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Tag: Justice

  • Justice for the street fighter – By Sonnie Ekwowusi

    Justice for the street fighter – By Sonnie Ekwowusi

    Last week the Federal High Court, Abuja, per Justice Inyang Ekwo, ordered the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Danladi Umar to appear before the Senate in a probe on the petition that he was caught fighting in public. Justice Ekwo issued the aforesaid order while delivering judgment in a suit filed by Umar challenging the powers of the Senate to investigate him for fighting a security guard in public.

    In his suit against the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions and the Attorney-General of the Federation, the CCT chair had prayed the court that pursuant to sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria lacks the jurisdiction to investigate him. But while delivering his judgment last week, Justice Ekwo stated that Umar had no cogent reason to stop the Senate from carrying out its constitutional functions. The judge further said that Section 2 of the Code of Conduct Bureau Act exposed Umar to an investigation by the National Assembly. The judge held that as a public officer administering a law relating to the conduct of public officers, Umar’s disgraceful conduct should be investigated by the Senate. The Judge also said that Umar had no reason to institute the suit to stop the Senate from probing a public petition seeking justice. Holding that Umar is not above the law of the land, the Judge further stated: “As such, it will be illogical for him (Umar) to seek to stop the Senate probe as doing so will give an impression that he is above the law”.

    It is surprising that Umar was shamelessly praying to the court to stop the Senate from investigating him. You will recall that on March 29 2021, the CCT Chair Umar threw decency, dignity and decorum overboard and engaged a security guard in an open street brawl in broad daylight at the Banex Plaza, Wuse Abuja, to the astonishment of the bemused onlookers who could be heard admonishing Umar, *“Go away, go away, Oga go inside your car, respect yourself. You are not the most powerful person here, they will beat you here”*. The video which captured the fight made the rounds at that time. During the affray, Umar gave the security guard an upper cut which landed in his face and consequently sending the poor man landing and sprawling on the ground. Seeing the man sprawling on the ground, a visibly-angry Umar was not done with him yet. Just as the man was regaining his composure and was about getting up from the ground, Umar, the street fighter, further sprang to his feet in the fashion of a native wrestler, swiftly ran to his car, brought out a lethal weapon and stretched his hand to use it to smash the head of the security guard but thanks to Umar’s two police escorts, driver and some good Samaritans who swiftly used their hands to block Umar from committing what would have been a murder or a homicide. At the end of the fight the security guard was rushed to the hospital for treatment. I don’t know whether Umar was also rushed to the hospital for treatment.

    Following the unequivocal condemnation of Umar’s disgraceful conduct at that time by the general public, all have been expecting the National Judicial Council (NJC) to wield the big stick and fire Umar or at least suspend him from office pending the allegation against him. But unfortunately that hasn’t happened. Meanwhile Umar, in his arrogance, has not deemed it fit to apologize for his scandalous conduct. Instead of apologizing to the Bar, the Bench and the public for his disgraceful behaviour, Umar proceeded to institute a suit at the Federal High Court to pervert the course of justice. It is obvious that Umar believes that he is above the law of the land. He sees himself as an untouchable lawless leviathan. He is god. He is superior to everybody. He can do whatever he likes. For example, during the trial of former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen, Umar announced in open court that he would not grant an ex-parte order. Strangely enough, the same Umar secretly went behind Onnoghen’s lawyers and concocted a black-market ex-parte order which President Buhari relied on in illegally removing Onnoghen as the CJN. Umar actually threatened journalists covering judicial proceedings in his court at that time that he would imprison them and they would remain in incarceration until he (Umar) retires from service after about 28 years. An ethnic profiler, Umar threatened to deal with those whom he contemptuously labels “Biafra boys”. Shocked by the ethnic profiling, a visibly-angry co-convener of Bring Back Our Girls movement Aisha Yesufu released a video in April 2021 demanding for the immediate dismissal of Umar as CCT Chair.

