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Tag: impunity

  • Michael Brown contra Eric Garner: further reflections on the twilight of the racism of impunity

    Michael Brown contra Eric Garner: further reflections on the twilight of the racism of impunity

    Racism is not a constant of the human spirit.
    Frantz Fanon, “Racism and Culture”

    In last week’s essay in this column, I wrote with great but cautious optimism that the racism of impunity, the racism that is violent and completely unashamed to show its face to the world, this crude and destructive racism is in the twilight of its long, historic existence. One justification that I gave for this cautious optimism is the fact of the sheer number of people of all races, black, white, brown and yellow, in cities across every region of the United States who were protesting and demonstrating against the slaying of unarmed black men and teenagers by white police officers. A week after I wrote last week’s essay the protests and demonstrations have not only continued they have grown bigger. As a matter of fact, in one of the most dramatic expressions of these protests, athletes in major American sports like basketball and football – with tens of millions of fans – have been displaying powerful, symbolic expressions of protest against the racist violence of the police, expressions like the wearing T-shirts bearing the inscription “I can’t breathe”. Indeed, as I write these words on Friday, December 12, 2014, the word is out that next weekend, a big, “Million-Man March” against racism is planned to take place in the American capital, Washington, DC.

    Now, this is all well and good but it is not the main reason why I am asserting that the racism of impunity is in its twilight days. Indeed, as important as the protests and demonstrators are, they do not constitute the real reason why I am returning to the subject in this week’s column. For this, we have to turn to an unprecedented development that is closely connected to the social media that has turned the tables decisively against the forces of violent racist impunity among white American policemen and their millions of defenders and supporters in Congress, the media and ordinary citizens. Since this development is, in my opinion, an absolutely crucial factor in the ongoing protests, demonstrations and debates pertaining to the slaying of unarmed black people by white police policemen, I would like to put it across in as concrete and dramatic a way as possible. This is why, in the title of this piece, I have hinted at this development by the contrast I am implying in the phrase, “Michael Brown contra Eric Garner”. Both men, unarmed, died at the hands of white policemen, one in Fergusson, Missouri and the other in Staten Island, New York City. What contrast am I making between the deaths of these two men and, more particularly, the role of social media in public perceptions of, and debates on their deaths?

    On the surface, the difference is quite simple and indeed may seem unremarkable: no video clip exists of the last moments of the death of Michael Brown at the hand of officer Darren Wilson in Fergusson, Missouri; by contrast, the video clip of Eric Garner’s last moments in the chokehold of officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, New York immediately went viral on the Internet from the moment of its release and millions of people have seen it across the length and breadth of America and the world. But the matter is not that simple. If I may put the significance, the weightiness of the difference quite sharply, I would say that while to all people of goodwill of all races the video clip of Eric Garner’s last dying moments says a lot, to the defenders and supporters of the Darren Wilsons and Daniel Pantaleos of this world that video clip means absolutely nothing. In other words, to their millions of supporters, no evidence, no proof that their black victims were unjustly and senselessly killed will make them waver in their support of killer white policemen. What this means is that black lives do not matter in the least to these white cops and their supporters. And if this is the case, they cannot be persuaded by any evidence to withhold their support for the Darren Wilsons and Daniel Pantaleos among white police officers of America.

    But, this, it is beginning to become more and more apparent, is not exactly true. No nation, no social group in the world is immune to the effects and ramifications of the social media. The supporters and defenders of racist killer policemen are no exception to this rule, this norm of the 21st century world of the pervasively mediatized interplay between reality and the images circulated and consumed through the digital appliances that dominate our lives all over the world. The “evidence” provided by the social media can no longer be either ignored or left out of the logics that structure our daily lives, personal or collective. In other words, if the social media catch you in a compromised or damning moment and then circulates that moment to the whole world, you cannot continue to act as if you are untouched by the national and global circulation of your moment of inhumanity, embarrassment or shame. This is the unexpected dilemma that has hit the defenders and supporters of the racism of impunity in the United States like a tsunami of moral and social crisis. Let me explain what I am claiming here by briefly returning to the concrete cases of the racist killers, Darren Wilson and David Pantaleo, and the difference between them that was established by the social media.

    Fortuitously, the decision not to charge Darren Wilson by the grand jury in Fergusson, Missouri came two weeks before the decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, New York. Since there was no recording, no video clip of Wilson’s slaying of Michael Brown, the grand jury hearing that case was presented with widely varying and divergent testimonies of what actually took place in the fatal encounter. Moreover, the public prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury was quite openly sympathetic to policemen and their unions in general and Darren Wilson in particular. In the absence of any recording of the fateful event, this white public prosecutor manipulated his presentation of the evidence to the grand jury in favor of Darren Wilson. At any rate, the case became one of the classic instances of “take-your-pick” between one man’s word against another man’s word, with the jurors left to choose which side of the evidentiary divide to lean toward. In a country in which, overwhelmingly, all-white or predominantly white jurors never rule against white police officers who kill unarmed black men, the die was cast and not too many people were surprised that Darren Wilson was declared free to walk away, no indictment if you please.

    Things were completely different in the case of Daniel Pantaleo and the grand jury that he faced in Staten Island, New York. The evidence against him presented in the video clip on the Internet was both unambiguous and overwhelming. The Chief Medical Examiner of New York City had proclaimed Pantaleo’s slaying of Garner a homicide. Moreover, the use of the chokehold with which he killed Garner had been banned by the New York City Police Department for more than a decade precisely because it had caused many deaths of suspects in the course of attempted arrests by police officers. Above all else, the evidence of the video clip not only showed that Garner was unarmed, it also showed that he was in fact jumped and pounded upon by five burly white policemen; since he could therefore not have escaped the grip of the arresting police officers even if he had wanted to, they did not have to apply lethal force in arresting him. For all these reasons, as people awaited the decision of the Staten Island grand jury in the wake of the disappointment of the decision of the Fergusson grand jury’s decision that had absolved Darren Wilson of any criminal indictment, the feeling was high among the general population in America that this was one case in which the police could not use the convenient argument of conflicting evidence to abort the cause of justice and let Daniel Pantaleo off the hook. But of course that is precisely what the grand jury in Staten Island did; they chose to completely ignore the damning evidence against Pantaleo and his fellow killer officers. In other words, to the impunity of the policemen who killed Garner, the grand jury members of Staten Island added their own impunity of complete disregard for the evidence provided in the video clip that showed to the whole world how Garner was killed.

