“By doubting we come to question, and by questioning, we perceive the truth.” (Peter Abelard, 1079-1142)
Perceptor’s Search for Questions: Perceptor has been Missing In Action for so long that Perceptor was a bit confused about what Perceptor should ask questions about in this blog. And Perceptor had to jump around over quite a few matters of national interest in trying to make a decision.
“By doubting we come to question, and by questioning, we perceive the truth.” (Peter Abelard, 1079-1142)
Perceptor’s Search for Questions: Perceptor has been Missing In Action for so long that Perceptor was a bit confused about what Perceptor should ask questions about in this blog. And Perceptor had to jump around over quite a few matters of national interest in trying to make a decision.
Such as:
CACOL: At first, Perceptor planned to spotlight the activities of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders and their indefatigable organiser, Debo Adeniran with some hard-hitting questions. CACOL (and its London collaborators) have been all over the place, making the life of Chief James Ibori a bit uncomfortable, what with petitions against the judge trying him for corruption in Warri, and demonstrations against his attempt to speak at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, and Perceptor wanted to ask CACOL: Who send you sef? Then Perceptor realised that Perceptor already knew the answer to that question – it was We The People. Next Perceptor thought of asking why CACOL’s activities haven’t been more widespread, even, why they haven’t chased Ibori and other people who may have a larger share of the nation’s wealth than is warranted by services rendered, back down to Warri or other places where they may be enjoying what they don’t deserve to enjoy. But Perceptor realised that that was one of those questions for The Man In The Mirror. So beyond asking what else Naijas at home and abroad can do to support CACOL, Perceptor didn’t seem to be able to find enough material to justify some ‘questions’.
Hon. Speaker Bankole: So then, Perceptor thought that Perceptor would join the rest of the country in celebrating the achievements of Honourable Oladimeji Bankole after two years in the saddle as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with some questions which would have highlighted those achievements, but each time Perceptor tried to frame a question, it kept on coming out as something like “If the 18 cars you bought were NOT bulletproof, what DID you buy, and why did they cost so much?” and honestly, Perceptor just did not want to hear any more hair-splitting answers such as “It wasn’t me”. (“It was my office/the National Security Adviser’s office” etc.) so Perceptor had to steer clear, because (between you and Perceptor) even with Perceptor’s Herculean efforts to find something POSITIVE to ask about in relation to Speaker Bankole’s achievements, there simply wasn’t enough material to justify any questions there either ...
Deregulation: Then Perceptor thought that the questions of the day must surely revolve around “deregulation” and how it isn’t the same thing as increasing prices at all (at least, that is what Perceptor is being told by radio and television announcements, and since these are being put out by the neutral and disinterested Federal Government of Nigeria, naturally Perceptor believes EVERY WORD). But although Perceptor noticed that once again, the neutral and disinterested Federal Government of Nigeria appeared to be getting ready to throw the Nigerian people out of the window without first putting out the cushion that will “cushion the effects” of deregulation, Perceptor became confused when Perceptor learned that the Nigeria Labour Congress was demanding that the cushion should be in place before the effects of deregulation begin to be felt. Perceptor is confused because if the effects of deregulation are reduced prices and increased availability of petroleum products (that IS right, isn’t it?) why does the NLC want to be cushioned against them?
So Perceptor had to steer clear of that area too.
Which left Perceptor with no option but to flog a dead horse. And that is how Perceptor came up with:
Four Questions on ... de tin wey lawyers de do sef
Chief Bode George, Chief ‘Andy’ Uba, Chief James Ibori – these are just some of the big-time litigants who have been monopolising the nation’s courts recently. Honestly, going by the results so far, Perceptor thinks that they ought to have arrived at a point where the maxim of choice is not: “Many Hands Make Light Work”, but rather, “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth”! You might call it overkill to go on a trawl through the nation’s courts all over again, but because of a trend that Perceptor has noticed, Perceptor says that when it comes to overkill, it is not Perceptor who needs to answer the first questions ...