    I cannot agree less. By fighting in public, Umar has brought the Bar and Bench into public ridicule, public odium and opprobrium. Consequently Umar should have been removed as Chair of the CCT. It is characters such as Danladi Umar that gives the judiciary a bad name. There have been insinuations on social media to the effect that Umar must have been provoked by the security guard or that the security guard was the first aggressor and assaulter of Umar. No matter the high level provocation or aggression, a Chairman of the CCT cannot descend to the low level of fighting in public contrary to the Code of Conduct of Judicial officers and the Judicial Oath which he swore to uphold and in fact made other judges to uphold as well. As a lawyer, Umar should have known that aggrieved persons are enjoined by the Constitution to seek remedy in a law court. Therefore if Umar had felt that the security man had wronged him he could have set the law in motion against him instead of resorting to violence. Resort to violence is a recipe for anarchy. The rule of law in contrast to the rule of force ought to reign always.

    The legal profession is a conservative profession that extols decency, public decorum, social comportment as the hallmark of excellence and success in the profession. By their special vocation as unbiased empire in the dispensation of justice, judges ought to be the most disciplined officers in the temple of justice. Like Caesar’s wife, judges should not only live and behave above board but manifestly be seen to live and behave above board. Judges are honoured and revered because of their impeccable character. This is why judges could refrain from joining issues with their critics in the media and public space. This is why judges religiously season their public utterances in public places with the ingredient of mortification. For example, Master of Rolls, Rt. Hon. A. T Denning was distinguished by both his exceptional lucidity of thought and his character. If Umar can fight in the street, what is the difference between him and the motor touts and political thugs who are always fighting in public?. If Umar can descend from his Olympian height to the low level of fighting in public, what advice will he be giving to his children and probably grandchildren? Or, what impressions will Umar’s children or grand-children have watching their father or grandfather fighting in public?

    The late eminent Justice Akinola Aguda tirelessly advocated that only worthy persons should be appointed to the Bench. Aguda believed that a single error in appointing unworthy persons to the Bench could ruin the whole administration of justice. Justice Aguda was right. In most countries, only the best and the brightest are appointed judges. Not so in Nigeria. In Nigeria the most important factor that plays out in the appointment of judges is Prof. Joseph Richard’s prebendalism. This was why a Supreme Court nominee was nevertheless appointed as a Supreme Court justice despite the fact that the man did not know the meaning of the notion “technicality in law” during the Senate screening/clearing exercise.

    I agree with Aguda that only men of character should be appointed to the Bench. For descending to the low level of fighting in the street, Danladi Umar is unworthy to be the Chairman of the CCT. If Umar is the Chairman of the CCT investigating the conduct of public officers it stands to reason that he should be fired when his conduct gives us reason to believe that he is unworthy to be the Chair of the CCT. On March 15 2010 Hon. Justice Idris Habib Shall of the Bauchi State High Court was suspended by the National Judicial Council (NJC) for fighting in public. So, why hasn’t the NJC fired Umar or at least suspended him pending the investigation of the serious allegation against him? The function of the judiciary as a dispenser of justice or as sustainer of good governance is endangered when a Chair of the CCT who ought to conduct himself responsibly in public throws decency overboard to engage in an open street brawl.

  • How gruesome murder of Bamise raises fresh concerns in Nigeria ranked 16th most dangerous country to live in

    How gruesome murder of Bamise raises fresh concerns in Nigeria ranked 16th most dangerous country to live in

     

    The gruesome murder of 22-year-old Oluwabamise Ayanwole inside a commercial bus operated by Primero Transport Services Limited under the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Lagos State has raised fresh security concerns about the spate of disappearances and killings in Nigeria, ranked as the 16th most dangerous country in the world based on 23 different indicators, including political terror, deaths from internal conflict, and murder rate.

    According to a report, between January 5th and December 28th, 2021, more than 185 ritual-related deaths have been recorded across twenty (20) States in the country.

    After the close of work on Saturday, February 26th, Ayanwole, the last of ten children born to her parents, reportedly boarded a BRT around Chevron Bus-stop, in the Lekki area of the state. The bus was coming from Ajah and heading towards Oshodi and she had thought to continue her trip to Idimu to spend the weekend with her elder brother, Pelumi Caleb when she met her untimely death. Her body was discovered a week later after it was dumped along the road.

    Before her death, Ayanwole became suspicious after joining the empty dark bus at minutes past 7 pm when the driver refused to pick up other passengers. She confided in one of her friends, a colleague from work and expressed her fears, making both audio and video recordings that eventually help to identify the particular bus she had boarded, as the number of the bus was inscribed at an angle inside the bus.

