Posted by Pini Jason on
Two state governors, Alhaji Bukar Ibrahim of Yobe and Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno states early in the week advised their fugitive counterpart, DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State to return to London and face his trial and not wait to be bundled out of Nigeria.
Two state governors, Alhaji Bukar Ibrahim of Yobe and Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno states early in the week advised their fugitive counterpart, DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State to return to London and face his trial and not wait to be bundled out of Nigeria. That, to me, is a very sound advice that Alamieyeseigha must seriously consider. Returning to London the same way he escaped may, at the end of the day, be the wisest thing for him. Let him just reappear one morning at the police station he was supposed to be reporting. He can tell them that he just stepped out to urinate the way was used to in Nigeria and the egbesu magic overworked its wonder and took him to Nigeria. That, at least will leave an awesome, even if not positive impression of Nigerian black magic in the minds of the British.
But seriously speaking, London is a better option for him. It was a grievous mistake on his part to think that he can escape prosecution in Nigeria hiding under ethnic solidarity. That is absolute nonsense, which has only succeeded in putting off a lot of people. Moreover, his appeal to the worn sentiment that Obasanjo wants his head for his political beliefs has not washed. What political belief? Neither is his claim to be resource control champion or Ijaw generalissimo any excuse to steal from your poor people. He is also mistaken to think that he will be allowed to use Bayelsa State's resources to fight for his political survival. He can see the noose tightening on him. So he is a finished man with little or no options left. And I can see the long arm of the law catching up with him sooner than he thought. He may wrongly be thinking that if that happens, the Federal Government would just send him back to London. No. The Federal Government may choose to try him here, especially as President Obasanjo has protested his displeasure to British Prime Minister, Tony Blair for allowing him to escape.
His extradition to London may be after serving his term here. I can tell him that Nigerian prisons won't be funny for him! At least he has sampled Brixton prison and he knows it is a five-star hotel compared to Nigerian prisons. So he should heed the advice of his colleagues and return to London the dramatic way he came here.
But as this national embarrassment plays out, I keep wondering if we cannot possibly take something positive out of it all. In every bad situation, there is always something positive to take out of it, if only people do not allow themselves to be swamped by the enormity of the problem. That is why it is possible for people to put their handicaps to great advantage, not only for themselves, but also for humanity. In Latin it is put as multum in parvo, there is greatness in even small things. There must be a good purpose Alamieyeseigha can serve in our national development from all these.
I hate to think that what has empowered raving knaves and kleptomaniacs to loot our treasury is an addle-headed clause in our constitution called immunity clause. It makes me mad when we sound as if we are totally helpless in the face of this grand larceny because of the immunity clause. We are not. We have simply not shown the will to deal with this problem. And we can deal with it. We are not made for the immunity clause. The immunity clause was made for us! Therefore we can change it.
The President must quickly move with the same alacrity with which he moves against his real and imagined political foes in the National Assembly and in his party PDP and mobilize to expunge the immunity clause for governors in our constitution. Let us remove immunity for governors and you will see that the enthusiasm to become governor will be moderated. People are killing to become governors because they think they can steal and hide under the immunity clause. Let the President be the only one to enjoy a qualified immunity.
That is, immunity for the President must be for civil litigations, not criminal matters. When the President is cited for any criminal action, an independent prosecutor should be appointed to investigate him, and if a prima facie case is established, he faces impeachment. And if convicted he can be removed. Let us once and for all end this national trauma of allowing thieves to brazenly and blatantly rape our treasury while we watch and wring our hands in helplessness.
My reason for advocating for the removal of immunity for governors is that the constantly adduced excuse that without immunity litigations will distract them from the affairs of state is a fallacy. In reality, governors do not go to courts personally. They are always represented by the attorneys-general, who in turn give some of the legal briefs to private lawyers, who may be from the AG's private chambers. So where is this distraction for which we have ceded our national treasury to remorseless thieves? Even if the litigations are for civil matters like the acquisition of land for public use, etc, there is still no harm in testing some of the governors' action in court to make sure they act within the law.
Why should a governor who strips the assets of his state and relocates them to his senatorial zone not be sued? In fact the more I look at it, the more I fail to really see why governors cannot be sued for their actions while in office, especially given what has emerged now as the underdeveloped state of mind of some of them. Some of them have really shown that they cannot handle power; they just run amok with it!
Many attorneys-general have ceased being the chief law officers of the state or the nation, who have responsibility for making sure nobody, including the Governor or President, breaks the law, and have instead become the private lawyers whose only duty is to defend the Governor or President at public expense. And since they are mostly idle, anyway, they might as well get busy going to court to defend legal actions against governors. So I call for the outright removal of immunity for the governors. Anybody who will not walk the narrow path of legality and probity need not contest for public office. A serious disease requires a serious surgery!
Secondly we must move to strengthen our electoral system and sanitize it. I have been dwelling on this point that for as long as people can brazenly rig their way into high public office and the peoples' votes do not count, for so long will thieves and outright imbeciles be finding their way into public office, which nothing in their low-heeled life had thought them is respectable and sacred. Anywhere in the world, the question will be: how did Alamieyeseigha become a governor? How did Joshua Dariye become a governor? Some would even unjustly seek to implicate Nigerians by asking: why did you vote for them? We did not! They rigged their way into office! Why can they not be removed? And we say because of an immunity clause! Come on! This joke must stop, one way or the other.
As the clock winds down on Obasanjo's administration, he no longer has any personal need for a fraudulent electoral system. He should make restitution for what has happened on his watch by leaving behind in 2007 a foolproof electoral system so that we can preserve the sanctity of our public offices and face the world as a proud nation. Not a nation with bail-jumping criminals as 'His Excellencies."