    Impunity has its limits and sometimes those limits can make all the difference in the world. There have been countless cases in which all-white or predominantly white juries completely ignored clear-cut evidence of criminal wrongdoing of white policemen and consistently ruled to uphold and sustain terrible miscarriages of justice against black people, especially black men and teenagers in the inner city ghettoes of America. But those were days before the rise, rise and further rise of the age of social media in which the eyes of the whole world are turned on America and on every single nation on the planet. In the period before the advent of the social media to a place of commanding presence in the world, impunity in American race relations always relied on a cloistered, hidden and protected form of white tribalism. To most decent, progressive and fair-minded white people, this was always a cause of great shame, embarrassment and guilt, this protected and unashamed white tribalism that kept alive blatant forms of racism that belonged to the epochs of slavery and separate and unequal segregation. Now, the social media are relentlessly stripping the cover off this revanchist, murderous and racist white tribalism and things will never be the same again. In this past week alone, we have seen, read or heard about condemnations of the Staten Island grand jury by prominent groups and individuals among American whites that had always defended and supported grand juries that shielded white policemen who shot and killed unarmed black men or teenagers. Where this unprecedented departure from a long tradition and practice of defence of the racism of impunity will lead no one knows, but it is important to record this rupture, even if it is a small, inchoate one.

    At any rate, I repeat: impunity does have its limits. And I add: look for some of the most telling expressions of those limits in the effects and ramifications of the social media of the new and still unfolding digital age, with their anarchic, uncontrollable and contradictory tendencies.

    In conclusion, I ask the reader to please note that in this piece, I have limited myself to the racism of impunity. If it is the case that it is by far the worst form of racism, it is however not the only racism that the world still has to deal with. My main or underlying point in this essay – as well as in last week’s piece – has been to suggest that if this racism of impunity that is the worst of all forms of racism can find no refuge from the changing, transforming forces of 21st century experience, then we can agree with the utopian view of Frantz Fanon as stated in the epigraph to this piece: “Racism is not a constant of the human spirit”.         

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • ‘Impunity in health sector must stop’

    ‘Impunity in health sector must stop’

    The Chief Medical Director of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Majekodunmi Ayodele, has called for an end to what he called “the impunity in the health sector”.

    At a briefing in his office yesterday on the upgrade of the institution to a teaching hospital, Ayodele said the frequent strikes by unions have contributed to the rot and decadence in the sector.

    He expressed dismay that workers in the health sector constantly hold government to ransom by engaging in strikes.

    The CMD said: “There is so much impunity in the system. Nigerian health workers seem not to have respect for  constituted authorities.

    “I am not saying there should be no strike to demand for their rights, but as  employees, we have to be a loyal to our employers.

    “We should allow dialogue to take place rather than toeing the line of impunity, which is industrial strike.

    “The Federal Government must take bold steps in this regard. Look at what is happening in the health system now, the Joint Health Sectors Union (JOHESU) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA)are fighting over leadership.

    “This is uncalled for. I expect the Federal Government to go hard on them by bringing how medical practice as an orthodox practice is being done in Europe and America to Nigeria.”

  • The reign of impunity

    The reign of impunity

    After a criticical appraisal of the unfolding developments in the country, Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka says the solution to the country’s problems will come at a price. He spoke yesterday at a press conference at the Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos. Below is the full text of his speech:   

    I shall not insist that the historic/biblical figure of Nebuchadnezzar is uniquely apt for the pivotal figure of the ‘democratic’ history in the making at this moment – for one thing, Nebu was a nation builder and a warrior. One could argue even more convincingly for the figure of Balthazar, his successor, or indeed Emperor Nero as reference point – you all remember him – the emperor who took to fiddling while Rome was burning. However you should easily recall why I opted for King Nebu –the figure that currently sits on the top of our political pile himself evoked it, albeit in a context that virtuously disclaimed any similarities, even tendencies. Perhaps he meant it at the time when he claimed: ‘I am no Nebuchadnezzar’. Perhaps not. One judges leaders on acts however, not pronouncements, which are often as reliable as electoral promises. King Nebu remains relevant – and not only for leadership. We, the citizens, are beginning to feel the heat. Without any claims to prophecy – unlike Shadrach and company, we wake up each morning to a sensation that we have been cast in the furnace together with those who at least committed the crime of dissent or criticism. No divine miracle appears to be at hand for a last-minute rescue. In desperation, one is reduced to hoping that the evocation of his own biblical reference point will resonate somewhere in the mind of one who is so ostentatiously humble and pious, kneels at the feet of a priest who could easily be mistaken for an office worker, and cultivate the high and holy company of acknowledged spokesmen of God.

    So, here goes. Gentlemen of the press, let’s not beat around the bush: the line has been drawn. The people must decide – whether to submit or resist. We may be no-count plebeians in the sight of the new-born patricians of Aso Rock and their apologists but – must we revert to the Abacharian status of glorified slaves? Of course, it is up to any people to decide. The praetorian guards have been let loose – to teach the rabble their place. The recent choice of a new leader for the Guard was clearly no accident, and this hitherto unknown enforcer, on Suleiman Abba, has wasted no time in inaugurating a season of brutish power. When a people’s elected emissaries are disenfranchised, cast out like vagrants and resort to scaling fences to engage in their designated functions, the people get the message. However, the choice is always there, and each choice comes at a cost. It is either we pay now, or pay later. The latest action of the supposed guardians of the law against the nation’s lawgivers is an unambiguous declaration of war against the people. I am glad that a commentator has referred to it as an attempted coup-de-tat. And it nearly worked.