    The Police said her corpse was later found lying on the Carter Bridge by Ogogoro Community, Lagos Island, but eyewitnesses said Ayanwole was still alive as at the time she was thrown out of the moving bus, with her lower region exposed. Her family has also claimed that her death was ritually motivated, alleging that certain parts of her body were missing, but the Police has countered the claim of body parts missing.

    Meanwhile, a magistrate court in Yaba has ordered that the arrested driver of the bus, Andrew Nice Omininikoron, be remanded in prison until April 11. No other suspect has been named in connection with the murder even though Ayanwole had hinted to her friend that the driver later picked two other men and one woman.

    “The police and the Department of State Service (DSS) picked up the driver, who ran to another state, where he was arrested. The full wrath of the law will be applied to whoever is found wanting in this matter and we will ensure the incident does not repeat itself,” Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu said.

    Ayanwole’s murder is certainly not the first to occur in the State this year and becomes the fifth viral case of suspected ritual killings in the country since 2022. In January, operatives of the Lagos State Police Command had arrested one 32-year-old man identified as Afeez Olalere, during a stop-and-search operation along Itamaga, Ikorodu Road, in Lagos for conniving with his mother to kill his 21-year-old brother for rituals.

    “My mother took me to a herbalist who told me if I want to be successful in the yahoo business, I will have to sacrifice one life and that person must be a sibling to me. The things he would need to prepare a concoction with are his thumbs, his hair, fingers and a passport photograph,” he confessed.

    Olalere, a suspected internet fraudster, who was in possession of his brother’s head and other body parts which he served from the body when he was arrested by the Police said his mother suggested that they use his younger brother since he was only 21 years old and she provided the poison which was used to lace his food.

    While the country reeled from the shock of this confession, the homicide of Sofiat Kehinde and Jennifer Anthony, both 20-years-old in separate events in Ogun and Plateau States by their lovers made news and it was discovered that parts of their bodies were also mutilated for the purpose of getting rich quick.

    Kehinde’s 18-year-old lover, Soliu Majekodunmi, confessed he killed her with the assistance of three of his friends, cut off her head and burnt it because they wanted to ride exotic cars and live in luxury apartments. Anthony’s killer, Moses Oko, was arrested on January 11 in Benue State where he fled to escape justice and now feigns to be mentally unstable as he faces trial.

    Another suspected ritual killer, Timothy Odeniyi, 35, was arrested by men of the Amotekun Corps in Ondo State, for being in possession of fresh human parts which he was to deliver to his “boss” in Lagos state in exchange for N30 million.

    Although Odeniyi claimed he did not kill anyone but only harvested the parts from a dead body at a cemetery, the Commander of Amotekun Corps in the state, Akogun Adeleye, said the suspect killed an unidentified man, severed his body parts and buried his remains in a shallow grave.

    “We want to intimate the public on the need to be very careful. Of late, the trend is shifting gradually from daily kidnapping to ritual killings. The public should be careful of the craze to make money by these young men,” Adeleye warned.

    In the meantime, two young ladies – Miracle Omeh and Temitope Abiodun Omisina – have been reported missing since last month. Omisina reportedly travelled to Ibadan and was returning to Lagos on the night of Thursday, February 17th, 2022 but has not returned home, while Omeh went missing on Saturday, February 12th 2022 after she went to visit a relation at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), and their whereabouts remain unknown.

    On March 8th, 28-year-old Ifeanyi Anigbo, a first-class alumnus of the Pan-Atlantic University was declared missing. He was reportedly last seen on Wednesday, March 2nd around the Catholic Church of the Annunciation, Abraham Adesanya Estate, Ajah Lagos.

    The never-ending spate of ritual killings in the country has sent shivers to Nigerians, who are now very worried even as Nigeria is ranked as the 16th most dangerous country to live in.

    While Nigerians join their friends and families to pray for their safe return, the House of Representatives has called for measures to beef up security and urged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency on ritual killings in the country.

  • Justice Dispensation: I didn’t blame Judiciary – Malami

    Justice Dispensation: I didn’t blame Judiciary – Malami

    Justice Minister Abubakar Malami, SAN, says he didn’t blamed the judiciary for delays in prosecution of high profile cases.

