Nowhere is it required that the luxury of uninterrupted sleep should be accorded to a dog or any creature for that matter, when energetic barking, excited tail-wagging and sniffing become urgent necessities. All winsome spectacles and qualities, when accompanied by retrieval. We know, hibernation is a natural and key element of the lives of many deserving animals and organisms but frankly, this is not the time to allow any sleeping dog to lie!
Nowhere is it required that the luxury of uninterrupted sleep should be accorded to a dog or any creature for that matter, when energetic barking, excited tail-wagging and sniffing become urgent necessities. All winsome spectacles and qualities, when accompanied by retrieval. We know, hibernation is a natural and key element of the lives of many deserving animals and organisms but frankly, this is not the time to allow any sleeping dog to lie!
World Cup setbacks and an allegedly reviewed constitution notwithstanding, we really have to talk and act; we must act on the problematic issue of the rule of law, before we all get side-tracked into some worthless nonsense and forget. Indicted and yet to be indicted ex-governors, ex-military men and assorted crooks waddling back into the governing PDP fold, enboldened by the absence of effective censure for embezzlement, has left Nigerians painfully puzzled.
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Law courts, national and state assemblies, local councils and public institutions, are now openly places incapable of successfully disguising the shameful legal and financial intrigues and inanities that consume those adherents of inequipoise conditions in national affairs. The effects of debilitating illegalities and a chaotic legal system on society are profound. The Aondoakaa effect must be neutralised and expunged.
We feel that before the barrage of declarations and opinions on the impending half century commemoration of Nigeria's existence as a colonial amalgam, are unleashed, it would be timely to draw in, again, the important subject of the Rule of Law. Our intention is to keep the alarm bells ringing, for President Ebele(sounds much better than Goodluck Jonathan) to pursue rigorously a historic cleansing of his rotten party, the legislature and the judiciary; it can be done. This act would change the other parties and society and remove the deep suspicion and the almost complete loss of respect and interest in the judiciary, political parties, the armed forces and legislature that currently afflicts our national life.
Sound and fair rules make it possible to forsee with some certainty how the authority or the state will use its powers in given circumstances to come to (a)decisions. The rule of law is not to be confused with democracy. Given the promiscuous use made in recent times of the expression, 'the rule of law', and mainly in certain privileged circles where they feel threatened, it is hardly surprising that a tussle has ensued over faithfulness to the concept. But false conflation of legal legitimacy and conceptions of law have exposed the shallow grasp and dishonest practice of the entire system of the rules of legality. It is not whether there is rule of law in Nigeria, but can there be.
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An act of treachery was committed by Yar'Adua by his undermining of the value and impact of the evidence stacked against a number of ex-governors and other villains. What was abundantly clear though was that the evidence against those ex-PDP governors Attah, Odili, Ibori, Alamieyeseigha, Igbinedion, who incidentally were from the Niger Delta area, apart from Dariye and Kalu, were made available nationally and internationally and not disputed .
Evidence of theft stretches from Maiduguri to Liechtenstein and back through London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Berlin, Johannesbourg and Abu Dhabi. Corroborated and independently authenticated proofs are publicly available and their proper use should not be impeded. We question though, whether action should be restrcited only to those listed high profile names such as Ibori. Surely there are others and they must be brought to book too.
While people in the real parts of the Niger Delta, dripping with sickening poverty, were killing each other, the wealth of their land was zig-zagging its way into their governors' pockets with full knowledge of all those well-placed blockheads . Military dictators and members of civilian regimes were making criminal gifts of our oil blocks to one another. Sadly, some of the poor and abandoned people obtained greater satisfaction from being armed and influenced into acts of brutality than question the long running deterioration in their well-being. Serious crime was met with the government's customary cavalier response and more empty words. In truth, as we have often stated, by raiding their people's assests, they criminally penalise and direct away from their citizens the resources for Bayelsa, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Rivers. In consequence we are left with joblessness, poorly paid policemen and the bad state of our environment. It is shocking to remember that Yar'Auda was prepared to live with or was at ease with the stupendous amount of money flaunted by his thieving party members, infact , so were his predecessors, because they all understood its illicit origin.