    Legislators are not elected for their athletic powers, and such endeavours should not be demanded of them. There are even presidents and prime ministers who were elected despite physical handicaps. The brain is where it matters, the vision and commitment to service. Our legislators however have been made to perform over and beyond the call of the Olympics. I don’t understand why some media have described their action as a show of shame – this is a very careless, easily misapplied designation. The act of scaling gates and walls to fulfill their duty by the people must be set down as their finest hour. They must be applauded, not derided. If shame belongs anywhere, it belongs to the Inspector-General of Police and his slavish adherence to conspiratorial, illegal, and unconstitutional instructions – to undermine a democratic structure, and one – to make matters worse – convoked in response to an emergency of dire public concern.

    What sticks to this policeman is worse than shame, it is infamy. Such a public servant deserves to be publicly pilloried, tried and meted a punishment that is appropriate to treasonable acts, if only to serve as a deterrent to others in positions of responsibility under the law. To demand less is to reduce ourselves below the status free citizens of a free nation. It means we endorse violence against our representatives that we are content to submit ourselves to the jackboots of named forced. It is to annunciate the era of the brute as the current fundamental modality of governance.

    For this latest outrage, one in an escalating series of impunity, the buck stops yet again at the presidency, and that incumbent, Goddluck Ebele Jonathan, continues to surprise us in ways  that very few could have conjectured. Peaking at his own personalized example where he set the law of simply arithmetic on its head – I refer to the split in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), and his ‘formal’ recognition of the minority will in a straightforward, peer election – democracy has been rendered meaningless where it should be most fervent exemplified. Nothing is more unworthy of leadership than to degrade a system by which one attains fulfillment, and this is what the nation has witnessed time and time again in various parts of the nation, the recent affront against the legislative chamber being only the most blatant and unconscionable. We know of course that this is not the first of its kind in the nation’s history, but precedents are not binding. Each leader selects his or her own model for emulation or avoidance, and that choice is certain indication of the true nature of such a leader, and a clue to the kind of conduct that a people can expect of him. It is a warning. His choices for the occupancy of crucial public positions – such as the protective arm of the nation-constitutes an even more immediate and constant public alert. The signals are ominous – for and beyond 2015.

    These, to state the obvious, are not ordinary times. The menace of Boko Haram hangs over the corporate entity called a nation and over individual, citizen or mere bird of passage. The cliché ‘heating up the polity’ may grate the ear-drums with its banality but I think that we have a right to demand of a leader not to stoke up the furnace in which events have cast its citizens. Every day records a new violation of our humanity. The atrocious targeting of the great mosque of Kano has rendered any lingering doubt of impending national imposition an invitation for collective suicide, preferably through piecemeal dismemberment. The theories of cause and effect can wait, or continue – it does not matter – the omniscient in such matters continue to pontificate, some of them blithely forgetting that they indeed contributed to policies that landed us in this brutal cleft. What does matter is an awareness that the nation is only part of a global eruption of fundamentalist delusions whose staple diet consists of destabilization and dehumanization – all summed up as an ideology of hate for the different. For the defiant.  This should form the basis of understanding by which an implacable enemy is confronted. And it should form the basis of leadership awareness. It should have led, by now, to national mobilization on an unprecedented scale, one that may even impinge, however temporarily, on those liberties that you and I consider non-negotiable in our rights as citizens.

    However, imagine, just imagine that today’s leadership were of such a cast of mind, one that makes demands of sacrifice from the citizens. The response would be outright rejection. And deservedly so, because any such motion would be distrusted. It would be seen as an act of insincerity, an opportunity to acquire even more powers for citizen enslavement. This is the price you pay for encroaching on the precincts and entitlement of others with whom you share a structure of authority. You lose the trust of the other legs of –in this case – a governance tripod. Every act, especially in abnormal circumstances, would be viewed with extreme suspicion, and the gates, open wide, without any strenuous effort on its part, to the triumphal progression of the enemy. That is the collateral damage that the abuse of power attracts to whatever should be a collaborative undertaking. Where governance has degenerated to such a level that any individual, on account of his uniform, can stop an elected representative of a people, in this case a governor, from going about his legitimate duties or exercising his basic, elementary right as a citizen – as happened during the recent Ekiti elections – we do not need to guess what happens in a situation that calls for general mobilization, on which, needless to say, the good will and trust of all arms of governance depend in a crisis. This of course requires the capacity for forward thinking.

    The shambles that punctuated a presidential campaign visit at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State a few days ago merely underline the total alienation of President Jonathan from the reality that has engulfed the nation. Yes, political campaigns are part and parcel of the bloodline of the democratic process. We know that they never stop. However, that a national leader should go campaigning on the platform of ethnic support at a time when priorities dictate a united national engagement for survival, is a grotesque undertaking that was tragically rebuked in the massacre of worshippers and desecration of the Kano mosques, almost simultaneously with alienated gathering of selected crowned heads and journeymen at the OAU campus, a macabre echo of Balthazar’s feast. Long before Nyanya, long before Chibok, long before the mildest of the now innumerable violations of our basic right to exist as free citizens, the march of a nation towards implosion has dominated the landscape, but an obsession the pettiness of power has obscured remedial vision and thus, the creative options constantly open to any prescient leadership.

    If Somalia was too far away as instruction, then surely Mali remains sufficiently close warning. With the invasion of Mali by al Qaeda and its clones and surrogates, we moved from mere portents, from mere distant rumblings, to the wake-up knock right against our gates- and yet leadership slumber remained unbroken. Mali was retrieved, a breathing space created, but it would appear that this was when complacency took over and snoring attained its highest pitch. The few waking moments have been spent on sterile, tawdry intrigues and consolidation on the marshes and quick sands of power. That failure in the aggressive destablisation of the enemy is the cross that the nation bears today- but we must concede that this gross dereliction applies not only to Nigeria but to her neighbours- indeed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – and the collective failure for concerted action.

