The Nation Newspaper

Tag: the law

  • The law as an ass

    THE Constitution is a social contract with the people. It is a people-oriented document, detailing the laws for the smooth running of society. The Constitution is a nation’s supreme law. Any other law bows before it. No matter how strong a criminal or civil law is, it is nothing before the Constitution. In the face of any conflict, the constitutional provision takes precedence. The Constitution, according to lawyers, is the nation’s grund norm, that is the law on which other laws derive their powers.

    But like everything created by humans, the Constitution is not perfect. Thus, the 1999 Constitution, as amended, has many flaws. Though an offshoot of the 1979 Constitution, it was hurriedly cobbled together in 1999 to meet the exigencies of the time. It contains provisions on citizenship,  fundamental rights, legislature, executive, judiciary, elections, creation of executive bodies, governance and the three tiers of government.

    In fact, it comprises virtually everything on statehood. One of its interesting provisions can be found in Section 158. This provision, taking at its face value, looks like any other provision in the Constitution. But on a closer look, it has deep, very deep meaning. The section talks about the independence of certain federal executive bodies created under Section 153. These bodies, according to Section 158 (1) cannot be subject to the direction or control of any authority or person in the exercise of their appointment and disciplinary powers.

    They are the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the National Judicial Council (NJC), the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC), the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Relying on the provision of Section 158, the Court of Appeal on December 11, 2017, in Justice Hyeldazira Nganjiwa’s case, held that no judicial officer can be brought for trial without first being taken before the NJC. The framers of the Constitution may have meant well in inserting this provision, but with what is happening today, there is need for a  rethink on it.

    No matter how grave an offence a judge may commit, if he is not first taken to the NJC, which has no adjudicatory power, he cannot be charged to court, going by that verdict, which remains the law until set aside by the Supreme Court. This issue has become worrisome because the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen, who chairs the NJC, is today caught in the web of Section 158. The CJN has been accused of false assets declaration, an offence for which he will soon be charged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). The question is what is the essence of this Section 158, which confers NJC, CCB, FCC, INEC, RMAFC, FCSC and FJSC the power to first sanction their erring officials administratively before they can be charged to court?

    Can these bodies be trusted to discharge this constitutional duty with utmost good faith knowing full well the implication if such officials are found wanting? The framers of the Constitution, in their wisdom, would have thought that members of these bodies will be above board; men and women that money cannot buy. People with conscience who will serve their nation without thinking of what is in it for them. The CJN is the nation’s chief law officer as the head of the judiciary, the third arm of government. It is rather unfortunate that he is in this mess today. Many have read politics into his travails. They may be right, but they should take a look at his reported response to the allegations against him.

    ”My asset declaration form numbers SCN 00014 and SCN 00005 were declared on the same day, 14/12/2016, because I forgot to make a declaration of my assets after the expiration of my 2005 declaration in 2009. Following my appointment as acting CJN in November 2016, the need to declare my assets anew made me to realise the mistake…”, he was quoted as saying. If he had appeared before the NJC and made this submission in his defence, what would the august body have done? Spare him? Sanction him? By virtue of his status, the likelihood of NJC being biased is high, quite high. That is the truth. Criminal matters involving anybody, be he a judicial officer or not, are best handled by the police and the courts. NJC or any other body for that matter should not play intermediary role in cases that should go straight to court. Thus, there is need to amend the Constitution to remove Section 158 which confers the status of super citizens on some Nigerians.

    As a judge, what will His Lordship, the CJN say if in a case like this the appellant is quoted on records as having said that he forgot to declare part of his assets? Go and sin no more? He will not say that; he will bring the full weight of the law to bear on the appellant. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

  • The law is an ass?

    •Did the Attorney-General of the Federation break bounds in the matter of Obasanjo’s in-law

    The attempt by the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), AbubakarMalami (SAN), to interfere in the trial of John Abebe, mocks our federal system of government. At the trial, a fortnight ago, a counsel from the office of the AGF, sought an adjournment, because of a petition the AGF received from Mr Abebe concerning the matter. Opposing the application, counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reminded the court that the accused is charged under the laws of Lagos state, and it is the Attorney General (AG) of Lagos state that has constitutional oversight over the trial.

    We agree with the persuasive argument of the EFCC counsel, RotimiOyedepo, and the decision of the trial judge, Justice Mojisola Dada, to continue with the trial of the matter, after dismissing the meddlesome interference of Pius Akutah, from the AGF’s office. Clearly, the Ikeja Special Offences Court, is constitutionally within the purview of the state, and the four-count charge of forgery, fabricating evidence, using fabricated evidence and attempt to pervert the course of justice preferred against MrAbebe, by the EFCC, are under the laws of Lagos state.