By purporting to avoid confusion Yar'Adua dropped poisonous ethical fallacy of legality to cloud the issues and damage the hope of sanction against criminals in high office and shady places. Fuzzy and superficial appeal to the rule of law was dishonest and cynical when the law had been openly broken by members of his mob. There were growing reasons to begin to view that Yar'Adua and his gang were unfit for office. President Ebele take note!
A series of disgraceful and outright criminal incidents by public office holders past and present, made it harder than ever to understand what has happened to the justice system. The sequence of expedient judgements and subsequent setting down of convictions which had incontrovertible evidence, showed alarming disregard for legal and constitutional responsibilities. Yar'Adua made his own singular variation on the Faustian bargain. The regime over which he presided was an anthem of crude financial and political loutishness, initially instituted by the thieves in khakhi uniforms and given extended lease of life by civilian regimes that have followed, including even the Obasanjo era.
Too much effort was put into defending men who stole our money and companies that exploited the lax laws, that it is too shameful to recall. Accountancy Age, reported that France, Germany are launching attacks on tax havens. Barack Obama, the U.S president, is among the sponsors of the proposed United States' assault on tax havens. They understand that tax havens allow multinationals and local kleptomaniacs to siphon off Africa's wealth to these places. So widespread has the looting by the African elite become, that a study for Tax Justice Network, concluded that the hell-holes of the sub-Sahara were a net creditor to the rest of the world. The dismantling of off-shore dealings is a necessary pre-condition for African development.
The global financial crisis began with the collapse of structural investment vehicles, which accountants and lawyers working off-shore put together. The new financial system that will emerge from the ruins will require toughness, sharper transparency and openness, - virtues off-shore banking hates with a passion.
We have a common view with the late Yar'Adua and it is that, the EFCC was set up to apprehend and cleanse society of economic crimes. In the public understanding of events and issues of a financial nature linked to our politicians and ex-military men, records showed that the ex-governors did not obey the rules. Both Obasanjo and Yar'Adua were aware of this and chose different responses.
Pandemonium ensued when Nuhu Ribadu attempted to ensure that the EFCC acted like it knew what it was set up to do. Although not entirely prefect in its operation, it was nevertheless a much welcome organ. In Yar'Adua's hands and in his rattled mob's mind the rule of law became an argument rather than a fact. What matters to the legal perception is that there was legally established power to set up the EFCC and let it get on with its role.
The rule of law seem to have disappeared when the coffers of the country and states were being emptied by ' our' leaders and their cronies. In producing it, Yar'Adua was encouraged by Aondoakaa the so-called attorney-general and fellow villains,to indulge in a suspicious practice of denying certainty, whilst the accused reigned. Hardly did the Chief Justice Legbo Kutigi ever feel it his duty to rescue the judiciary from an ignominous image and existence. They were all mired and the stench was agreeable to them because it came laced with our money.
Deficiencies in the rule of law concept in Nigeria is due to insufficiencies and institutional inadequacies. There are matters of strange interpretations of how individuals and state can lay claim to rights, ineptitude in incorporating a modern conception of laws which operate under the watchful eyes of an informed and educated public and free and independent institutions. Failure to achieve or enjoy the effective and open rule of law is due to these particular deficiencies which condemns the whole system as inappropriate to the present and future levels of development.
It does not matter how big your babanriga is or how stuffy your jacket and tie are or how grotesque the sight of a damn cowboy hat on top of your traditional attire might conjure, the rule of law means what is says; the rule of law. Taken in its broadest sense, this means that the people should obey our generally agreed law and be ruled by it. Igbinedion, Ibori. Odili, Alamieyeseigha and Attah, Kalu, Dariye and other villains, should be arraigned before the law courts to answer questions about the origin of the wealth linked to their persons and take back what is ours. After all, they came pleading for electoral legitimation of their political whims, which included ‘ managing ’ our public affairs. None of them should be exempted from providing proper answers to the questions relating to their performance in office. Even so, when an unprincipled member of the British parliament Tony Baldry allegedly paid by the accused James Ibori, tabled objections to charges of money laundering on the floor of the house, we began to understand the scale of the stealing and the extent of the web.