    Leadership counts however, and it was Nigeria that took the lead in that critical and timely mission that was spearheaded by France.

    The lesson of Mali was completely lost on complacent leadership however, leaving time and space for alien invaders to make common causes with the internal, unleashing destruction at will and dancing around a nation whose armed forces have acquitted themselves creditably on foreign missions.  The architect of that initial policy of containment was the recently deceased Gbenga Ashiru, then a Foreign Minister, unceremoniously removed for the ends of premature politicking, before the logical development of that initiative.  Now of course, the very manipulators of Ashiru’s removal are falling over one another to heap praise on the quality of his achievements of office, skirting – who can blame them!- the tawdry reasons for his removal from office.  Petty, retaliatory calculations that placed the interests of the nation, the very security of its people in acute jeopardy from unfinished business.  Ashiru’s presence in that position had become a fly in the palm wine of Balthasar’s Feast.  Caution: no one dares predict that the plight of Nigerians would be any rosier had his ideas been pursued till the very end.  The point is simply this – a process was interrupted,  truncated without thought, petty politicking being made to override substance.  I wrote Ashiru to commiserate with him and to bolster his morale. He replied in only two words: USE AND DUMP!

    Defend yourselves! This is what the perceptive have preached and groups like the so-called junior Task Force translated into action, the real heroes of the defence of the tattered  “Nigerian sovereignty”, Among them, a hitherto unknown, a woman, has become one of the symbols of resistance, an ordinary woman turned extraordinary, one of the hunters who routed the diabolical hordes who appear to rout our military even before their appearance.  Does it sound today as whimsical as it may have sounded to some when l urged the organisation of willing survivors of Boko Haram into local defence corps, their women especially, proposed that they be kitted out fully, and formally inducted as  auxiliaries. Ladi, it would appear, needed no such urging from any direction.  It was obvious to her, and others like her that it was futile to await salvation from a centre that is so self-obsessed with power that it no longer sees  even the danger to its very existence. A people must defend itself.  These are no ordinary times, and we have moved beyond orthodox solution.  “Where two of three are gathered together…” I shall complete those words my own way- “they must anticipate, organize, obtaining or improvising the wherewithal as circumstances dictate. Fascism is the eternal enemy of freedom, and it comes both in internal and external forms.

    Today, it would be premature to claim that Suleiman Abba and the many incarnations of Shekau are cut from the same mould but, remember, we have been here before.  Who can forget Sunday Adewusi, the original Robo-Cop! And so, consider this; the ripples from the fascistic eruption of a Suleiman Abba may actually result in far greater casualties and inhuman degradation of society than those so far recorded even at the hands of Shekarau and his cohorts.  That is the real and present danger.  This is why the call for vigilance is real and urgent, and a need to clip the wings of predatory bird before it devours society, they call becomes paramount.

    Beset by external and internal threat to liberty and dignity, abandoned internally by a do-it-yourself government on the one hand, and externally by (claimed) impediments from cynical allies – as we are made to believe in the media- let no one cry anarchy when the people respond to that historic cry of liberation, to which one leader after another – the most recent being the Emir of Kano and the Ulama leader, Yahaha Jingir – have felt moved to urge upon their people:

    “Citizens Defend yourselves!”

  • The impunity at National Assembly

    SIR: Security operatives are not in any way supposed to be partisan in carrying out their duties. It is unfortunate that security operatives are now effective tools to carry out unlawful and unconstitutional acts against public officers and even the citizens at large.
    The siege laid at the National Assembly is condemnable. The scenario at the National Assembly was a direct and dedicated act to impeach the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Rt; Hon Aminu Tambuwal or else why would the deputy speaker drive into the assembly premises comfortably with no form of harassment and the Speaker his boss held at the gate and even had to be teargased like a common criminal?
    Only a while ago, security operatives were also used to lay siege at the Rivers State House of Assembly; during the governorship election in Osun State, it was the story of masked security operatives laying siege on the people – arresting party leaders, members and various stakeholders in breach of their constitutional rights.
    I watched the scenario that played out at the National Assembly and I saw masked men! Why masked men? Security operatives should be easily identifiable in case the need arises to call them to account.
    Nigeria leaders should come together and call the Presidency to order; it is regrettable that the laws of the land are being disrespected at every turn. Few months ago, security operatives intercepted newspapers across the country. Are we gradually moving back to the dark days of dictatorship?
    The laws of the land should be respected and any society that continuously disobeys its own laws would self-destruct.

    • Folawiyo Kareem Olajoku
    Osogbo, State of Osun

  • Executive versus Legislative Impunity

    Recently I have been wondering why members of the Peoples Demo
    cratic Party (PDP) neglect to parade with the Umbrella, the symbol
    of their party, just like the All Progressive Congress (APC) members do with the broom, their own party symbol. Well, whatever may be their reason, may I now humbly canvass for a reversal, as one ingenious way to boost the sagging national economy, reduce youth unemployment and enhance personal security, which ordinarily should be the major campaign issues for the 2015 general elections, were our politicians interested in issue related campaigns, rather than in the reign of impunity.

    Just imagine the millions of umbrellas that party members will buy, as the candidates slug it out at the ward congresses and the rancorous party primaries, not to talk of the national campaign across all the nooks and cranny of our country that will soon follow. Another major advantage will be that the umbrella may become handy weapons to settle the innumerable scores that the PDP primaries are throwing up. Contemplate if the distinguished PDP senators who have rambunctiously adjourned plenary to settle scores, over the primaries, with the overbearing executive at the state and federal, should all have their umbrellas during their rancor filled meetings.

    I guess that many of the Senators and members of the House of Representatives who now feel betrayed by the President and the Governors would joyously support my proposition, at least as one glaring empowerment program for their beleaguered constituencies. It will however be interesting should each Senator and Representative have an umbrella with its pointed tips, when they meet with President Goodluck Jonathan, to iron out the demand that each state must guarantee at least two automatic tickets for serving Senators, and probably also two thirds of the house tickets to the Representatives, to satiate their sense of equity, good conscious and democratic ethos. With the umbrella tips pointing, many of them would be humming, Sunny Nneji’s song: ‘if you do me, I go do you’.