    So, why is the AGF attempting to overreach the honourable Attorney General of Lagos state, in the trial of John Abebe? Perhaps, because Abebe is the in-law of former President OlusegunObasanjo, as such must be accorded special favours? Or, perhaps because as a man of high social status, the AGF feels compelled to seek to spring him from answering charges before a lowly state jurisdiction? Indeed, what rankles most is the mendacious audacity of the AGF, to ignore the AG of the state, as if it is not also a constitutional creation.

    We are aware that the AGF has made questionable judgments in the past, some of which were perceived as unbecoming of the high office he holds. Could this be one more of such, or an honest attempt to ensure the rights of a citizen is not trampled upon by unfounded allegations? But regardless of his motive, it is important that the constitutional imperative of federal system of government is promoted at all times.

    By the provisions of section 150(1) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), the AGF “shall be the chief law office of the federation ….” On its part section 195(1) provides for an AG for each state, who “shall be the chief law officer of the state ….” By the provision of section 174, the extensive powers of the AGF extends “in respect of any offence created by or under any act of the National Assembly”; while that of the state AG, in section 211, is “in respect of any offence created by or under any of the house of assembly.”

    Even more telling is that by its name, Nigeria is a federal republic, and one fundamental import of a federal system of government is the division of spheres of powers, between the federal government and its federating units, in our instance, the states. Except for the doctrine of covering the field, in clearly provided instances, the AGF is not a supervisor of the state AGFs, and we believe AbubakarMalami (SAN) knows that. If he does, he must desist from meddling in affairs constitutionally reserved for state attorneys generals.

    In the particular instance of John Abebe, we urge the court to be steadfast, to serve justice to the accused, to the state and to the public. If Abebe has a petition to make outside the court, the Lagos Attorney General is the right office to approach.

  • Saraki, Offa armed robbers and the law

    Under normal circumstances, one would ordinarily dismiss the recent police invitation of Bukola Saraki, the Senate President as one of the unfolding political drama where the police as presently headed by Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris has been shown to be an active participant. That is if it were an isolated incident. But it becomes troubling as it appears to be a pattern of onslaught against perceived opponents of the president and/or his allies. In recent times, there was the reported invasion of Kaduna State NUJ Secretariat by political thugs allegedly under the watch of the police to attack Senators Shehu Sani and Suleiman Hunkuyi who are known adversaries of Governor El-Rufai, a foremost backer of President Muhammadu Buhari. Shortly after, the police invited the same Shehu Sani for alleged criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide by a suspect in the custody. There was the celebrated onslaught on Senator Dino Melaye. Melaye is engaged in turf battle with Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State who, like Governor El-Rufai is a frontline Buharist.

    Now the Senate President has been invited for what the police has once again called criminal indictment by five suspected gangsters involved in the April 5 bank robbery in Offa, Kwara State. It was the police case that five of the suspects confessed that they were political thugs used by the Senate President and Kwara State governor,Abdulfatah Ahmed. It was also the case of the police that the five gang leaders further confessed during investigation that they are political thugs under the name ‘Youth Liberation Movement, a.k.a ‘Good Boys’ and that the boys admitted having been sponsored with firearms, money and operational vehicles by Senator Saraki and Governor Ahmed. Both have denied the allegations. Saraki through his spokesman described the invitation as “part of the plan to abuse the criminal investigation process aimed at intimidating and over-overawing the legislature, thereby obstructing it from doing its work”.

    From empirical material evidence disclosed by the police and the exculpatory statements of the ringleader of the robbery gang, one can safely posit that the linkage of the Senate President or the governor of Kwara State to the acts of the armed robbers who invaded Offa is tenuous. This conclusion is based on extant law and not emotion. From experience, what the police often takes as confession can hardly pass through legal scrutiny in any court. Confession is a question of law and not dictated by what the police or the Inspector General of Police would want us to take as confession. In any case, it is trite that confessions are admissible in evidence only against the persons who make them. Unless and except the Senate President or the governor admits or concurs with the alleged confessional statements made to the police, it is minutely valuable in criminal proceedings against any person other than the maker.

    Let us take a critical look at the comment of the alleged leader of the gang. Asked of their relationship with Saraki and the governor of Kwara State, he responded that they do what he called ‘Political arrangement and mobilization for them’. Further asked of the source of their weapon, he responded that it was one dismissed policeman by name Michael that provided them with weapons used. He confirmed that he was given the vehicle used in the operation by his “Excellency”. Most importantly, he said the neither the Senate President nor Kwara State governor  sent them for robbery operation but that they were political thugs to both the Senate President and the governor.