    Malami made this known in a statement by Dr Umar Gwandu, his Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations in Abuja on Wednesday.

    Malami was reacting to the press statement by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), which in turn was a reaction to suggestions that the Judiciary was responsible for delays in prosecution of high profile cases.

    Malami said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Government accords respect to the democratic provisions of the doctrine of separation of powers among the three independent and separate arms of government.

    The minister noted with dismay the way his response to a question in a recent interview was construed to evoke an unintended and non-existing inferences which some mischief makers projected him as blaming the judiciary.

    “It was an innocent statement aimed at showing and re-enactment of tripartite division of powers and responsibilities among the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary,” he said.

    Malami said the Federal Government maintained the sanctity of the provisions of sections 4, 5 and 6 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that delineate the roles and responsibilities of the executives, legislature and judiciary.

    “It is on this note that the Federal Government supported the review of Section 121(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to accommodate the provisions for financial autonomy of the state legislature and judiciary.

    “In addition to the Constitutional provisions, the Federal Government also came up with the Executive Order 10 to enforce the provision of autonomy of State Legislature and Judiciary.

    “It is on the record that the Buhari-led Federal Government has a record of non-interference with or meddling into the affairs of the legislature and judiciary”.

    He said that it was within the context of the quality and feature of non-interference by the Buhari-led Federal government and for the avoidance of sub-judice that he responded that high-profile cases were presented by the Federal Government for prosecution and the government came out with initiatives in its efforts to support speedy determination of justice.

    “This position was in consistent with the decision of the Court of Appeal in Hon. Abdullahi Maccido Ahmad v. Sokoto State House of Assembly & Anor, (2002) 44 WRN 52 where the Court Per Salami JCA held inter alia that;

    “The doctrine of separation of powers has three implications: that the same person should not be part of more than one of the arms or division of government;

    “That one branch should not dominate or control another arm. This is particularly important in the relationship between (the) executive and the courts;

    “That one branch should not attempt to exercise the function of the other…”

    The Minister said in view of the crucial role of the judiciary as an essential element of democratic system, the Federal Government gives attention to the budgetary provisions of the Judiciary in addition to welfare-packages meant to enhance their operations.

  • Man and the justice of heaven – By Hope Eghagha

    Man and the justice of heaven – By Hope Eghagha

    By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

    In the light of the extreme forces currently ravaging the cosmos, challenging, and disrupting the world moral order, killing off human beings like birds eating ants, with the ascendancy of impunity and strongarm tactics, it may be apposite to examine what may be the last resort of man- an appeal, a reminder that ultimately, there is Great One, the Almighty Force which will hold man accountable for evil deeds known and unknown. How many eardrums will catch the drift of this treatise is cause for worry. How many will heed the warning is another kettle of fish! Yet the spoken or written word is testimony of the wailing one against the rapists of the world order!

    Eternal justice is the final principle which governs the affairs of humanity, of the world and of the cosmological order. Justice is crucial to a balance of the forces of nature, and of the relationship between man and man and between man and the order of things, visible and invisible, now and in the future. Justice and its principles, go beyond man utterly. So, it is a forever thing. Man often does not comprehend the depth or scope or dynamism of justice. He often ignores the principles of justice, hoping, praying, and believing that nemesis will never catch up with him. He thinks that he will get away with acts of injustice, impunity, of infinite callousness to fellow human beings. How small-minded can man be sometimes!

    All the religions acknowledge this. Sophocles the classical dramatist once wrote: ‘Justice that dwells with the gods below, knows no such laws’, recognizes no law which oppress the poor and weak. Man in his spiritual state knows this. But when he is swept away by the pleasures of the transient world, those deep things become ephemeral and he floats into the world of injustice, destruction, oppression and annihilation of beings he cannot create.

    Justice, we are taught is ‘the quality of being just, impartial, or fair’. It is the ‘principle or ideal of just dealing or right action. It is further seen as ‘conformity to this principle or ideal. Right and wrong are embedded in our consciousness. Remember that we speak of actions that have consequence. We speak of actions carried out when man is conscious; of our hidden and open acts in the world which invariably have effects on the order of things, on us and our descendants. There be some who face the consequences of their actions this side of the world. Some it is automatic, ddirect, flowing from the actions which we have taken. And we weep, ‘why me?, forgetting that which we have wrought with our evil hands. ‘Nemesis’, a philosopher once wrote, ‘is that recoil of nature that ever surprises the most wary transgressor’.