    To show how precarious ordinary party primaries have become, and why everyone needs personal security, the distinguished Senators on the platform of PDP are threatening to commit patricide (impeachment proceedings against the President), should the President not use his executive powers to override the executive impudence of the state Governors, who have unscrupulously appropriated the ward delegates, to scheme the legislators out. Talk of impunity qua impunity, to produce distinguished lawmakers. But even as the Senators complain, they will remember that most of them rode to power, through the same process.

    To ensure that the President takes the matter seriously, the Senators have shot down plenary, as a way to force a violent abrogation of the democratic process to favour them. If they have their way, the President will order the state Governors to direct the delegates to return them as candidates whether they have performed in office or not; otherwise they will raise impeachable offences against the President. A case of quid pro quo. Who knows, as you read this piece, which was penned last week, the famous PDP umbrella, at least the big one at the head quarters may be spread, to calm their frayed nerves.

    As if in a conspiracy against the Nigerian state and worse still, her hoi polloi; the junior chambers are also on a forced long recess, in an attempt to stem the threat of impunity against the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, who recently defected from the PDP to the APC. While the Honourable Speaker may have the right to defect to the party of his choice; the makers of the constitution never envisaged that the entire lower chambers would be shot down, merely to assuage the potential threats that may arise from such a private initiative.

    While some have argued that Tambuwal ought to have resigned his position as the Speaker, if not his membership of the House, on moral grounds following his defection, they forget that politics has little regard for morality, especially in our clime. In fairness to the Speaker, the law does not automatically disenable him from remaining a Representative of the Tambuwal constituency, Sokoto, where there is division within his party, as he has claimed. But again the makers of the constitution did not envisage that a Speaker of the House of Representatives could abandon the majority party on whose platform he rode to power and defect to a minority party.

    In my view, under the 1999 constitution, it is legally possible for a Speaker or even a Senate President to emerge from an amalgam of minority parties, once the candidate can muster the required support of the majority of members of the relevant house to vote him or her into the leadership. But by practice under the presidential system of government, particularly in the United States of America which we are aping, the majority party produces the Speaker or the presiding officer of the Senate, since the Vice President is the President of the Senate.

    But even were there is conflicting opinions as to the position of the law, as we have experienced following the Tambuwal defection, it is very strange for a Police officer, regardless of the rank, to constitute himself into a court, to interpret the constitution, as the recently confirmed Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Suleiman Abba sought to do. In the least, his attempt to assume a magisterial diktat to interpret section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 constitution is an aberration, which further confirms the rise of impunity in the country. In answer to that executive lawlessness, some members of the House of Representatives are also threatening recourse to an impeachment proceeding against the President. As things are, the road to 2015 is obviously strewn with executive versus legislative impunities.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Impunity a threat, says Oyebode

    A Professor of International law, Akin Oyebode,has warned that massive corruption and impunity constitute grave threats to freedom.

    Oyebode, who in a keynote address he delivered  at the Annual National Management Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) in Effurun, Warri, said these maladies also threaten national survival unless countered by adequate measures.

    Speaking on “Building institutional capacities as a pathway to good governance: The importance of a legal and regulatory framework,” the law professor, who was conferred with the fellowship of the Nigerian Institute of Management at the occasion, warned that the destiny of the nation “must never be abandoned to the whims and caprices of enemies of the open society and fidelity to law and due process.”

    “We all should recognise the necessity to subject all activities and actions under the superintendence of law, or else, we open the flood-gates to chaos and disintegration,” he said.

    “In a situation of threatened state failure, massive corruption, impunity and rising incidence of self-help, enlightened self-interest warrant recognition by all concerned of veritable threats to individual freedom and national survival, which need to be met by the adoption of requisite, well-considered measures to salvage the situation,” Oyebode said.

    According to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) professor of law, who interrogated the critical role of law in institutional capacity-building towards good governance, the time has come to re-dedicate “ourselves to the tested approach of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules” as originally advocated by Lon Fuller, his one-time teacher.

  • Taming the monster of impunity

    Impunity and abuse of office is not a historical colonial experience.   It is a bye-product of our political sub-culture of indiscipline during both the military regimes and civilian administrations.   Our public and private lifestyles are characterized by reckless disregard to the rule of law because we are wont to believe that as government officials, we are embodiment and custodians of law and social etiquette and therefore watchdog over other citizens.   This is partly due to weak institutions and not so vibrant docile Civil Society Organizations that find it difficult to call public officials to account.     Impunity is further promoted in our society by our customary and primordial diffidence to authority as bequest of ancestral divinity from the gods.   It therefore becomes a norm that those in authority appropriate the coercive power of the state for personal aggrandizement and oppression of the hoi polloi.   Impunity and abuse of power is against the spirit and doctrines of democracy in a civilized society.    Ordinarily, service in any government institutions or department should be a privilege not a licence or weapon to torment and oppress the citizens.

    Even though we are a country supposedly governed by the rule of law, lawlessness define most government officials who erroneously think they are where they are because they are the best qualified to be there.   Sadly, impunity and abuse of authority and power permeate all strata of our society.   The worst culprits are some members of the security forces and paramilitary organizations who do not know the difference between the garrison style discipline in their professional callings and the respect of rights of ordinary citizens as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.   What more, they bear arms without the requisite mental capacity to understand that their duty to the state and citizens alike is the protection of the law and the oath they took on enlistment rather than the capricious whims of political godfathers.    This is why the policeman on the street or at the road-block would turn his weapon on innocent citizens for refusing to give him gratification and find a name to call it, ‘accidental discharge’, whereas it is an obvious case of murder.   Again, the same police would investigate and at the end of the day, the investigation report may never see the light of day.   When it sometimes does, the case will remain in court perpetually for lack of diligent prosecution.   In the face of this impunity, we all keep mute because we place more value on wealth than human life.   If we agree that nobody is above the law, then those responsible for enforcing the law must ensure that they uphold the letters of the law so that the nation would not be thrown into a state of anarchy.   If those who should enforce the law themselves take the laws into their own hand and act with impunity, we should not lie helpless.   It is our civic responsibility to demand the removal of public officials who their political masters find it difficult to bring to order or be subjected to the rule of law.   We have to make the demand relentless and loud enough until the will of the people prevails and the erring official purged of his delusion that he is not answerable to ethical call of duty.   Every day, we are confronted with obscene impunities and lawlessness from government officials and members of the security forces and the police; on the road, in public places and even in discharge of their official functions.

