So, two decades after the plunder of Ondo State, six years after capturing South-west for Obasanjo, two years after helping to foist Yar’Adua on the nation, getting rewarded handsomely with the coveted medal of CON, so the all-CONquering Bode George would end up a common convict.
According to reports, the Commodore ushered into Kirikiri Prison last Tuesday afternoon was a complete nervous wreck, unlike the bumbling fox that had sauntered into the Lagos court earlier in the morning to hear the verdict after a trial that dragged more than a year. In fact, the PUNCH quoted an eyewitness recalling that George’s feet actually wobbled as he walked away from the prison van that conveyed him to Kirikiri.
How ironic. All the six accused had chosen to appear in court in white Agbada out of what could only have been over-confidence. Or, could they all have dreamt victory the night before? As if on cue, George’s supporters also turned up in ‘Aso-Ebi’ (uniform), as if preparing for celebration. Culturally, white is the colour of royalty, of champion. When you wear white to battle, it is to indicate that you expect an easy win, if not walk-over. But, sorry, the rented crowd came to the wrong court this time.
Compared to the scale of the heist (close to N100 billion), asking George and co to do only two and a half years in prison each no doubt amounts to a slap on the wrist. But in George’s case in particular, the incidence of a conviction at all is very symbolic indeed. If nothing at all, it is yet another searing indictment of the Yar’Adua order and a confirmation of the venality of the forces that threw it up. Isn’t it shameful that this same Bode George was the Director General of the Yar’Adua Campaign Organisation in 2006/2007? Really, just how much sleaze, how much perfidy is a nation supposed to endure?
On account of his shadowy antecedents, a character like George should not have been found anywhere near public office in the first place, much less preside over the board of a strategic agency like NPA. His reign as military governor of Ondo State in the 80s was trailed by reports of bare-faced looting. Later, his talent for the shady would fail him in the cloak-and-dagger politics that characterised the military of the 90s, ending up in Abacha’s black book on account of being Oladipo Diya’s side-kick. He only resurfaced on the Obasanjo gravy train in 1998, straight from self-exile.
Not surprising, the ruling party has expressed shock at the jailing of their one-time enforcer in the South-west, even though it won’t deny that money was looted. So, the man could not be said to have been abandoned totally in his hour of tribulation, at least.
But truth be told, the loot in question actually secured the ammunition for the prosecution of the dirty political war visited on South-west between 2002/2003 by the ruling party, resulting in the near decapitation of Alliance for Democracy (AD). Which makes the crime even more treasonable. By 2001, it was thought too shameful for Obasanjo to continue as president without a base he could call his own in his native political zone. OBJ’s continued survival depended on it. It was not long that the filthy word ‘capture’ infiltrated the language of politics in South-west.
As the commander of the coming assault, George, however, needed a patronage war-chest to buy support, compromise institutions and service the foot-soldiers, mercenaries and other enablers. Not one to prevaricate when self-interest in involved, OBJ was quick at seconding George to chair the board of this all-important agency, perhaps ranking next to NNPC in terms of fortune. Thereafter, all kinds of shenanigans had to be invented to circumvent due process in award of contracts. Eventually, George ‘delivered’ as all the AD states (except Lagos ) fell to PDP’s marauding forces. So much that a visibly relieved Obasanjo later thought only fit and proper to reward the commander of his conquering chariot with a high national honour of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). Never to be outdone in celebrating sterling performer, especially in the sector of political merchandising however dubious, the Ooni of Ife graciously added an imperial panache to it by crowning George the Atona (Path-finder).
By universal convention, war should observe ethics. But that was hardly the case with the variant visited on Yorubaland by George’s battalion. It was a war without mercy, an electoral cheating without conscience, one in which results were in most cases declared even where no single ballot was cast or opponents simply disenfranchised at gun-point.
