I
was invited to a Roundtable on Corruption by the Law Faculty of the University
of Lagos, only to discover that some “Buharideens” had highjacked the occasion
and were inclined to use it as a platform to promote the onslaught of “democratic
dictatorship” in Nigeria.
The topic was on corruption in Nigeria,
but the mast-head in the hall was more specific. It read: “Winning the
War against Corruption”. This was easily seized on by government
agents to imply that President Muhammadu Buhari was well on the way to dealing
a mortal blow to corruption in Nigeria.
The composition of the invited
discussants was biased. Most of those on the panel with me were dyed-in-the-wool
government apologists. The Chairman was Professor Itse Sagay, currently the
Chairman of Buhari’s Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption. As it
turned out, he was not prepared to entertain any meaningful discussion about
corruption in Nigeria. His agenda was to showcase ostensible government
achievements in the anti-corruption campaign and to proclaim new promissory
notes grandiloquently for public consumption.
Also there was Oby Ezekwesili of #BringBackOurGirls fame.
She used to pitch her tent with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But now
that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is in power, she has been romancing
the new government. It was even speculated at one time that Buhari would reward
her with a ministerial portfolio. Not surprising, she is no longer as strident
in demanding government rescue of the kidnapped Chibok girls as she had been
under Jonathan.
The kingpin of the government
apologists on the panel was Femi Falani, a lawyer and human rights activist. He
was chosen to give the keynote address. Falana had been heavily touted as
Buhari’s attorney general. In fact, on the eve of the ministerial appointments,
a list was widely publicised in the press that had his name penciled in for the
post. But someone apparently put an eraser to it. Nevertheless, in order to
remain in the good books of the government, Falana seems to have jettisoned his
earlier dedication to the defence of human rights.
It was also not lost on me that if Falana’s
proposal of “guilty until proven innocent” had been the norm,
President Buhari himself would have been jailed when $2.8 billion of government
money went missing under his watch as Commissioner for Petroleum in the 1980s.
How soon they forget! At the time, Vera Ifudu, an NTA reporter, revealed to
Nigerians that Senate Leader, Olusola Saraki, told her in an interview that the
missing money was moved from the NNPC’s Midland Bank account to a private
account.
It is amazing that, in spite of our nasty
experience at the hands of General Buhari and his kangaroo courts in 1984, a
civil rights lawyer would propose today that similar kangaroo courts should
again be established under the same Buhari in the bogus name of democratic
justice. But I guess we deserve that in Nigeria for being foolish as
to elect as president under a democratic dispensation the very man who
truncated our earlier experiment with democracy through a military coup.
In Buhari’s first coming, the Femi Falanas
were few and far between to whitewash his authoritarianism. The special courts
of that era, now being proposed under a different disguise, were military
tribunals established to try civilians instead of regular courts of law, in
clear violation of internationally accepted legal norms. Buhari created a secret
police (NSO) under the infamous Lawal Rafindadi to harass and imprison
Nigerians without trial. It is this same injustice that Falana was hired to
re-table.
It is unconscionable that a so-called human
rights activist would be used to champion this revanchist authoritarianism. As
a military dictator, Buhari ran so rough-shod over our judicial system that the
Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) proscribed Nigerian lawyers from appearing in
any of his kangaroo courts.
Buhari sent both corrupt and
non-corrupt politicians to jail, sometimes for up to 300 years. He tried
octogenarian, Michael Ajasin before his military tribunal. When he was
discharged and acquitted; he tried him again. When he was discharged and
acquitted again, he tried him a third time. When he was discharged and
acquitted yet again, Buhari nevertheless continued to keep him in detention and
refused to release him.
A judge claimed Buhari pressured him to jail
Fela Anikulapo Kuti for failing to declare the foreign exchange he had
legitimately procured for the up-keep of his band on a foreign trip; while the
same Buhari sent his aide-de-camp to Murtala Muhammed airport in Lagos to
facilitate the smuggling into the country of 53 suitcases by the Emir of Gwandu
during the currency-change exercise.
Therefore, the onus fell on me at the
Roundtable to warn our student audience that it would be madness to entertain
proposals that seek to bring back Buhari’s sharp practices of the past under
another guise. It is necessary to point out that, as Nigerians were deceived
through vain promises promptly jettisoned after the election, so are government
agents trying to deceive us again today. There is actually no real war against
corruption going on today. There is not even a fight against corruption, how
much more a war. What we have is a government attempt to decimate the
opposition and create a de facto one-party state under the
guise of fighting against corruption.
Once I started making these points, the
students started cheering. It became apparent that they were not fooled by the
government’s praise-singers and were glad that I was there to expose their
duplicity. Before I proceed to elaborate on why I insist there is no real fight
against corruption in Nigeria today, let me
point out at this juncture the reaction of my fellow-panelists.
I only spoke for ten minutes, but the
chairman, Itse Sagay, became enraged. He not only abused me, he also abused
UNILAG students. He called them all “ignorant” for applauding my positions. He
shouted: “We are here on a very serious business. And students, don’t
behave like American electorates who are ignorant. The appreciation of
unserious people shows ignorance.”
“How can someone come here and say there’s no
war against corruption and there is clapping? This is a very serious discussion
and I want us to be serious about it. If you are anti-government, please go and
campaign against government and let your party win in 2019. This is not a venue
for PDP campaign. We are here on serious business. Let’s maintain that
seriousness.”
#BringBackOurGirls icon, Oby Ezekwesili,
also asked for the microphone a second time to contribute to this berating of
UNILAG students for applauding my presentation. She said, among other things: “I
wasn’t surprised that some of you were clapping. The reason you were clapping
is that you are a page in your own level of corruption. There are many whose
exam malpractice is the basis upon which they have come to school. So when you are talking about the need
to wage a war against corruption, they are completely disconnected from it.
There is a complete dissonance from it.” (TO BE CONTINUED).
*Dr. Aribasala is a
syndicated columnist
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