    I am not aware of any country in the world were government officials and law enforcement agencies take liberty in driving against traffic in addition to harassing and intimidating other road users out of the way with their siren.   Many Nigerians have lost their precious lives to the impunity and lawlessness of official convoys driven by security men who are most of the time under some substances.   Recall the killing of the prolific writer and activist, Professor Festus Iyayi who was brutally killed by a governor’s convoy.    I refuse to see that incident as an accident; it was a cold-blooded murder, period.

    We are perhaps where we are today due to the inability of those in government to understand that they are not above the law.   Furthermore, we have not done our part as citizens to insist that the elected and appointed officials should carry out their duties in accordance with the rule of law and due process.    This brings me to the gross abuse of authority by the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Mbu Joseph Mbu when he ordered the arrest and detention of an Africa Independent Television Reporter, Amaechi Anakwe who reportedly referred to him as controversial.   He later had the reporter arraigned at a Magistrate Court in Abuja for what he alleged as defamation of his character; character that he has never shown to possess in his public life.    Let me quickly observe that the conduct of Mbu is not a reflection of the behaviour of senior Nigeria police officers.   It would be uncharitable to paint the entire Nigeria Police with the paint of impunity and abuse of authority because there are fine police officers who have discharged their duties creditably well.

    Defamation is an offence known to Nigerian law.   There are civilized procedures prescribed by law to bring an action if anybody feels wronged.   If Mbu were not a police officer, would he have had the temerity to commandeer another citizen and harry him into detention for a perceived offence against him?    Looking at word as allegedly used, ‘controversial’ and in the circumstances, it is only a functional illiterate that would have come to that conclusion that it was defamatory.   The same Mbu referred to himself as a ‘Leopard’ who caged the ‘Lion’ in Rivers State, referring to Governor Rotimi Amaechi and the gross misconduct he got away with.   This was a Police Commissioner who in the ordinary course of duty was to take instruction from the governor as chief executive of the state but became a fifth columnist.   This was a misconduct for which the Police authorities should have called him to order failing which, the Civil Society Organizations should have made it a point of duty to demand for the removal of the man not just from Rivers State but from the Police because he had become a black ship and an albatross to the force.

    As if that was not enough, he was brought to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and of course Nigeria’s centre of gravity as a reward for a job well done.   In no time, he started acting out his insanity by harassing peaceful “Bring Back our Girls” protesters and making unguarded political statements, yet nobody or group deemed it necessary to speak up.

    There should be no place in government institutions and department for breeding individuals who have scant respect for the rule of law and ethical practice.   If the Police authorities find it difficult to bring the likes of Mbu in their rank to order because of his perceived closeness to powers-that-be, then the people should rise in unison and in one voice demand that the man should not be allowed to remain in the Police.   We have to tame the monsters in official toga and deny public officials, no matter their bloated ego the liberty of abuse and recklessness that has become a lifestyle in public places.

    • Kebonkwu Esq writes from Abuja
  • Lagos residents urged to fight impunity

    Lagos residents urged to fight impunity

    The need for residents in Lagos State to rise up and speak against impunity in the society took centre stage at the forum organised by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Community Life Project (CLP), in collaboration with Stop Impunity Nigeria Campaign Group.

    The event held at the Isolo Community Centre, with the theme “Impunity and the Rule of Law”, featured various stakeholders including representatives of civil society groups, students, artisans and market men and women.

    CLP Project Coordinator, Mr. Lanre Arileola, said the trend of impunity has gradually eaten deep into the fabrics of Nigeria’s nationhood, adding that people now flout rules and regulations and are not made to answer questions or face the music.

    “High level of corruption and indiscipline is another barrier to development. The Nigerian state is corrupt, managed by corrupt leaders, who have made the state an instrument of capital accumulation, rather than using it to project the interest of the citizenry. A very good plan supervised by a thoroughly corrupt state can hardly do a thoroughly good job.

    “It is pertinent to note that leaders and individuals will continue in corruption because impunity ensures they do not get punished”.

    Arileola noted that citizens can aid impunity through their actions or inactions, urging them not to join the bandwagon but do things which were morally right and take responsibility for their actions.

    Also speaking on Rule of Law, he said a society which claims to have the system in place should witness checks and balances in government, minimal level of corruption, an open government, enforcement of fundamental rights, enforcement of order and security, among others.

    But Arileola lamented the level of abuse of the Rule of Law in Nigeria, saying that extra judicial killing, escalation of violence, insecurity of life and property, lack of access to justice, corrupt police force, ineffective law enforcement and bad governance have become the order of the day.

    Another speaker at the event, Mr. Sunday Solanke implored the people to develop cordial relationship with law enforcement agencies, urging them not to hesitate to use the available citizens’ complaints mechanisms whenever their rights were trampled upon.

    He stressed that cases of social deviance should also be reported within the available legal framework.

    Some of the participants who shared their experience at the forum were unanimous in their submissions against impunity which they described as a clog in the wheel of development.

    They, however, highlighted the challenge of the safety of whistle-blowers, noting that some residents have become victims for daring to question public office holders or law enforcement agencies when they go against the law.

    One of the community leaders in the area, Mr. Yemi Sogunle, commended the effort of the NGO for bringing the issue of impunity to the grassroots.