Those who Yar'Adua used his nationally conferred position as President to defend were grouped in the disgusting thieves gallery, the whole country knew it. The more Yar'Adua, his followers and his lawmaking lapdogs shouted about ' our values', ' rule of law ', the more vacuous the phrases sounded . Outsiders see through our illusions quicker than we can. They see the brittle, episodic relationships which constitute many sad poor lives; the lack of respect for the legal and human rights of Nigerians, the lack of opportunities for affordable legal representation, the general applicability of legality, reform of prisons and the treatment of prisoners.
Every fair-minded citizen expects the judicial branch to offer remedy in instances of legal headaches. The rule of law requires more than effective crime suppression as a guiding principle in achieving law enforcement objectives. If the relevant authority was building towards prosecution they should have been allowed to conclude their task. This turned out to be an unrealistic wish particularly with Kutigi and Aondoakaa on the loose and throttling an enfeebled judiciary which singularly finds it difficult to successfully bring ‘ big’ wrongdoers to justice.
Suspicion must then be that, something nasty was going on and perhaps still is. We want President Ebele's position on this. Criminal law ought to be used in a manner that underline the fundamental values of our society. In our experience, we can confidently insist that the Nigerian society does manage to breed and retain many admirable values. The sort of alternatives which Aondoakaa sought and which Mrs. Waziri was pushing, before the presidential tables were turned, were contrary to these values; inconsistent with the general perception of the rule of law and the constitution; unless Aondoakaa and Mrs. Waziri had both concluded that our society is lawless and is generally criminally-inclined. But who were arrested in London or Dubai or refused permission to enter the U.S.?
Discarding normal legal and democratic principles creates two classes of citizens and limits legal equality which is virtually absent anyway. We affirm that the legislature failed to adhere to the concept of the rule of law in discharging its duties as understood in the Nigerian constitutional law. However it is not for the courts to second-guess the legislature and to assess the relative merits of social policies underlying criminal prohibitions. Society is not known to exempt officials or others from duty of obedience to the laws which governs other citizens. For the citizens, there is strong disquiet over issues such as Immunity and Perpetual Injunctions by former and current public office holders. The view and expectation is that the integrity of the law must be maintained and unlawful conduct of any member is not concealed or permitted to continue.
The rule of law implies a sense of order insofar as all State action is authorised by legal rules. Even a slight departure from a purely procedural account of legality illustrates that the values inherent in legislative process, which are the source of legality, cannot be neglected. What we saw and read and acquired knowledge of was legally significant and went to the very top of an unprincipled government and a judiciary which showed a lack of capacity to assume responsibility for the system. These congeries drew up the infamous ' Senate Report' , to criminalise El Rufai. The generality of the mandate formulated by the legislature failed to understand that the rule of law is but one of several virtues of the legal system, and it (the rule of law) was the basis for the unconstitutionality of Aondoakaa's ruling on Ibori and Justice I.N. Buba's on Odili, not its constitutional validity. These judges were toying with our legal system. Spectacular scandals involving judges, lawyers, politicians and the legal system has conferred legal notoriety on Nigeria. In most instances these incidents exacerbate political crisis.
During Aondoakaa tenure we witnessed Nasir El Rufai's courage in the face of trumped-up charges and persecution without any hint of intervention from Yar’Adua ; growth in fraudulent landholdings; the outrageous NITEL and other privatisations crimes; the US justice matter with Enaboifo who was said to be involved in a Sao Tome joint venture, the Rosehill affair; questionable origins of the Oando, collusion by judiciary with government to initiate the abuse of due process and much more.
The current Chief Justice, Katsina-Alu's nonsense about the depth and extent of corruption in the country must first be directed at his peers and his profession. We do not accept that the whole country should be so tainted. Nigerians are yearning desperately to escape all the legal uncertainties and injustices.
There is clearly a public demand for an orderly society. According to the general public responses, damage is done which have an immoral or anti-social nature and openly indicative of heavy dependence on abnormal use of power. The ex-attorney general Aondoakaa and the ex-Chief Justice Kutigi were united with late President Yar'Adua on this insane approach. Using the resistance of formal principles as a shield to hide objectives incompatible with legal order could certainly appear, to put it concisely, an abuse of the rule of law.