    In the eyes of mortals, man may even get away with acts which trample upon the ideals and practice of justice. But justice which rules the world from above is the final arbiter in the fate of man. Of one’s final fate we are not in a position to tell. Power- physical, financial or otherwise- has the capacity to lead us to a delusion. And for this reason, we will believe a lie, live with the lie, and perhaps die with the lie. At some point in the journey of life we realize that the consequences of our action have locked us in time or have led us to destruction. That is justice!

    In our age, the State is charged with the responsibility to carry out justice through the courts, the lower and higher courts. Man knows that even institutions of State charged with the responsibility of discharging justice sometimes enter into a miscarriage. A learned judge could ‘misdirect himself, in the course of dispensing justice. A judge could be compromised by the powers-that-be or by promise of the notorious filthy lucre. For this reason appellate courts are created. It is true that even the highest court in the land could trivialize or distort the rules and dispense injustice. In that hour, man appeals to a higher authority whose hands may not be openly visible. But when we remember the words of the Perfect Master that ‘we shall reap whatever we sow’, the eternal truth and power of justice is not lost on the man whose mind has an open eye!

    Men of power, ensconced in the material luxury of filthy ephemerals, often delude themselves by thinking that their power is forever, and that they would never be accountable. Even when they have knowledge that their power is ephemeral, it registers as an abstraction, a distant event which may never come. They may even raise the delusion decibel by believing that they would ask God’s forgiveness in the twilight of their lives. And so the fool tells his Maker: God please grant me patience, but hurry!

    Those who understand that whereas we could, we may escape man’s justice, the final justice which rules the world is a perfect system, not to be bribed, coerced, twisted, distorted, or manipulated by anyone. No man can escape it. It is beyond the power of any powerful man. It is beyond the power of the most powerful religious leader or charlatan. Who knows what man sees when he finally closes his eyes in the final sleep? As dreams torment the transgressor of sacred rules, are the wicked tortured once they close their eyes? Is that what some call hell, the condition of perpetual pain and suffering? Are there some who live in hell even before they die physically? Are there some whose current physical illness is the result of their improper actions? Is that what some call ‘judgment day?

    So, when the philosopher in Soyinka posits that ‘the first condition of humanity is justice’, he calls to the deep. For, that moral compass which directs man in all his dealings must recognize right and wrong, even in the smallest of matters in both our public and private lives. It is the only guarantee of the continued existence of man in the cosmos. If the most favourable political ideology rests on injustice, on exploitation, on racism, the future of humanity would be threatened. It is this notion of justice that holds perpetrators of genocide accountable, now or in the future.

    As with the giver, so with the receiver. Those who dispense justice or injustice today will certainly face their fate someday. It is as certain as day and night. The ends of justice therefore should not be toyed with. When the wall tumbles and earth finally closes earth in its pit, it is not the end of the journey. It is the beginning of the journey into the final act of justice!

     

    Professor Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha can be reached on 08023220393.

  • Ige: 20 years without justice – By DAN AMOR

    Ige: 20 years without justice – By DAN AMOR

    By DAN AMOR

    A calculated insult and the guilt preceded his death, stealing from the actual murder all its potential impact and drama. There never was a crime more dramatically rehearsed, and the tale only provides it could not have been otherwise. Yet there were no clues to be uncovered, no enigmas to be revealed; for this was a murder almost predicted like its predecessors.

    When yours sincerely flew into Nigeria from Israel in December 2001, the first vulgar odour that polluted the Nigerian air was the news of the assassination of Chief Bola Ige. I met him physically for the first time on March 12, 1997 at the Faculty of Arts Quadrangle of the University of Ibadan on the occasion of the 50th birthday anniversary of Prof. Niyi Osundare, then head of the Department of English of the university. I had known the orator beyond reputation for just four years and he instantly became my hero until his painful exit.

    As a principled and astute politician, even though he agreed to serve in former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s cabinet, Chief Ige (Cicero Oke) did not preach to Nigerians. But he provoked questions and left us in no doubt as to where he stood. He shared none of the current tastes for blurred conflicts, ambiguous characters and equivocal opinions. Nor was he disdainful of strong dramatic situations building up for firm climaxes. From the critic’s point of view, the plot of Ige’s senseless murder in its high velocity treachery, summarizes modern Nigeria in one word: “shame”.