  • Of impunity and lies as campaign strategy

    Of impunity and lies as campaign strategy

    Every town, village and community can point to Fayemi’s developmental landmarks

    Fehingbepon and Tipa ti kuku are two Yoruba words that not only have the same etymology but, indeed, mean almost the same thing – i.e impunity. They are words that best describe the PDP attitude to elections in Nigeria, but more especially in Yoruba land. Former President Obasanjo deployed Fehingbepon in declaring PDP victorious in Ekiti in 2007 as in the subsequent ‘Mama Ayoka’s macabre dance of ‘conscienceless conscience’. For this election, two events have proved they hadn’t changed one bit. These are: Buruji Kashamu’s ‘I will make Ekiti an example’ speech at Ibadan and the absolutely irreverent manner he stage- managed Fayose’s emergence acting on the orders of President Jonathan. These are clear indications that the shoeless one has bought into the ‘Tipa ti kuku’ strategy of his hatchet men in the Southwest. We would soon see more of Jonathan’s satanic schemes against mainstream Yoruba interests. In this project, his deployment of the two new Yoruba ministers to security portfolios was no happenstance. He is already primed to begin a massive funding of his captured wing of Afenifere for overt purposes to which elements of Labour and Accord had been financially induced. Arrests of APC leaders and supporters by the police on spurious charges are most likely to begin in earnest just as the PDP intends to embark on a massive buying of voters cards at totally unimaginable prices. This, in particular, should tell Nigerians where the billions being daily stolen under President Jonathan are headed. As if the federal government is just waking up, it will now also begin to pour kerosene to Ekiti and Osun as if the product is going extinct.

    As earlier mentioned, PDP is relying on ‘Tipa ti kuku’ which is to be stream rolled, like a war armada, from the Villa. Courtesy the presidency, INEC and ALL the security agencies will kowtow to the PDP. President Jonathan has started that process by making the Police ministry a Southwest heredity. The compromised man in charge will do just about anything they direct. In collusion with INEC, they will do everything to rig in the remote areas, the police and other security agencies will have instructions from headquarters to overlook their evil machinations. On election day, APC strongholds will be deprived of ballot papers and where materials come at all, they will arrive late and in insufficient numbers. Even at its topmost level, PDP will not demur from asking INEC to just simply announce its candidate the winner boasting, ‘nothing will happen’. But a thousand and one will happen because Ekiti will not look askance; not after we have been twice cheated in the past.

    For the campaigns in the meantime, the two cousins, Labour and PDP, are employing lies as campaign tools. While impunity is PDP’s preferred option, Labour has the rare distinction of being able to manufacture lies at the drop of a hat. Happily, Ekiti people have come to see lies as consistent with the Labour party wherever it rears its ugly head but certainly worst in Ondo state where it is putting our people through a scorching regime of the very opposite of everything it promised during the last election campaigns in the state. Rather than roads, what they see are abandoned projects and in place of new jobs, old ones are being erased at an alarming rate. It cannot but be a surprise that an oil producing state could be shouting itself hoarse over the late disbursement of Sure-P funds even where there is nothing to show for the billions received.

    The PDP in Ekiti has miserably, but unsuccessfully, tried to draw a similarity between Mimiko and Fayemi lying that the latter will behave like Mimiko after his already God-ordained victory. In dismissing this arrant nonsense, I have Ondo-state born Femi Odere to thank for his highly analytical article: ‘Between Fayemi and Mimiko’ –The Nation, Tuesday, 25 March 2014.

    Wrote Odere: ‘The innumerable socio-economic milestones that are geared towards the creation of jobs and wealth by the Fayemi administration within a short span of a little over three years in a state that comes second from the rear out of 36 states in terms of federal allocation speak volumes about a leader who knows what needs to be done for his people. Mimiko, in contradistinction, flagged off his administration by announcing the construction of a Dome in Akure about five years ago. As you read this, the Dome is still under construction even after its cost had been reviewed upwards. Mimiko established a Tomato Processing factory somewhere in Akoko during his first term. But no sooner after this factory was commissioned than the place got converted into a pure water factory. Mimiko announced years ago that a cement factory will be built in the state, but the bush where the factory was to be sited is yet to be cleared. Mimiko announced during his first term that privatisation of the state’s moribund industries is the way to go in order to spur economic growth and job creation. Oluwa Glass Factory, one of the industrial flagships of the late Papa Adekunle Ajasin administration which fell under his privatization sledgehammer is yet to produce a single piece of glass years after its privatization. No sooner than the state government relinquished its controlling equity in the Okitipupa Oil Palm Processing Factory, several financial scandals broke to rock the factory’s government-appointed Managing Director. The factory is once again comatose. The Akure-Oba Ile airport road, started during his first term at a cost of several billions of naira, still uncompleted, the mere eight-kilometre road has been re-awarded at a new cost of several billions. The Olokola Free Trade zone, an initiative of the late Agagu administration that could have been a major catalyst in spurring huge economic growth in the state was jettisoned by Mimiko because the politics of the Free Trade zone is more important to him than the economic and job-creation benefits which the trade zone would have created for the people of the State. One can go on ad infinitum’

    Ekitis, a very discerning people, need not seek any further than this testimonial to put Opeyemi Bamidele where exactly he belongs. Incidentally he has just upped his game by claiming that ALL the 132 towns and villages in Ekiti have mineral deposits. There is also the chimera of what he calls a welfare package for all the chiefs in the state. Lies, lies and yet more lies! You would think he was addressing impressionable 5-year olds. The PDP, master riggers that they are, are no better; only that their strategy is at variance with Labour party’s Joseph Goebbels’s inspired propagandist lies. They are infinitely more satanic and for them, nothing is beyond conjecture.