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1. Aren’t five Senior Advocates of Nigeria for one defendant three or four Senior Advocates too many?
Perceptor has always had a healthy respect for the “learned friends”. After all, if they hadn’t been doing a good job, military dictators wouldn’t have had to make decrees ousting the jurisdiction of courts back in the day. And soldiers whose dollarized pay was being trousered by their senior officers might not have anybody to fight for them when they were charged for complaining about it if there were no learned friends on hand to represent them.
But Perceptor has noticed a worrying trend of late. Perceptor has noticed that some of these recent big-man litigants and accused persons seem to have – not just an army of lawyers, but an army of Senior Advocates of Nigeria to represent them. Bode George was parading FOUR SANs, either in succession or all at the same time! And when you add a couple more for some of the other defendants, you can see that the front row at Justice Olubunmi Oyewole’s court must have been seriously overcrowded! Meanwhile, ‘Andy’ Uba has been to so many courts where not only has he lost his case, but his lawyers have also been reprimanded for bringing frivolous cases to court so many times that as a result, he has to try a new SAN each time so that rebuke can be fresh to the new lawyer each time. Between him and Bode George and his co-accused, they have practically used up two years’ output of SANs – if we are to assume that the lawyer factories in the country produce a dozen a year.
Perceptor’s worry stems from the fact this plethora of SANs on each case risks cheapening the brand. Already, the ‘other ranks’ in the legal profession are kicking against the whole idea of this lawyers’ own chieftaincy title. Perceptor is sure that it would never have occurred to these insubordinates to complain if it hadn’t been that the quality of silk appeared to be going downhill. If the people becoming SANs, and as a result, being allowed to mention their cases before everybody else, no matter how late they arrive in court, had been very obviously the best lawyers around, Perceptor is sure that there wouldn’t have been so much resentment. But when it is one JABAJANTIS small boy, or when a legal ‘luminary’ bears a closer resemblance to a legal black hole but a better lawyer has to make way for them just because they have acquired a silk gown, then it’s not surprising that people begin to question the entire SAN thing and demand that the whole idea should be jettisoned.
2. Doesn’t it send the wrong signals (1)?
Perceptor happened to be eavesdropping on some of the learned friends as they were getting to court for their case. One had a huge pile of books of law reports and so on that he apparently intended to use to persuade the judge that his client was on the right side of the law. But seeing him roll up with this small library, his opposing lawyer deflated him with a few well-chosen words: “Ah ah my friend! Is your case that bad?”
Perceptor fears that a similar law of – not just diminishing returns, but inverse returns might operate in these SAN-heavy cases, that is, the more SANs you wheel out, the worse your result may be!
3. Doesn’t it send the wrong signals (2)?
We all know that a SAN doesn’t come cheap. You have to pay for the SAN and you have to pay for the SAN’s junior lawyer too. When you now start piling SAN upon SAN (or Ossa on Pelion, as they used to say in Ancient Greece), what you are in effect telling the world, is that you have a large surplus to declare! But if the complaint against you is that the surplus you are declaring isn’t your OWN surplus, isn’t it a bit counter-productive to flaunt the way that you’re spending it? Just a thought sha ...
4. Might James Ibori not spoil the market?
Perceptor notices that James Ibori is a lot more parsimonious with his patronage of the SAN chiefs. At least, when it comes to the brand here in Naija. And even when it comes to his friends at the Southwark Crown Court, it is only one Queen’s Counsel (oyinbo’s own version of SAN) that they are paying for.
Now suppose the decision in James Ibori’s Warri case goes in favour of wrong people? What will this tell us about the effectiveness of large numbers of SANs? Won’t the risk be that rather than wasting money on SANs, litigants will prefer to use their money for better, more direct purposes? Isn’t there a risk of showing the SAN club up as ... OBSOLETE? Isn’t there a risk that people might end up asking: Wetin lawyers dey do sef?