    In his epic novel, ‘SHAME’ (1983), Salman Rushdie, the Indian born controversial English writer, paints the picture of a disconcerting political hallucination in Pakistan, which he calls “Peccavistan” – existing fictionally as a slight angle to reality. The major thrust of the novel is that the shame or shamelessness of its characters returns to haunt them. Yet the recurrent theme is that there are things that cannot be said, things that can’t be permitted to be true, in a tragic situation. To this end, fiction and politics ultimately become identical or rather analogous. That so banal and damaging an emotion could have been so manifestly created from within the Yoruba nation itself, was a ringing surprise to us keen observers of that macabre drama. But the truth or falsehood of the accusation or counter-accusation is not of the first importance.

    The critical issue that must enlist our concern here is Nigeria’s sick criminal justice system and the poverty of integrity of its police force. Twenty odd years after the well-planned assassination of the Chief Law Officer of the world’s largest black nation (Chief Bola Ige was Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation when he was killed), his killers are still walking the streets of our cities without challenge. In short, twenty years after, no justice for the Justice Minister. In this sense, Nigeria is back in mediaeval times. The Orwellian qualities and nightmarish implications of the investigations make one sick since the whole exercise is as absurd as it is puerile.

    Only in Nigeria that a patriotic, brilliant and hardworking lawyer who turned in a prime suspect to the police for prosecution, be arrested and arranged by the same police before a court of law just to engage our false sense of judgement. Did the police not declare Fryo wanted in connection with Chief Ige’s murder? Only in Nigeria would a prime suspect in such a heinous crime be declared winner, released from detention and sworn in as Senator of the Federal Republic in an electoral contest for which he did not even campaign.

    The senseless and cowardly assassination of Chief Ige therefore serves to reassert the vulnerability of men and women and to poignantly underline their impotence. For, it is a well known fact that the vulture that eats the flesh of its neighbour knows what awaits it at death, as even the eyes that weep still see. To portray a credible part of moral degeneration is deadly enough in itself; yet, to do so in a dimension and style requiring undiminished pity is to court disaster. The attempt would be brash even in fiction or epic, with all of their additional resources for portraying subtle changes and for building sympathy.

    Little do we know that because we lack the intellectual precision and moral discipline to dissect with admirable lucidity and illuminating temper, the insularity and complexity of our turbulent society, we have resorted to primordial solutions to our national problems. Our recent experience in the hands of the military is replete with the shameful fact that almost two-thirds of our men and women of conscience and nobility of outlook or high integrity were either murdered or banished into exile in foreign lands and the rest condemned like guinea-pigs to a life of forced idleness in our stinking, unhygienic prisons and police cells.

    If we detest our memory of the unparalleled crudity of that dark era, what do we say of the murderous clouds hanging ominously over the entire nation in a so-called democratic dispensation? The truth is that Nigeria is still detained in the past. For the police not to have unraveled the enigma embedded in the mockery killing of the Attorney General and Justice Minister of the federation, twenty years after, shows that nothing has changed. From Dele Giwa, Chiefs Mashal Harry, A. K. Dikibo, Funso Williams, Mr. Abayomi Ogundeji, the Igwe couple, etcetera, the story remains the same: fate makes everything invisible and works its inexorable course. Remember the story of the emperor who wore no clothes? Only the innocent saw that he was naked.

    Why waste our time asking who killed Chief Bola Ige while the obvious question should be: why was Chief Bola Ige killed? It is patiently disastrous that our integrity as a nation has been consumed by a democracy gone mad. And if we are to grasp reality in the face of madness, it is the reality of Ige’s death that we must grasp. But this is one reality that sears us whenever we attempt to comprehend it, and so we try, by the use of our superficial investigations, to prove that the reality does not exist, despite our emphatically underlined knowledge to the contrary.

    We watch humanity grotesquely tormented, cruelly and with mockery impaled. Nearly all the characters suffer some form of crude indignity in the course of the tragedy. Yet, indeed, the overriding critical problem in this matter is the conspiracy of silence among the people of Nigeria. In spite of our pretensions, Ige’s death confronts us like a raw, fresh wound where our every instinct calls for a thorough examination. This problem, moreover, is as much one of political will and courage than of dramatic effect.

