The scene is familiar. She breezes past security, past the Secretary or the P.A and barges into Oga’s office where he is having a meeting with his key staff. The staff look at her and she looks at them unabashedly. Oga gets up and says lamely ‘I’ll call you guys back later’. Now it doesn’t matter whether she is a wife or a favourite mistress. She has broken protocol, breached rules and disrupted the legitimate activities of an institution. And because she gets away with it, she will do it again. That is impunity.
A big man drives into an estate and refuses the routine check on the car by refusing to open his boot. He dares the poor security man to apprehend him. Again, it doesn’t matter whether he is a resident or a visitor. He has breached the rules, compromised safety and escaped sanctions. It is impunity. It gets worse when the security personnel is beaten black and blue for daring to enforce the rules as happened in the National Assembly in 2009 and the system was unable and unwilling to protect him.
A body of lawmakers could not enforce its own laws! Impunity simply means ‘unpunished’ and many of us have escaped being punished for brazen acts because of our disposition to crimes and punishments as a Nation. Unfortunately, our leaders, because of their belief that they are truly above the law, have widened the impunity horizon. Last week, the papers were full of the story of how a man in the convoy of the Controller General of Prison Services harassed and slapped Ms Mrakpor who is a National Assembly member. Now I really do not know why the Controller General was using a siren despite the ban on its usage. I also do not know why he felt he needed a convoy to make a routine appearance to the National Assembly or why he condoned an assault.
But if an infringement has been committed, why can’t the law enforcement agencies handle the matter? Why is the National Assembly huffing and puffing as if it doesn’t happen everyday? The National Assembly is not the police and it does not have the power to commit anybody to prison. This muscle flexing because it affects one of its members is not what leadership is about. That in itself, is impunity which both sides are guilty of. We would instead expect it to enact or strengthen the laws that would make this kind of executive abuse a thing of the past, not only to its members, but to every citizen of Nigeria.
A young mother of an eight- month-old baby is in prison custody as we speak. According to the story, she was owing N2000 which was her part of the NEPA contributions and her light was disconnected by the custodian of the group purse. She paid a thousand naira and someone was sent by the custodian to reconnect her light. The person got himself electrocuted and she immediately raised an alarm and rushed to report to the police. For her effort, she was arrested with her baby and later transferred to prison. What, on the face of things, was her culpability? What investigations made them to deny her and her baby their rights and the comfort of their homes? How long would it take to either discharge her or send her to court? In the typical Nigerian police way, she was being punished for a guilt that was yet to be established or proved.
This is just one of the many aspects of the impunities the police commit against Nigerians which will never happen in decent countries and should stop here. Police as law enforcers must respect the law or face sanctions. A group of sparsely dressed men openly display guns and dangerous weapons as they roam the streets. They are not apprehended. They enter other people’s properties and cow the owner to near submission with their weapons and their arrogance. They arrogate to themselves the right to feed their cattle without recognising the rights of others to own farms and earn a living. They maim, they destroy, they kill. They start with small numbers and because nothing happens, they get emboldened and kill in dozens.
They are either unaware that there is a law against murder or they feel they are above such trivial laws. Rather than apply the full wrath of the law, the Government as always, looks for political solutions. Almost all elections are rigged in the land. Those who can bribe the most, who can rig the most invariably become ‘elected’ and allowed to enjoy the spoils of victory in a most brazen manner. And because they go unpunished, they have enlarged the coast.
Opponents and their supporters are treated as irritants who must be removed from the equation. They no longer use superior arguments. They use brute force. A youth corper died in the recent power show in Rivers State and nobody has been docked. In fact, political killings are on the rise in every part of the country and nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has been punished. This is impunity. Nobody should be allowed to shed another person’s blood under any circumstance and get away with it.
For years, a religious group put itself above the law in North Central. Neither the police nor successive governments had the will to call it to order. As it always happens, it grew bigger than its boots and trampled on the rights of others. Some of its members recently confronted and dared the resolve of a military chief. He responded by declaring war on the sect and slaughtered human beings like cattle.
Even wars have rules and conventions. Both the actions of the Shiite group and the reactions of the military have responded to the culture of impunity that reigns in the land. Top government officials award contract to companies in which they have vested interests in violation of their fiduciary duties. They openly operate foreign accounts in defiance of extant laws. Rather than being sanctioned, their wealth is celebrated by State and Church. They remain as always, unpunished.
A governor signs a very generous pension for himself that defies logic and the needs of his state. He then goes to the Senate to collect a stupendously fat salary while still collecting his pension. He goes on to collect his monetised allowance and collects a free car to boot. Not done, he joins in padding the budget and raising the oil benchmark so that constituency provisions can be inserted. Of course there is no sanction when found out. We can go on and on about the culture of impunity that has pervaded the land from running traffic lights to running guns. It is not about the laws but about the will to implement them.
Boko Haram would probably not have assumed this dimension if we had been firm and just in applying the law. Electoral malpractices would have reduced if high profile culprits had been brought to book and jailed. The same thing with the massive looting of our leaders. This culture of impunity must stop. All citizens irrespective of tribe, religion or status must respect the laws of the country.
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