Pot and Kettle
Perceptor is very happy to see that the Peoples Democratic Party is taking a firm stand against calls for a violent change of government. Professor Ahmed Alkali, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary has very properly condemned President Umaru Yar’Adua’s opponents for seeking “an ignoble short cut to power”.
Alkali was reacting to the statement by the All Nigeria Peoples Party’s Alhaji Buba Galadima, that Nigeria needs “the Jerry Rawlings Formula” to move forward. And we all know that during Jerry Rawlings’ time in Ghana, especially during his first coming, a lot of Ghanaian leaders who were considered to be corrupt, were publicly executed (or, to be blunt, depending which side of the divide you fall on, murdered).
Perceptor joins the PDP in frowning at the Alkali excesses. Perceptor is certainly not going to canvass the JRF or anything that smacks of invitation to the military to seize power. In any case, half of them are in power already: it’s just that they’ve removed their uniforms. And Perceptor doesn’t really see the need for violence and killing when Kirikiri has not been shut down anyway ...
Still, Perceptor is anxious to find out how soon the ruling PDP itself intends to take the advice of its own National Publicity Secretary and imbibe the lesson about the evils of violent seizure of power. Because to Perceptor’s mind, the way the PDP conducted itself during the 2007 elections and the run-up to those and previous elections, and the way it behaved during the Ekiti re-run election have only contributed to justifying the tag placed on the party by Professor Wole Soyinka quite a long time ago. WS, you will remember, labelled the PDP a “nest of killers”.
On the one hand ...
... we have Bode George et al bagging two and a half years for fraud and inflating contracts to the tune of N100,000,000,000 (One hundred billion naira)
... and on the other hand ...
Nwanya Odichukwu, chemical engineering graduate, bagged TWELVE years for internet scam and fraud to the tune of US$2,500,000 (Two and a half million US Dollars, i.e., N375,000,000 – three hundred and seventy-five million naira).
Perceptor has tried to work out what could account for the difference in sentences. At first, Perceptor tried to do the maths. After all, there was only one Odichukwu, whereas there were six in the BG Gang. So Perceptor worked out that each member of the BGG was only responsible for ... N16,666,666,666, whereas Odichukwu was after N375,000,000 ... er, no, that does not compute. (Unless the sentence is in inverse ratio to the amount ... but the mathematics of this defeats simple people like Perceptor.)
So Perceptor then turned to less tangible reasons. BG and co were placed in positions of trust by the nation. But it has been known since the days when late Chief Bola Ige joined the Obasanjo administration, that in the eyes of the Peoples Democratic Party, appointment to a position of trust is actually an invitation to ‘come and chop’. Whereas, Odichukwu had not been invited to anything at all. He simply decided to help himself!
Again, BG and co have been served by t.., sorry, have SERVED the nation for several years. It was only natural that they should have considered themselves entitled to the reward for such service. Whereas, what had Odichukwu done? He hadn’t served his nation that’s for sure. After all, he didn’t even have a job!
On the other hand, the BGG were apparently taking money away from the nation’s governments, whereas Odichukwu appeared to be trying to bring foreign exchange INTO the country. This is obviously reprehensible and he clearly deserved a stiffer naira-for-naira, hour-for-hour sentence for not parking stolen money OUTSIDE Nigeria, as is done by PDP bigwigs.
But then Perceptor realised that actually, Odichukwu was given two years on each of a six count charge, and since Justice Abdu Kafarati of the Federal High Court ordered that the sentences should run concurrently, he should be out in less than two years, since a prison ‘year’ is only eight months.
Still, while the BGG therefore certainly got longer sentences than Odichukwu, Perceptor is wondering whether the extra six months that they bagged for their own fraudulent activities can really be said to be in any mathematical proportion to the extra N16,291,666,666 (over Odichukwu’s N375,000,000) for which each of them is responsible.
Perceptor is still unable to ‘do the maths’.
Judicial Killjoys
Perceptor must confess to having been rather disappointed this last couple of weeks.