    It can be safely said that there was commission of offence of armed robbery by the persons apprehended by the Police who have openly confessed to their crimes. This is taken to be true because the most important ingredient of armed robbery is to be armed with any firearms or offensive weapon. What is yet to be known is the involvement of Saraki and the governor. If the only link between the suspect and Saraki is the statement made by the ring leader of the thugs,

    one can conclude that the police has gotten this very wrong in this case. For the Senate President and governor to be directly involved in this case, it must be shown that they knew they were robbers and that they provided them with instruments to perform their operation as robbers. The fact that cars were given out as act of political patronage to party faithful cannot by any stretch of imagination be used to ascribe culpability to the duo.

    A cursory examination of Section 7 of the Criminal Code which relating to criminal liabilities of parties to an offence is apposite at this juncture.  The following persons is deemed to have taken part in committing the offence and to be guilty of the offence: –

    1. Every person who does the act or makes the mission which constitutes the offence.
    2. Every person who does or omits to do any act for the purpose of enabling or aiding another person to commit the offence.
    3. Every person who aids another person in committing the offence.
    4. Any person who counsels or procures any other person to commit the offence.

    From the provisions of S.7(c) above, there might be temptation to link either Saraki or governor of Kwara to the offence under consideration. That has also been sufficiently cleared from the press interview of the accused. He said the car was given to him for his work as people in charge of mobilization and arrangement. The car was not given to them to be used for robbery operation.

    To understand what section 7(c) is saying, we can take a quick excursion into the Supreme Court’s decision in IYARO V. STATE. The appellant and another were charged with armed robbery. The appellant used his taxicab to facilitate the commission of the crime in that he had conveyed his passengers to what appeared to be a prearranged spot and stopped the car for no apparent reason. He gave a signal and five men emerged and robbed the ladies seated in the taxi of their valuables while the appellant sat and watched. The robbers went away when they thought they had finished the job. He signalled to the robbers, which indicated that there was still another victim. The robbers promptly returned and finished the job. He promptly took off upon a crowd forming in response to the cries of the victims. He was convicted for aiding and abetting.

    Can we say the Senate President and the Governor of Kwara State have same intention with any or all the suspects presently in police custody to commit the act they committed? The most plausive answer should be no – based on what the suspect said to journalists at their parade. The act of giving cars and other gifts can not determine the use of the said car for any purpose chosen by the person given the car.

    Those who have had dealings with the Nigerian Police as a state prosecutor or even defence counsel would not be surprised by the press statement of the force talking about confession as if lawyers do not know how those were extracted by the police. If this can happen to Senators Shehu Sani, Sulaiman Hundeyin, and Dino Melaye, all known allies and strong backers of the Senate President, the escalation to the Senate President and by extension to the Governor of Kwara State follows a predictable pattern of persecution and witchunt.

    It is my most humble suggestion that the reform of any institution in Nigeria should start with the Nigeria Police. Police prosecution and investigation should not be triggered mainly on account of political dissent. The police should not be an instrument of oppression. It is the view of the writer that the undue or unwarranted escalation of the unfortunate Offa Robbery with a view to incriminate the President of the Senate by the Police is a joke taken too far.

     

    • Majekodunmi LLM (Notre Dame) writes from Ilorin, Kwara State.

     

     

     

  • Killer herders and full wrath of the law

    IN his Democracy Day national broadcast, President Muhammadu Buhari warned that the full wrath of the law would be brought upon culprits and sponsors involved in kidnappings and herders/farmers clashes. Contrary to how most media organisations reported that aspect of the president’s speech, he did not refer to culprits or sponsors as killer herders. That name-calling was strictly the invention of the media. In the president’s vocabulary, there is nothing like a killer herdsman. Had such a person existed, surely the president is not so unfamiliar with labelling to decline naming the culprits as the rest of the country would.

    The president was indeed quite clear what he wanted to say and how to say it, regardless of whether his opinion shows consistency with his previous position on a crisis that is dangerously tending towards religious and ethnic catastrophe. Hear him: “The unfortunate incidences of kidnappings, herdsmen and farmers’ clashes in several communities which have led to a high number of fatalities and loss of property across the country is being addressed and the identified culprits and their sponsors shall be made to face the full wrath of the law. All the three tiers of government are presently engaged with communities and religious organisations to restore peaceful co-existence among Nigerians.” The nearest the president got to referring to the so-called culprits as anything deeply reprehensible was when he described them as criminal elements.

