governor was mindful of the rule of law, nothing stops the governor from seeking an order of court to confiscate the property, if there is a law that permits that.

In Ohadugba vs Garba (2000) F.W.L.R. 2738-2739, the Court of Appeal held: “Where chattels were destroyed or damaged, the following rules have been evolved for compensating the party damnified: (a) Where the goods are destroyed by the wrongful act of the defendants, the measure of damages is the value of the goods at the time of their destruction and in proper case, plus such further sum as would compensate the owner for the loss of use or earnings and the inconvenience of being without the goods during the period reasonably required for replacement.”

In the northern part of our country, especially, Kano State, the governors are exhibiting their dictatorial conducts in the handling of the almajiri saga. Some of them treat the children like sh*t, while some others treat them as disposal items. In a manner that may come to haunt the entire country, the children many of whom may have been infected by the coronavirus pandemic, are being dispersed to every part of the country like an essential commodity. After exploiting the children as agents of electoral malpractices and mayhem in their states, they are now being exported to other states as purveyors of the fearful pandemic.

Of course, this malice laden behaviours of the northern governors have raised worries across the country. For some, the dispersal of the almajiris to the states in the southern part of the country, is a subtle way to export religious fanaticism and fundamentalism. Some others are almost getting paranoid, with the claim that it is geared to extend Boko Haram to the southern part of the country. While these fears may be unfounded, it is worrisome that democratically elected governors would act as dictators, in treating bona fide citizens of the country.

If the country has lawfully instituted a nation-wide inter-state lockdown, because a pandemic is ravaging the country, under what regulations or laws are the governors and their agents relying on, to ship the almajiri children resident in their states to other states, like disposal items? If the reason is not to undermine the security and public health status of the other states, what is the reason behind the ongoing dispersal of the almajiri children to the states who never engaged in that hideous practice anytime in the past?

After breeding the almajiri monster, why further treat the children as wastes? Where is the democratic credential of the governors engaged in these unlawful activities?  In these states, are there no laws made to protect the rights of the children? Does it mean that the Universal Basic Education laws which provides that children must be in school from age six until they are 15 years, by which time they would have undergone the primary education and the basic three level in secondary school, not applicable to these haemorrhaging states?

Of course, this column has severally complained about the immoral and patently unlawful conduct of the state governments in the north, which allowed the deprivations of impressionable children, on the altar of religious evangelism, long before this pandemic. Well, according to the governor of Plateau State, Solomon Lalong, the northern governors have agreed to end the Almajiri system, before this pandemic. While that agreement is a welcome development, the manner they are effecting it is most unconscionable and unlawful. If they agreed to end the scourge, the children should be enrolled in schools and vocational centres for them to attempt a catch-up, after the wasted years.

Clearly, it is criminal to disperse these children, by allowing them to be loaded into tankers built to convey chemical products, trucks used to convey animals, and those purposely built to convey building materials, just to beat the enforcement of the lock-down regulations. Indeed, it is the height of malice and wickedness, to encourage or allow the migration of these hapless citizens, who may have been exposed to the corona virus pandemic to other states, without regard to public health. The governors involved have failed woefully as state chief executives.