With the nation’s mighty and powerful being hauled one after the other before the courts to account their share of the bazaar called armsgate, one of the more positive dimensions to the onslaught on vice in high places must be the current move from the asinine debate about the absolute right of an alleged felon to hop on the plane for a medical appointment in some foreign capitals to the centrality of law in the entire process.
Now, thanks to President Muhammadu Buhari’s spectacular gaffe in his maiden media chat, the fangled phrase, rule of law has suddenly gained elevation – I daresay, not so much because some Nigerians – in their love for cant – are necessarily firm believers in the concept, but because some have found in it an opportunity to do what they do best – talk!
Obviously, you won’t be a Nigerian if you don’t have one or two things to say on the current developments. As a matter of fact, I wager to say that Nigerians would have found something else to talk about had the President not flown off the handle at the media chat. If it seems a measure of their so-called indignation that they have been talking since, it is also moot point that Nigerians aren’t so much agreed on the definition let alone the strategy to fight the monster called corruption!
No question about it – President Buhari goofed – big time. It is after all elementary that the law presumes an offender innocent until the state successfully proves its case in the court of law. His reference to the “atrocities people like Dasuki committed” on the basis of which he believes he should not be entitled to bail is as absurd as it is untenable. The same also applies to the case of Nnamdi Kanu – the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – standing trial for treasonable offences. Surely, the President has no business speaking condescendingly on any citizen let alone determining their guilt before the full course of trial. For many, the two cases – you can add the Shiites crisis in Kaduna as the third – are sufficient to detract from the administrations rule of law armour.
I beg to disagree. To reduce the war to the President’s sin of indiscretion is certainly taking things a bit too far. Once again, I am forced to draw upon the example of an accident scene. In the typical bedlam, whereas the milder cases are often the loudest in their shrill cries to draw attention to themselves, the trained medic is careful to isolate those lying still –ostensibly because they have little or no energy to draw upon – for urgent attention.
It is no accident that the rule of law has suddenly become handy in the current circumstances. If it seems by far more tolerable to present as alibi than the unending dog-fights over the seizure of international passports which comes to the right to travel abroad to receive some specialised medical treatments, its seduction, to be sure, would lie its universal appeal and its inviolability – something resonates more with the lawyers, the populace and the international community.
But then, this is precisely the part that I am worried about. Of course, we know the pathology of the powerful. They are not just contented with breaking the law, neither are they averse to twisting the law in such ways and manner as to defeat the course of justice. What about their penchant to undermine the judicial system? Have we not seen a counsel lampoon a judge in an open court only for the same counsel to turn round to ask the luckless judge to recuse himself from the case since he could no longer be trusted to be unbiased after insulting his lordship? That is the level of delinquency to which the judiciary has sunk. Today, we know that a clever attorney and a letter from a foreign infirmary are significant steps to freedom from the rigours of trial and defeat for the justice system. Ours is a clime where those with the means can literally procure the licence to kill. In any case, such are not supposed to be a problem – or are they?
Suddenly, with a fresh breeze of change, we are told that the powerful cannot bear to suffer the allergy of minor irritations that attenuate the justice delivery system! That is bunkum. The same men who allegedly despatched others to their untimely deaths; the individuals who acts of omission and commission are alleged to have rendered millions homeless cannot bear to spend the harsh harmattan weather away from their loved ones! What about those who converted the parastatals in their charge to piggy banks to dispense all manners of favours? And now to imagine that the rest of us, no less victims of their avarice and greed –being enlisted in their orchestra of shame!
I am of course for the rule of law. It is important to regulate the behaviour of different actors in the polity. The chant at the moment is unfortunately, an elite pastime aimed at promoting the false choice between the rule and the ends of justice. The point remains that while the rule must avail for the accused to make his demands within the ambits of the law; it should be no less for the investigators to do their jobs– also within the ambits of the same law – unfettered. That this can come with some minor irritations should not suffice for the clamour to bring the roof down on everyone heads!
Again, the point is – while the brazen violations of the rule of law are intolerable any day, those who seek to erect their fangled concept on the foundations of anomie are welcome to their illusion that the path leads anywhere else than one of societal disintegration. Surely, that is not what we want – or is it?
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