    “I wish to assure Nigerians that we will not rest until all criminal elements and their sponsors are brought to justice,” he continued with measured detachment . “Government is boosting the capacity of our security agencies through recruitment of more personnel, training and procurement of modern equipment, enhancement of intelligence gathering as well as boosting their morale in the face of daunting challenges.” Nigerians must give President Buhari credit for sticking to his guns, remaining consistent over the difficult months that saw thousands of mostly middle belters murdered by rampaging armed men, and refusing to be drawn into any name-calling. His diagnosis of the bloody crisis in the Middle Belt of Nigeria may be unacceptable and even partial, a crisis he has managed to expand into embracing other forms of criminality like kidnapping and pure robbery and banditry, but no one will convince him that the orchestrated killings in the blighted region are anything other than unfortunate incidents. The number of deaths may be high, as he acknowledged, but it will not prompt him to dissect the problem with the skill of a surgeon, separate the herders’ menace from other forms of banditry, and find the most appropriate and effective remedies.

    Years of killings in that agrarian region have led many Nigerians and analysts to reconsider the fundamentals of the crisis. Gradually, they have shifted away from regarding the crisis as herdsmen/farmers clashes to seeing it as herdsmen invasion and attacks, irrespective of the motives. The farmers, according to the analysts, are after all sedentary and have not moved from one location to the other in search of fertile land. The herders on the other hand, they surmise, are constantly on the move in search of grazing fields, and have often ruined crops. Consequently, the crisis is no longer seen as clashes between herders and farmers, but attacks by herders. The herders have tried to justify their violence, and routinely claim responsibility for the attacks, but it is not clear to many analysts why the government insists on downplaying the confessions, or whether new and generally acceptable methods of animal husbandry would not adequately resolve the crisis.

    While many Nigerians appalled by the scale of savagery going on in the Middle Belt have started to consider alternative and sensible explanations for the crisis, the government has seemed to dither very badly or remain stuck in jaded logic. As this column has traced and reported in the past few months, the government unfortunately prefers to give the impression that its sympathies lie with the herders. Rather than separate the problem of herders attacking farmers over fodder and grazing routes from the sheer criminality of a group of people taking the law into their own hands and murdering fellow Nigerians, the government has muddled the problem and sought to justify the bellicosity of the attacking militias. Unable to separate the two issues, the government has been lethargic in finding the right multi-dimensional solutions. It was important for them to find a permanent solution to the problems caused by the restriction of grazing lands, a solution that would neither expropriate anybody’s farm lands nor leave the herders unattended to.

    And it was also urgent for them to tackle the killings by first regarding them as murders which the laws of the land do not excuse. Quite shockingly, the government has done neither. Instead, they have tried inexpertly, and sadly and ignorantly, to walk a tightrope. So far their efforts have met with abject failure. In fact, more damaging to the credibility of the government, as this column has portrayed, is their inconsistent explanations, nay justifications, for the killings. First was their argument that the farming communities were unpatriotically unwilling to accommodate their fellow countrymen who were herders. If there was no resistance, if the farming communities received the herdsmen, argued the government, peace would be restored. This argument was then swiftly modified, upon some public pressure and criticisms, to paint the attackers as stragglers from the Libyan civil war, or bandits armed with weapons hijacked from the same Maghrebian war. Then, yet again, the argument was later painted as one that had to do with herders falling into a quandary over restricted grazing lands. In the opinion of the government, the herders had no other choice but to fight for their place in the sun. Not only were the arguments of the government tragically exculpatory of herders violence, the arguments also indicated official collusion and disingenuousness.

    This strange disposition has in turn led farming communities to fear ethnic cleansing, and their religious elite to fear sectarian purges. With the crisis in danger of morphing into something more apocalyptic than the country is capable of managing, it is incomprehensible that the government has continued to pussyfoot and prevaricate. Indeed, nothing will come out of the president’s oath to bring the culprits and their sponsors to justice. To resolve the crisis, it is indispensable for the government to reach a consensus on the diagnosis of the problem. But that consensus is unlikely to be reached, for the constant waffling of the government, accentuated by the president’s own reluctance to act swiftly and firmly on the side of the law, indicates nothing to the victims but confusion among the country’s leaders, if not partiality.

    It is deeply troubling that the president sees the killings, in particular, as proceeding from a lack of “peaceful co-existence”. By talking of “peaceful co-existence”, it is clear that the president means the herdsmen issue, which he describes as a clash rather than attacks and criminality. He could not be referring to kidnappings and armed robbery, for there is nothing in these other issues and crimes for anyone to encourage peaceful co-existence. And by also talking of “peaceful co-existence”, the president seems in addition to be suggesting that the only way he is willing to contemplate a solution is to coerce the farmers and herders into unaccustomed unity. That unity and that resolution will not happen, for the root of the problem, which the government has seemed to deny or wish away, is too fundamental and too mutually antagonistic to be resolved by peace talks rather than by a restructuring and reforming of ancient animal husbandry practices.

