What is the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) blabbing about — that inanity about “judicial persecution”? Youths may be callow. But that doesn’t mean they should be lexically wayward.
That’s right — lexical waywardness is what “judicial persecution” amounts to. It is such a violent contradiction in terms, for what is “judicial” (read legal fairness and due process) cannot be “persecution” (read outlawry and skewed process).
For a group of youths, to push such a violent lexical contradiction out in its name, even as a form of media grandstanding, does extreme violence to whatever they claim their cause is.
That is unfortunate. But it is not even the fundamental flaw of this suspect cause. The fundament of the rot is IYC’s supposition that because Citizen Goodluck Jonathan was once president, then he is above the laws of the land; and therefore cannot be summoned to testify in court — excuse me!
Just going back memory lane. Even among the minorities, Jonathan belongs to the minorities of the Ijaw minorities. Yet, it was him that the law vaulted up and above everyone to be president. So, how can the law be wise in thrusting him up as president and yet be foolish for compelling him to testify in court? That is the basic inanity of IYC’s stand, claiming it was humiliation for a court to summon the former president to testify before it.
There is even a more fundamental case of justice and citizens’ rights. Citizen Olisa Metuh is in the dock and, if convicted, risks losing his liberty. Now, fundamental to his defence, his lawyers say, is a testimony by the former president and Sambo Dasuki, the former national security adviser (NSA) under President Jonathan.
So, how can these summonses be a slight on anyone? When did it become fair and just to play politics with the freedom of any citizen in a republican democracy? In any case, if IYC wants justice for Jonathan to preserve his ego, why does it want less justice for Metuh to preserve his liberty? Pray, which one is more basic — preserving egos or securing a citizen’s fundamental right to liberty?
But the IYC inanity flowed from a fundamental flaw — the illusion that anyone could be above the law because of a former position, which the same law ironically conferred! Is there anything more ridiculous?
Oweilaaemi Pereotubo, factional IYC president whose faction issued that ridiculous press release, should know that Nigeria is governed by law, not by anyone’s whims.
Jonathan is not diminished by appearing in court after a summons. To suggest so is to conjure the judicial equivalent of the Chinua Achebe brat who got so powerful — or so he thought — that he challenged his chi (personal god) to a wrestling bout. It is nothing but a suicidal voyage to dreamland.
IYC even went beyond itself by suggesting Jonathan’s court appearance would undermine “Nigerian unity”! That unity then must be made of the most unreliable of straws!
IYC must stop this nonsense forthwith. To testify in court — fairly and truthfully — is a civic duty. If Jonathan does so, he only deepens his bona fides as a lawful and responsible citizen. That can only strengthen the law; and the rights and privileges it confers on citizens.
One of such rights and privileges, by the way, is the right of individuals to organize themselves into IYC, and thunder — sense or nonsense — at the state, through its prime agent, the government. Enough of this rascality!