Today, the fact that the long arm of the arm could catch up with George six years after the act is indeed a fitting tribute to the inevitability of Nemesis. Philosophically speaking, infraction amounts to a distortion of the balance of nature. That is the logic of natural law. Harmony only returns after justice had been done. Too bad, the man fondly called ‘BG’ by admirers now has to answer for the political ‘war crimes’ of yester-years.
The universality of same retributive justice would also be seen in the subtle diplomatic surrender last week of Sudan on whose leader’s head now hangs ominously an indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes over Darfur . His administration is accused of complicity in the genocide being inflicted on the people of southern Sudan who are mostly Christians and animists. Unsure of what will befall him in Abuja this time, President Omar al-Bashir, who ordinarily likes playing macho, decided to stay away from the Peace and Security Council (PSC) meeting of the African Union hosted by Nigeria.
Being president of Sudan entitles al-Bashir to attend the summit. After all, on the agenda was the lingering Darfur crisis. But no sooner had the notice of the meeting been served than pressure groups (including Amnesty International and the West African Bar Association headed by our own Femi Falana) mounted a spirited campaign against Nigeria welcoming al-Bashir. Attention was drawn to the fact that with her new status as member of the United Nation Security Council, Nigeria should not be seen as harbouring or feting international outlaws. In fact, the least expected of Nigeria in the circumstance, they declared, was to either arrest al-Bashir on arrival or be ready to extradite him to face trial at The Hague .
Al-Bashir is known to have visited a few other African countries thereafter in defiance of the ICC order. But not wanting to take chances this time, the Sudanese strongman stayed away from Abuja last week and sent a representative instead. Funnily, the Sudanese authorities would later not allow the jet conveying senate president David Mark land in Kartom Tuesday in what many have interpreted as a ‘retaliatory measure’ against Abuja for maintaining a convenient silence all the while. The lesson: the pressure is reaching al-Bashir already. Surely, the noose is tightening.
Elsewhere in Europe, the bell is surely tolling also for Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnia Serb leader, who, on the other hand, allegedly led the genocide against Bosnian Moslems in the 90s, with the intent to ‘wipe Moslems from the land’. His trial is on-going at The Hague , having been taken to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague last year, after thirteen years of hiding. A trained lawyer, the former Serbian leader insists on defending himself.
But apparently frightened by what is already arrayed against him (1.2 million pages of evidence, numerous crime scenes and hundreds of witnesses), Karadzic failed to show up at the court last week. His legal adviser later explained that he still needed at least nine months to prepare his defence. But, to invert a popular saying in boxing, Kardzic can only run in the legal ring this time, he definitely can no longer hide.
Same gale of retribution would sweep into a Paris court Tuesday with the conviction of the son of ex-French President Francois Mitterrand, Jean-Christophe, for his role in illegal arms sales to Angola between 1993 and 1998. This political royalty was slapped with a suspended two-year sentence. Alongside others, the junior Mitterrand had pocketed tonnes of blood money in form of bribes to facilitate arms trafficking to Angola worth $790 million during the civil war in the African country in defiance of a subsisting international embargo. While the carnage lasted, the likes of Jean-Christophe surely smiled to the banks. Now, the day of reckoning has come.
If the junior Mitterrand wilfully breached public trust, much more unspeakable is the sin of Juanita, the younger sister of Cuban President Fidel Castro. In a new book, she has sensationally confessed to being an agent of CIA against her own blood brother after the latter toppled the unpopular Batista regime and established a communist order in the Latin American country. After the Cuban revolution of 1959, Washington would wage a vicious war against the revolutionaries in Havana , culminating in several covert and overt attempts on Castro’s life.
Juanita’s confessional book is entitled ‘Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History’. She claims to have harboured deep objection to aspects of Cuban revolution then. But it is debatable whether political difference is indeed enough reason to betray one’s own blood to the enemy. Now at an advanced age of 76, perhaps this is Juanita’s own way of finally seeking to make peace with her conscience.
Indeed, no evil, no violation done a fellow man or a community ever goes unrequited forever. It is the immutable law of nature.
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