  • The word and the law

    I saw both of them as fellow students of the Obafemi Awolowo University. We never spoke. We were not even acquaintances. Far away from my ken but in the boil of campus politics, Femi Falana was unmistakable as a stormy young man and nemesis of the university authorities. Kunle Ajibade I saw around and remembered as a youth of chiselled and parsimonious build, the lean and hungry look of a poet. He did not seem as ominous as the other guy, whose thunderous rebellion made you forget how small he really was. On campus, I thought Falana was just a young man in a fickle dalliance with Karl Marx because it gave his Napoleonic stature a desperate audience. I thought he was more vain than vexed.

    I was to build friendships with both of them outside the provenance of school. I did not even know it was the fellow with little flesh around his bones that was Ajibade when he and another with a potential for corpulence known as Dele Momodu took on a mainstay of the profession over plagiarism charges. He was introduced to me by Momodu in our African Concord days, and my first impression did not go beyond his ready affability and good humour. Subsequently, I saw he did not go to school just to pass literature exams. He was the real deal. But it was those early days when boys were trying to chart their ways in the world. We were in our 20’s. I did not know Kunle had a few years over me. I did not see him for a while until I attended an event at the NIIA, and Ajibade materialised in a white shirt and what Americans called Chicago tie. His tie flew, in obedience to a tepid wind, over his shoulder and back.

    As if anticipating my query, he chuckled, “Sammy, you see what they have forced me to wear. I don’t feel comfortable in this attire.” I chuckled in reply. Ajibade had landed a reluctant job as a copy writer in an advertising company. He was like an eagle trying to swim.

    Falana also got introduced to me by now Senator Femi Ojudu in my African Concord days, although we had met casually when he was a lawyer in the law chambers of the debonair Alao Aka-Basorun. He was still a lawyer trying to find his voice. He was also writing a column. My opinion of him as a fair-weather radical was undergoing a surgery then.

    This month, Falana and Ajibade turned 60, and they are no longer small in anyone’s mind, even if in height Falana remains close to the earth and Ajibade has forsworn fatness. They are two men who have exemplified two powerful forces in the battle against misanthropic society: the word and the law. Falana has fought with the law. Ajibade with the word. Both of them have collided with authority. Both spent time behind bars. Both did not allow themselves to be carried away by the scent of lucre, the languor of luxury, the seduction of power and the Mephistophelean opportunism of the upper class.

    A major event that demonstrated their principle was the watershed crisis of their generation: June 12. IBB was the villain of the age, and followed by the butcher Sani Abacha who Buhari, in a seizure of gratuitous gratitude, is eulogising. I may even say eulogising because Buhari will be the first leader in Aso Rock to praise that demon of our history as a hero. It was because of the fortitude of men like Falana and Ajibade that we have democracy of which Buhari is a beneficiary without fighting for it. Buhari was quiet when men died and others fled to exile. He never raised a finger against Abacha’s butchery and barbaric impulses as long as his foe, IBB, was stepped aside.

    It was hard to meet with Ajibade in those days of the June 12 crisis when he, along with Bayo Onanuga, Dapo Olorunyomi, (who turned 60 last year) Femi Ojudu, et al, locked themselves in mud wrestling with Abacha and his men. They did not stay at home. They lived in the suitcase, the SSS a step behind them. Ajibade was held and deposited in Abacha’s gulag. They threw the key away and no one could reach him. We feared for his life. I recall reading an interview in a newspaper granted by his beloved wife, and how she said when she missed him, she took shelter in his library. So, we get it. He was a man of words. The words that twitted power, that wrinkled a highbrow army, that blossomed with yearnings of the people. He left jail and survived the barbarous scandal of that era, and he has remained in the bosom of progressive thinking up till today.

    Falana, of course, was in the forefront of the struggle. We got closer when I was the secretary general of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights and his fraternal shadow over me in those days was of great value, as well that of the president, the late Beko Ransome-Kuti. The work of CDHR was a dress rehearsal for the role Falana played in rattling the Abacha government. Of course, he was picked up with Beko. I recall attending one of the court proceedings in Abuja and I had a short chat with them before the Black vehicle took them away. I followed them, sneakily, until a vehicle blocked me and a man in suit wagged a finger at me as though wordlessly warning me I might join the ride as a co-passenger with the detainees.

    Abiola’s confidante and my predecessor, Olu Akerele, was to alert me a few days later that two vehicles were following me about town and my naïve soul woke up to the possibility that my life was in danger. I left town, also sneakily.