Aondoakaa was not arguing that formalism of the rule would prevent justice in the case before him, nor was he drawing attention to the likely inability to control the legalistic abuse of power that could lie concealed in it. The distinctive feature of Yar'Adua's and Aondoakaa's abuse-misuse of public powers was the arrogant absence of the need to assess consequences(they did not care), in factual terms and in particular if these consequences cause unjustified damage or unjust benefit.
If the rule of law is meant as submission of power to rules, the abuse of the rule of law does certainly depend on the infringement of the process by power assuming and prejudicing outcomes in the narrow pursuit of its own corrupt interests . Infringements and abuses became second nature. The president's reaction was to hide behind what might be termed legal formalism, where correct judicial process is in train whose outcome was likely to be unfavourable in the president's view and gang’s interests.
Aondakaa's recent forced exit from the his ministerial duties and susequent grovelling could be interpreted as a sign of President Ebele's administration's determination to fight corruption or arrest the tarnishing of the judiciary or repair the messed-up legal system. Our perception is that the departure of Aondoakaa is not really a victory or the triumph of justice. Financial impropriety is still rife, judges are still intimidated and Nigerians do not know where they stand on many matters in law.
The law must be accessible and as far as possible be intelligible, clear and predictable. For long and even in the current periods the law has been impervious to the legal needs of the poor. It has not acted impartially. It has not defended the poor and victims of abuse. We insist that the law must be effectively accessible and fair, so that the citizen can have an indication that is adequate in the circumstances of legal rules applicable to a given case. Unless it is formulated with sufficient precision and openness to enable the citizen to regulate his or her conduct, a norm will find it difficult to be regarded as 'law'.
But what sort of judicial system allows the attorney-general as an adjudicator and a civil servant to stand surety for the accused, then entering a plea whose devious intention was to lead to the nation forfeiting right to claw back its stolen wealth. Conflict of interest is considered a virtue by politicians. In cases, the judge must adduce argument in support of his conclusions. The question, then, is whether those arguments are good justifying arguments. A valid deductive argument(as we have seen?), will be one in which the truth of the premises necessitates the truth of the conclusion. Judicial outcomes must be measured by the rate at which the country secures just results, if necessary by convicting proven crooks, and getting our money back.
A fever perpetual injunctions has suddenly gripped a section of our society and there is wonder at what they might persist in hiding. Such injunctions are repugnant and might exceed the power of the court to impose. President Ebele should question the Justice Buba’s ruling in the Odili’s case and similar decisions should not be binding. They constitute a violation of the precepts of the rule of law and the misuse of courts. No such injunction by a public officer should ever be made perpetual
Yar'Adua's position or intervention was wrong from the point of law and legality as it instantly undermined the formal procedural conditions associated with the legal system. On dubious legality, Yar’Adua in collusion with Aondoakaa and Kutigi and PDP unethical vultures flagged the red herring of the rule of law. Aondoakaa's role was to weaken the state and facilitate the distortion and dishonest use of law to provide the powerful with advantages over the weak.
In a very clear case before the nation they ignored the necessary moral and democratic constraints. Their greed and dishonesty consumed them. So must those involved in the $12.4million windfall and Halliburton be destroyed by their actions.
Oshiomole's eventual victory nineteen months after the governorship elections in Edo State, stands out as one good sign of hope in the potential for change in the judiciary and the legal system of Nigeria. This in no small measure could be placed at the courageous desks of Justice Oriololunshe and Justice Umaru Abdullahi and Justice Umeadi. Nigerians must support the correct actions of these judges.
With cast iron and overwhelming evidence, there should be no need for the lawyer's dilemma. All that is required was for the system to ensure that the truth is discovered. In law if you are in hand with or have knowledge that an offence has been committed and assists the offenders in order to hinder or prevent his or her apprehension , trial or punishment then you become accessory after the fact. Aondoakaa, Kutigi, Mrs. Waziri and the government had full knowledge. They perverted the course of justice in aiding the guilty to escape responsibility for their misdeeds and thus unquestionably become accessory to the fact. The guilty must not escape judgement.
What about the children ?
Eno Usua
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