Date Published: 05/05/10
El-Rufai, Ibori and the law
By Idang Alibi
To the glory of God, in the early hours of last Saturday May 1st, the former FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who has been in self- exile since much of the presidency of Umaru Musa Yar’adua, arrived back to his fatherland safe and sound. It is very important to note that SSS and EFCC agents were not on hand to give him a most rude and nasty welcome.
The situation would certainly not have been the same for el-Rufai if Yar’adua had not been sidelined by illness. If el-Rufai had chosen to come back when Yar’adua was in-charge, as he once tried to do last year, he would have arrived Nigeria not into the warm embrace of his friends and members of his family but into the callused hands of security agents. The SSS and the EFCC would have been waiting at the airport with leg and hand chains to take him to their dungeon because he was seen as the public enemy number one by the Yar’adua government. In fact NTA camera men would have been strategically positioned to record the nasty welcome and bring it in living colours to Nigerians to the obvious delight of those who wanted the man humiliated. But see what the absence of one man and the emergence of another can do to change things for individuals as well as the nation.
Similarly, before November 23 last year when Yar’adua’s health deteriorated sharply and he had to be flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment, former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori was one of the most powerful men in the country. He was the quintessential godfather and power behind the throne, in our case, the Yar’adua throne. Every body in Nigeria knew that Ibori was even more powerful then than Dr. Goodluck Jonathan who was officially the number two man in the country. Ibori was so influential that he was widely acknowledged to be instrumental to the appointment of certain key officials in the Yar’adua government.
But today, since the event of November 23 and more especially since the event of February 12 when Goodluck Jonathan became president, the tables have turned for James Onanefe Ibori. Right now Ibori, a declared fugitive, is being hunted by a force far superior to the usual task force our governments usually set up to confront very serious problems or serious challenges to their authority.
Today, an armada comprising the police, army, navy, air force, the SSS, the EFCC, and I will not be entirely surprised if agents of the foreign intelligence service the NIA are also part of the search party for Ibori, to hunt him down and bring him to face justice. It is possible that very soon local hunters in the creeks of the Nigeria Delta will also be recruited in the hunt for Ibori.
As Ibori hides either in the creeks or in the alleys of a foreign country, I am sure he will be wondering to himself why God has allowed Yar’adua to be so ill that he is not in power to offer him protection.
The example of el-Rufai and Ibori and other numerous examples we have seen in our country in recent times point to one fact: the law which is supposed to be an instrument for regulating political and other forms of human conducts has in our country Nigeria become an instrument to serve the cause of politics. The bogey of the law is used to victimize a man or woman that those wielding political power do not like. A man is a criminal or a clean man depending on who is in power at any particular time.
In other words, the law is a thermometer in Nigeria. It rises and falls according to the heat generated by the man in Aso Rock. Law enforcement agents are no more than attack dogs in the hands of a master hunter. The law is a perfect tool for setting up ambushments for his enemies. A situation whereby the freedom or incarceration of a citizen is dependent on the disposition of the man in Aso Rock towards him is simply unacceptable in a society that claims to be egalitarian, law-governed one.
Bending or twisting the law to serve political ends is worse than rigging election. A society can endure leaders with stolen mandate but it can not survive lack of respect for its law. Law is the foundation that binds any modern society. Any society that therefore chooses to use the law in a cynical manner is actively digging its collapse because it is inviting anarchy. When there is no respect for the law people recourse to self-help.
Because of the way the law is invoked to serve dubious purposes, when any political figure is made to account for some misdeeds many people tend to see that man more as a victim of political witch-hunt than as a possible offender who is required to account for his acts of omission or commission. For instance, Ibori is now becoming the object of sympathy of some Nigerians who can swear that he really has a case or two to answer.
The most amazing thing with us as a people is that when those in power use the law to fight their political battles against one another of their class or to deal with innocent people, we do not scream. In 2007 every reasonable man in Nigeria who knows the unscrupulous manner our leaders use the law to achieve sinister political purposes knew that the sole purpose the Senate’s FCT Committee decided to investigate the FCT Administration between 2003 and 2007 was to carry out a vindictive hearing on el-Rufai whose action-packed tenure had ruffled some powerful feathers. Its goal was to demonise el-Rufai to satisfy those who had cause to hate some of the painful but necessary things he had to do to restore Abuja to glory.
Yet we all saw nothing wrong with the charade. We pretended that el-Rufai was facing the law in the spirit of accountability. While el-Rufai was being persecuted, one of the allegations against him was that he could not account for the N32 billion proceeds of the sale of FGN houses under his watch. Since the man’s return to the country under a different political atmosphere, the EFCC has since amended its claim by saying that what is missing is N1.6 billion. Last Tuesday when the man honoured the EFCC invitation and went to their office, he was granted administrative bail. This was a man that the EFCC under Yar’adu had declared wanted as if he had committed some horrendous crimes against humanity.
We in the media need to be alert so as not to allow politicians to use the law to serve their purposes. We are sometimes mobilised to engage in unfair media trial of some clearly persecuted individuals.
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