    Falana post-June 12 has boosted his profile as Gani’s successor. Except that Falana is still a confessed socialist but he has turned the resources of law to the services of justice. While some of his SAN colleagues have looked at law as only a meal ticket, Falana has become an exponent of law for the popular will. He does not see technicality. He sees justice. He knows in the words of civil rights icon Thoreau “that the law never made anyone a whit more just.” He does not believe in law for law’s sake. Hence he is an avenging angel of technicality, turning the strict construction of law for the liberation of the oppressed. I call him the best of his generation, just like Gani and, of course, his former mentor, Aka-Bashorun.

    When I look back at the corporate spectacle of Ajibade at NIIA, I muse about how his life might have turned had he not changed course. Imagine him today, a CEO of a leviathan firm, suffocated in a Manhattan suite, his visage grave like that of Shonekan, his language about profit and loss, his temperament of the mercantilist sobriety of the masters of the universe. In the air, in a private jet. On earth, in a Rolls Royce. At home, a palace lord. It is hard to imagine him not at peace with banter and ideas, with Death and The King’s Horse man or Things Fall Apart, or squaring off against Odia Ofeimun or waking me up in the morning about who won the year’s Nobel prize. Or in my private struggle when I rankled a certain political family, he was the only journalist and friend who consistently rang into my ears that I should stick to my principle. His inner chronometer was not made for the showy grandeur of the upper crust. He found his calling. He found his voice.

    For both men, there is still a lot of gold to mine at 60. In Shakespeare’s words, “the world is your oyster.”

     

  • Strategy, the law and global terrorism

    Nothing  illustrates the importance of the topic of today more than the reaction of  US President Barak Obama  to the accusation  that his Middle East policy is not working and the request of French  President  Francois Hollande  for more powers from France’s  National Assembly after the latest bombings in Paris  that left over 120  people  dead. If  you  add to that the local  contents of our purview  today  which are firstly, the  use  of  the term – tarry awhile – by  our  Supreme  Court to listen to the appeal  of  the Senate  President  on the jurisdiction and  composition of the   court  trying  him for false  declaration  of  assets, and   secondly  the revelation  by  the former NSA that  he was  not  even given a query  before being  declared  to  have awarded  fake  contacts  running into billions of dollars,  then you  have an idea of the pot  pourri  we  are  about  to enjoy   and  digest  today.

    Before  going on however  let  me register my  admiration  for the crisis management  skills of the French  President  Francois  Hollande on  the latest  bombings in Paris . His  leadership  skills  as a time tested Socialist not unfamiliar  with violence and discord were obvious  and apparent. He  knew  what  to  do  and what  to ask  his National  Assembly  for. In  terms of history  he reminded  me of Napoleon Bonaparte the French soldier and  Emperor  who is best remembered  for  the laws  he made which  formed  the basis of the rule of law in Europe till  today.The  French  President kept  his cool  and maintained  that even though France  is  at  war it  would  maintain the rule  of law  and not act arbitrarily  in dealing with those who  are falsely using religion  to fake a war of  civilization on a global  stage as they did last week in France.

    In  contemporary  times French  law  presumed  a  suspect guilty  until  proven otherwise  and French  magistrates could prosecute  and  decide a case  swiftly. Under former President Nikolas  Sarkozy  this view  came under attack  and scrutiny. There  is  no  doubt it would  be adopted  now especially  as President Hollande  has asked for a state  of  emergency   for  three months  which the French Senate has adopted  this week and the  lower house  would consider  later. In  addition  President Hollande  has said  France  would  not turn its back on refugees  fleeing the war in Syria from  where  the master mind of the Paris bomb blast sneaked in to Belgium to plan the attack that killed innocent  people in theatres , bars   and even the   National stadium  where  the French  National  team was playing Germany. Compare this with the heartless retort  of  Syrian  President  Bashar  Assad who said after the Paris blast  that France  was paying  for its  policy on Syria.  Which was quite inhuman and callous indeed but is not unexpected from a leader who  remains  in office by force and not the will and support of his people  who  are fleeing in their  thousands  to  Europe.