    On the other hand, however, Ekitis already know Fayemi like the back of our palms. Indeed, his other sobriquet, apart from Ilufemiloye 1, is ‘Owi be e, se bee’ –he who fulfils promises. Fayemi only has to tell you his government would do so and so, and the town, community or individual can go to sleep. It is this trustiability that underpins his annual pre-budget state-wide tours, asking the people what their priorities are for the year’s budget. It is the reason why today, every town, village and community can point to his developmental landmarks.

    All these devilish schemes are highlighted that we Ekitis may be prepared to the last man to counter whatever the plans the caterwaulers may have up their sleeves. Equally important is the need for the world to know: the likes of the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, Russia, China, the AU, all of which carry the can of the aftermath of immature and anti-democratic actions of African leaders must, willy nilly, be put on notice as to what is afoot in Yoruba land, courtesy President Jonathan, and, long before the Armageddon.

  • Policing with impunity

    Policing with impunity

    ‘Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of an impunity committing police.’——-Tony Blair (Former British Prime Minister)

    In Rivers State today, there exists a circle of absolute power corruption and impunity that is too offensive to ignore. The state, courtesy of federal might of President Goodluck Jonathan, is witnessing totalitarian impunity and no one is yet held accountable by the police – our own “friends.” The police institution seems to have forgotten that in the name of guaranteeing peace, there should be no impunity such that has today become its hallmark in Rivers. After all, justice cannot be pursued under an eerie air of subjection. The constitution allows for right to freedom of association and expression, yet, the police, in flagrant violation of the law, forbid this within the precinct of the treasure base of the nation.

    The police still wrongfully arrest and imprison people branded as opposition. When the arrested tries to seek court’s intervention, the brigands hiding under the cloak of federal might inflict arson on the Temple of Justice. It is only in Rivers that this dangerous trend has been on and nobody is caught by the police. The brigands with covert state support also kidnap and kill dissent voices with reckless abandon. This column abhors deployment of power with impunity. It fears misuse and abuse of power by the tenants in the corridors of power. It is sad that voluntary errors of authority and other infamous vices have become shameful routine in Rivers and ostensibly carried out with the sanction of those in the highest hierarchy of state power.

    The Nigerian societies have to be worried over what is happening in the state before it spreads to other parts of the country. In contemporary Nigeria, it is hard to believe that the police under the guise of quelling what it erroneously termed illegal public protest march, could engage in indiscriminate and barbaric firing of defenceless innocent people. The government may think it is trying to suppress the people by force when it ought to embark on attempting to solve the problems that led to the dissent. The Save Rivers Movement (SRM) was the last victim of officially induced police brutality. The group is an organisation that purportedly insists that Rivers State must be saved from political buccaneers that have been treating the state as their personal fiefdom. There reportedly exists another group called GDI that has a serving federal minister, Wike, as its grand patron and which has reportedly been receiving special police protection from the state police commissioner in all its public rallies.

    SRM reportedly provided a copy of the application for permit to hold the rally, written to the police command since January 7. And the group’s letter was received by a police officer on behalf of the state police command. Why did the police refuse to respond to this request if not to serve the ulterior interests of their paymasters? Rivers State Police Commissioner Mbu, in an interview on Channels Television after the sad incident, insisted: “It is not time for political rallies. If groups are going to meet for empowerment, we approve and provide security…I asked policemen to subdue and take over the place. We took over the place.” Yet, these are hapless people that were about to converge on the Rivers State College of Arts and Science, Rumuola, Port Harcourt. Was the same treatment meted to GDI rallies believed to have the backing of the presidency?

    The casualty figures in the harm inflicted by the police are unimaginable. Senator Magnus Abe was riddled with rubber bullets in the chest. The people including houses around the vicinity were tear-gassed while the police allegedly picked the shells of the teargas used. A young boy in the company of his mother, coming to church, suffocated and died instantly. A house at Elegbam Road, Port Harcourt was reported to have been partly burnt while several other people sustained injuries. More than one Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) were purportedly deployed to the venue of the rally.

    Unfortunately, the police deliberately choose to be ignorant of the law whenever it pleases their topmost hierarchy. Is it sensible to agree with the police that it is compulsory for law-abiding members of a group to forcefully obtain its permit before embarking on a peaceful protest in a supposed democratic state like Nigeria? A cursory excursion into the legal-historical lane shows that such deliberate memory loss on the part of the Rivers Police chief should be punished by the Inspector General of Police for crass disobedience of judicial position on the matter over some time. For months, the Court of Appeal has upheld the judgment of the Federal High Court in June 2005 that the Public Order Act, which in Section 1 of the Act makes it mandatory for a police permit to be applied for and obtained by any person or group before embarking on a public rally or procession is unconstitutional.

    Before the advent of democratic rule and until the appellate court’s resounding judgment, it was the position under the Public Order Act that no group or person can organise any public rally or procession without first applying for and obtaining a Police approval. But that has now been thrown to the waste bin of history as the Court of Appeal, in that momentous decision, struck down the requirement of seeking and obtaining police permit under the Act before holding a public rally. Such permit was considered in the learned view of the court as an infraction of the fundamental human rights of persons and groups in this nation. All progressive-minded Nigerians and institutions except the police and their paymasters now know and appreciate through the Court of Appeal that the provisions of the Public Order Act are unnecessary since Nigeria is “in a democracy” and “has joined the league of civilised society.”

    Globally, public rallies and processions are part and parcel of democracy that must not be under any circumstances restricted or disrupted. The duty of the law-enforcement agents, including the police, is to monitor public gathering and to bring before the law any person that breaches the law. The predilection, especially by the police, for disrupting peaceful assemblies is anachronistic, dogmatic and an unabashed affront on the human rights of Nigerians.

    One of the foundations of a democratic society is that everyone has right to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association with others. And this include right to protest in a peaceful way that has become a civilised way of promoting change. Police misuse of surveillance, stop-and-search powers, and other pre-emptive legal actions as deployed by the Rivers Police Command inhibit peaceful protests. Nigerians want ‘freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of an impunity-committing police’ as the nation prepares for another general election next year. This madness in form of official impunity through the police must stop in Rivers – and elsewhere!