First Perceptor had to watch the five cows that had been volunteered to render sacrificial duty on the occasion of the acquittal of ex-military dictator-governor/PDP Chieftain, Olabode George on the dastardly charges brought against him for simply TRYING TO GET THINGS DONE (without having to go through time-wasting ‘proper’ procedures and ‘due’ process just because the amount of any particular contract exceeded some bureaucratic red tape limits of what he and his fellow Nigerian Ports Authority Board Members could have approved by themselves), Perceptor had to watch those five cows simply DISAPPEAR! All because Judicial Killjoy No. 1, Justice Olubunmi Oyewole had decided that a patriotic desire to get things done was NO EXCUSE for breaking the law.
Then Perceptor had polished up knife, fork and spoon in anticipation of the jollof-ication that was expected to follow the declaration by the Court of Appeal at Enugu that Chief Nnamdi (Robert-the-Bruce*) Uba could resume his interrupted term as Governor of Anambra State as soon as Peter Obi’s four year term expires on the 17th of March 2010. But what did Judicial Killjoys No. 2 do? They simply refused to come out and deliver their judgment! Perceptor did not buy that story about judiciary workers’ strike which some newspapers were peddling as the excuse for the judicial no-show. After all, reports in The Guardian about the scene at the Court of Appeal in Enugu clearly stated:
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“As early as 7a.m. yesterday, COURT WORKERS, litigants and supporters of Uba had started arriving at the court premises. ... At 8 a.m. [Deputy Chief Registrar, Mrs. Angela] Otaluka emerged from inside the court building, clutching notice of hearing papers, which she began to read to the COURT CLERKS and other workers, as well as directing them to serve the notice on the parties.”
Perceptor is also not buying it because Perceptor read Sahara Reporters’ advance notice that the CA would NOT sit because they got cold feet about the furore** that might follow a pro-Uba verdict.
And so Perceptor moved to Asaba, the Delta State Capital. Frankly, by this time, Perceptor was ready to accept even the plantain chips and epa that might be on offer if a mistake was made and the ruling was in favour of only poor people*** but expectations were that Justice Marcel Awokulehin would deliver a ruling that would throw out the 170-count charge brought against the former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, on Friday the 6th of November. Mr. Ibori was there with so many PDP hangers-on, including Professor G.G. Darah, formerly of The Guardian. So naturally, Perceptor was there, KF&S at the ready. Only to be met with YET ANOTHER ADJOURNMENT!
According to Justice Awokulehin, some ‘crucial issues’ had cropped up between the time when he adjourned for ruling and the date actually fixed for the aforesaid ruling. Perceptor expects something more than mealy-mouthed evasiveness when Perceptor is being asked to stand down Perceptor’s K,F&S o! If milord means that he has first of all got to answer a query from the Chief Justice of Nigeria about communications between his court and the London court trying Ibori’s “associates”, then let him say so!
Perceptor would like to remind these judges of the well known legal maxim which says that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. To which Perceptor would also like to add that jollof delayed is jollof denied!’
*Robert the Bruce: a Scottish king who lived several hundred years ago when England was a separate kingdom and the two countries were always at war. The battle had gone against Robert and, escaping for his life, he took refuge in a cave, where he saw a spider trying to spin its web. He noticed that the spider made eight attempts to swing its thread across, only succeeding at the ninth. Empowered (as we say nowadays) by this arachnid example, he refused to give up and went on to defeat the English and regain his kingdom. In Nnamdi Uba’s case, he’s only made – what is it – five? six? seven attempts? Obviously he’s just getting started!
**Or, if Chief Emeka Ojukwu is to be believed, civil war.
***I.e. the people of Delta State in particular, and the Federal Republic of Nigeria in general.
Post Script
Perceptor started blogging on this denial of jollofication over a week ago, but was already retracing the journey back to Enugu in hope, in hope ... only to find that Friday the 13th had lived up to its billing. If you happened to be Nnamdi Uba, that is.