    Just  after the Paris  bombings and  French  President Hollande  had declared  that  France  was  at  war US President  Obama was interviewed at the G  20  meeting he  was  attending in Turkey  and this was shown on CNN this week. The  US President stuttered on the view and insinuation that his strategy on Syria led to the emergence and rapid rise of global  terrorism as with ISIS culminating in the fatal  Paris  bomb blast. Of  course  he was  hard put to defend  his strategy  of not putting US  soldiers on the ground to dislodge ISIS early enough in Syria and later in Syria  until  the Russians later  came in decisively on the side  of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

    To  add  to the US presidents horror on the accusation of a failed  strategy were two events which are  bound to affect his legacy as the  first black US  president and the chances  of any  Democratic  Party presidential  candidate succeeding him in the 2016 presidential elections in the US. The  first was  the decision  of 31 US  Governors  not to accept his plan to allocate refugees from the Middle East     to the US on  security  grounds especially after the latest  tragedy in Paris. The US  president  has gone on to threaten to veto any bill  from the legislature opposing  his refugee plan but what would he do with the 31 governors?

    In  addition  the leading presidential aspirant for the Republican Party  for now billionaire Donald  Trump  has  bluntly  asserted  that the incumbent  US president is a security  risk. Even the CNN reporter handling the interview  looked very worried as  I am  sure would be millions of US citizens at home and abroad. Yet  the  US cannot  shirk its responsibility at  home to its citizens  on terrorism and security  and to  the civilized world where it peddles democracy, human rights and  the market economy. But  how  does  a president accused  so  brazenly  as  a security risk secure the confidence  of his nation as well as his credibility   and patriotism  in the face  of  such brutal  and undiplomatic attack  and language? Well,  the ball  is in the court of Barak  Obama  and I expect  him  as  a lawyer  to weigh  his words carefully  before  reacting to Donald  Trump’s  verbal  bombshell  which  might be more lethal  politically  than any  bomb that ISIS   and  Boko Haram have  used in recent times  to kill innocent people worldwide.

    Which  brings  us to the two  Nigerian  issues mentioned  before on  the   twin  fight against  terrorism and corruption in Nigeria as  well as the workings  of the strategies in place  to prosecute the  wars. Are  the strategies  working or workable?  There  must  be positive  answers  to these two questions other wise the wars are  doomed  to fail, to  which  we  say God forbid. But  see what we have on the ground. The ‘tarry  awhile’ admonition to the court whose jurisdiction and  composition was being challenged was in spite of a 2015 law made to speed up  criminal trials of such nature  so as not to make  a mockery of the rule of law and an ass of the law in the fight against  corruption such as the case in question. Where speed is of essence to ensure  justice the highest  court   in the  land is cautioning  to  make haste slowly. Yet  the judiciary is independent and the Supreme  Court is infallible or is  it not?  Yet  this  fight against  corruption which  has  not even started must be fought and won for Nigerians  by all means by this Administration which  won on the slogan  of Change.

    In  addition the NSA’s  rebuttal  of the charges  against him on false  purchases and non receipt of military ware was brilliant and  clear  and puts his accusers  on the defensive. How do you accuse someone of theft and culpable  criminality  when he said in defence that he was not queried or asked for documents on purchases which were deemed false or for undelivered  items?  Surely  something is amiss. Even  an  errant school boy should be   allowed the right of reply on any suspicious misdemeanor  not  to  talk of our  former   master spy and 007 on the   war  against both  terrorism on his watch and against  corruption after him. There  should  be more  diligence  and  transparency on the   case   or  luggage  of  cases   against the former NSA  who has great  intelligence on our collective security in the fight  against both corruption and terrorism.  His  importance  can  be likened in this regard  to the wonder of the  the students  on the vast  knowledge they ascribed  to their headmaster in the  classic poem Deserted Village   by  Oliver  Goldsmith. The   verse said- ‘ And  still  they gazed , and still the wonder grew, that  one  small  head  could  carry  all he knew’. Again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • The rabble or the law

    The rabble or the law

    The cliché that one day is eternity in politics did not only happen in Adamawa State, it may be the Adam of things to come in the country. It reinforces the topsy-turvy of the polity. Heroes emerge in a climate of corruption. Startled stalwarts turn their assured strides into pussyfooting.

    Now, we know that barring another judicial jolt, Murtala Nyako has been yanked off the throne. Umaru Fintiri is finito. Bala Ngilari is the eagle landing.

    Where are the Ribadu sweepstakes for 2015? Whither Buba Marwa? The man rejected is now the head of the corner. Ngilari swished out of the shadows to become the lodestar. The humiliated has become the illuminated. Beware of the ides of the court.

    So, the Adamawa drama reflects what can go right in this polity when we follow law and order, when individuals count for nothing except under the spell of the grundnorm of political behaviour: the constitution.

    The Justice Ademola Adeniyi verdict is a city set on a hill. Fintiri and Ngilari are PDP. But Ngilari was their forbidden son thrust into outer darkness. Justice flushed him back as the Joseph of the city.

    But travel many miles south, we see the flip side. In Ekiti State, rapine replaced respect. A court judge was harassed by loyalists of a governor-elect. In the same country where a court rules to uphold decency, miscreants in the vanguard of a politician of so-called grassroots affinity turned the hallowed precincts of justice upside down. It became the beehive of bullying, raw chants, barbarous dances, mauling, shirt tearing. A riot of the earthy. Dark and Macabre. This is what playwright T.S. Eliot called Murder in the Cathedral, the violation of what is otherwise called sacred.

    The capstone of this absurdity is that the court is shut down. The reason: to stop any adjudication until governor-elect Ayo Fayose is sworn in. Fayose is believed to be afraid that the court may nullify his candidacy and thereby fail to become governor. This is a gangster approach to justice.

    We should not forget that this logic featured in the same Adamawa of today’s justice. A martial air of jackboots and brooding guns pervaded Nyako’s impeachment process. Armed men besieged the premises of the courts and home of the judge. Ngilari was forced to write a letter of resignation. The then speaker, Fintiri, was the head as Nyako and Ngilari spun in the headwind. With Nyako yanked off, Fintiri swaggered into Abuja to tell his masters that he had delivered. His masters said thank you faithful servant but we want somebody else as governor. Fintiri fumed. He was now governor with a lot of power and hand in the cookie jar. His masters flinched and said he should stay in office till 2015. Ribadu or other favorite sons would wait to replace him. That was an agreement. The court judgment has denied us the drama to come. Would Fintiri have played Jonathan with them and denied any agreement?

    Fintiri sat pretty, peacock-style on the throne. Then Festus Keyamo struck as Justice Adeniyi weighed in on the side of the law. In Adamawa, the rule of law has prevailed, at least for now.

    We cannot have democracy unless we respect the law of the land. In Adamawa, Ngilari claims he was coerced to write a letter of resignation. Imagine that Nyako was coerced to receive it. Even the law may not have saved Ngilari. Justice would have cried impotent in the Nigerian wilderness. But Fintiri and his cohorts were so sure in their perfidy because they thought they were law unto themselves. We are fortunate for their folly.

    Yet the political behaviour of the elite in both instances leaves much to be desired. It was not just a PDP errancy. The APC crouched in the sidelines to take advantage. Atiku Abubakar fished in the stormy waters.

    Power in the raw beclouded a search for decency. The principle of the separation of powers triumphed in Adamawa. That principle is at stake in Ekiti. It is because our politicians love the Greek philosopher Meno, who postulated that might is right. But for these politicians, they love to subject the state under their manipulative duress. They forget that two things make democracy work, the rule of law and the will of the people. It is not might that makes right. Right makes might. Or else we shall have, as is emerging in Ekiti, a Hobbesian law of nature where life is “nasty, brutish and short”.

    The concept of the balance of power inspired Montesquieu to prescribe separation of powers first implemented by the United States. It was to avoid hubris, where the executive usurps the judiciary. That is what we are witnessing in Ekiti. The president should not turn this democracy into a gangster enclave where the gang is star. Where powerful men trump the law, we have what Hobbes describes as the “war of all against all”. In that case, Hobbes says, “the law of nature and the law of nations are the same”. Episodes like that destroy democracy.

    But Fayose can say he is right. The people have voted for him. True enough. But the law that made the elections also made the courts. The concept of the rule of law is to check even the excess and barbarian instincts of democracy. That was the misinterpretation of Rousseau’s The Social Contract when he called for the supremacy of the “collective will”. It detonated the French Revolution that burned France, ended in the Napoleonic orgies around Europe and installed one-man rule instead of popular government.

    In Ekiti, Fayose’s rabble is in the throes of installing a first in Nigerian politics. On a raft of the rabble, he now has a society of thugs. If he continues with them into the state house, Ekiti will turn its society of thugs into a state of thugs, thereby enthroning the savage virtues of the street.Then might becomes right. That was how Hitler’s rabble rose. This column is not saying Fayose has the sophistication or organisation or intent of the Nazi party. But he has a grain of it to the extent that he works with a rabble.

    In his book, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Alan Bullock lamented when Hitler became Furher. He wrote that a street gang had taken over the most powerful country in the world.

    Fayose should decide whether he will subject himself to the law or subject the law to himself. Louis the 14th once said, “I am the state.” He said it in the age of absolutism, or the divine rights of kings. Yet long before him, the man who framed the French State, the great Cardinal De Richelieu, noted that the state is bigger than anyone, including the king. When the state is bigger than anyone, the rule of law prevails. When persons privatise power, might becomes right.

    The Adamawa verdict affirmed the rule of law. Now, in Ekiti, is it the rabble or the law?