It may be true that there was spontaneous joy on the streets of Enugu and in Anambra state when the news of the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of his appeal came through, but Perceptor wishes it to be recorded that Perceptor was optimistically overstating the case when Perceptor mentioned plantain chips as the likely celebration fare if poor people win cases. Perceptor will say no more. Moreover, Perceptor blames Sahara Reporters for this jollof-less terrain and Perceptor wants to know if SR intends to do something about it, because we all know that it is Sahara Reporters’ fault that the Court of Appeal did what they did, don’t we? So what Perceptor wants to know ... (?!?!?!) ... is whether SR thinks that when corrupt people lose in court, the result will be that poor people can grow rich legitimately so that they won’t need to hang around waiting for jollof from people who ought not to be able to afford to feed them if they didn’t steal in the first place, or some other ridiculous such idea?
In the Spirit of Aunty Dora
An Apology
Perceptor may have given the impression that Perceptor didn’t expect the Super Golden Eagles of Nigeria to qualify for the first World Cup adult football tournament in Africa for irrelevant reasons such as poor planning, last-minute approach and reliance on other teams to win or lose because they were not expected to have any interest in going for the competition themselves.
At the same time, Perceptor may also have given the impression of some scepticism about the 6,000 MW target that the Minister of Mines and Power, Remi Babalola, has set for December 2009, especially since the Minister and his cohorts seemed to be preparing the ground by talking about low gas supply, bad transmission system etc., so that even if the 6,000 MW target was reached, nobody would actually know because nobody would actually get power in their actual homes so that they could actually use it.
But now, all that is behind us. Perceptor not only wishes to render an unqualified apology to the entire Nigerian football administration (and possibly even the football players themselves!), but Perceptor also wishes to thank them IN ADVANCE for the light that Perceptor had been fearing would not be shed.
Because in Perceptor’s calculations, with Nigeria’s qualification for South Africa 2010, it is clear that no PHCN official, no Minister of Mines and Power, no Niger-Delta militant – in short, NO JUPITER – will dare to do anything that would interfere with the provision of constant, uninterrupted, 24/7, plentiful (surplus, even!) supply of electricity – if not by December, certainly by the time the football fiesta comes around! Perceptor is therefore RESTING ASSURED.
A Naija Miracle!
Yes, Perceptor is very well aware that some UNPATRIOTIC elements are talking about the fact that the Captain of the Golden Eaglets was 18 years old seven years ago, yet he is still taking part in a football competition for under 17s. Perceptor wishes those elements could see how deliriously happy the success of the, ahem ... ‘Under 17s’ in the competition made Nigerians (at least, until they lost sha), so even if there WERE any truth in the age-cheat claims about Fortune Chukwudi, Perceptor knows that they would not have made much headway.
What does Perceptor mean “even if there WERE”, Perceptor can hear you asking yourself. Ah HA! This is where the Spirit of Aunty Dora enters into it. Because Aunty Dora insists that Nigerian achievements must be acknowledged and celebrated. And in this field, Nigeria has surely achieved a world first. After all, even when Joshua was busy killing people in Palestine in Biblical times, God only made time STAND STILL. But we Naijas, seeing that Fortune was 18 seven years ago, but is now ‘under 17’, can claim to not only have made time STAND STILL, but to have actually made it RUN BACKWARDS!
Now. You just imagine, that if the Giant of Africa can achieve that feat just because it wants to win in a small boy football competition, what can it not do when the one for grown-ups is to be contested? When we can change the laws of physics and time, is there anybody who seriously believes that the rules of gravity – or for that matter football – are going to stand in our way in 2010?
In fact, Perceptor is now annoyed about the way that the World Cup trophy is being paraded around the country. It is as if some people are trying to suggest that that is the closest that we are likely to get to it despite our miraculous qualification for 2010. That unpatriotic rush to handle the trophy may be good enough for the Kenyas and Tanzanias. But for the next World Champions? Good People, Great Nation RULES, OK?
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