    Whether we believe it or not, our lives and freedom are hostages of our limited knowledge of the day after, the waywardness of chance and the decaying of our national institutions. It is only in fighting for others that we can circumvent these limitations. President Muhammadu Buhari was said to have promised to revisit these cases of high profile killings. More than five years after his promise, nothing has been heard from the presidency. Can anyone get justice in this country? Why was Chief Bola Ige killed?

  • Chile: Presidential choice between criminality and justice, By Owei Lakemfa

    By Owei Lakemfa

    Some of the most unspeakable crimes against a people was visited on the Chilean citizenry in 1973 with the nightmare continuing for about two decades.

    The Sunday, December 19, 2021 presidential election re-run between the beneficiaries of those crimes, and their victims, turned the elections into a stiff battle between barbarity and civilisation, cruelty and its victims, savagery and the people on whom it was visited. It emphasised the age-long dichotomy between fascism and democracy.

    The face-off in this year’s Chilean elections actually began in 1973 when the fascist forces in Chile and their American bosses concluded that with the popularity of radical President Salvador Allende, they had no hope of winning elections.

    So a coup by the Chilean Armed Forces led by General Augusto Pinochet was staged on September 11, 1973.

    But given the popularity of the government, the coup had to be one in which no prisoners would be taken.

    When it took place, President Allende, surrounded by vast enemy forces, refused to surrender and the plotters sent in the Air Force to level the Presidential Palace.Since resistance continued, the army resorted to shooting anybody found in the streets.

    Thousands of Chileans were detained in any available space, including the barracks, prisons, playgrounds and detention facilities.

    Then, the National Stadium was opened and detainees were cramped into it. In one of its most infamous actions, when the popular poet and musician, Victor Jara, who was detained in the stadium began to sing to cheer up people, the army ordered him to stop. When he refused, they started breaking his fingers. But he continued until all his fingers were broken. Finally, the army killed him.

    Thousands of Chilean were killed in the coup with over 40,000 detained. In the following years, many were detained and many in detention simply disappeared. This is the legacy of Pinochet.

    So the attempts to beatify Pinochet and get a party established in his honour elected was far worse than an attempt to present Adolf Hitler as a saint and get the Nazi Party in Germany elected.

    Indeed, apart from being a supporter of the late General Pinochet, José Antonio Kast, JAK, the presidential candidate of the fascists who had led in the first round, had a Nazi heritage.

    His father, Michael Kast was a German youth who on September 1, 1942, five months before his 18 birthday which would have made him eligible, had joined the Nazi National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP, with membership number 9271831.

    He also joined the German fascist army although he could not be held liable for this as there was a general call up of all German youths.

    The senior Kast migrated to Santiago, Chile in 1950 and the following year, his wife and two eldest children joined him. Eventually, the family established a restaurant chain.

    It is not certain under what political ideology Michael Kast, who died in 2014, brought up his children, but they turned out to be fascists.

    JAK’s brother, Miguel Kast, was the Chilean Governor of the Central Bank under Pinochet.

    JAK, himself the son of German migrants, campaigned in the elections to stop Haitian and Venezuelan migrants whom he accused them of being the criminals in Chile. He emphasised on a fascist control of the state and conservative social values.

    His campaign spokesperson was Macarena Santelices, a great-niece of General Pinochet. The Pinochet coup against democracy had been organised by the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and bankrolled by the International Telephone and Telegraphic, ITT, Corporation.

    JAK, an admirer of the incumbent fascist President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who had assumed he was headed for a clear victory, travelled to the United States a week before the rerun to brief investors and Senator Marco Rubi on the policies of his in-coming ‘administration’.

    It is in Nollywood films, good always overcomes evil; in reality, it is often a savage fight between the two with no way of predicting the winner.

    In human history, and in more contemporary times, evil people have often won, and they almost did in the Chilean elections with the coalition which ironically called itself the Christian Social Front.

    This coalition included the Republican Party and the Christian Conservative Party. This front regards the Chilean fascist, General Pinochet, as its patron saint and wants to continue his Hitlerite legacy.

    This coalition had built up like a category five storm and was ready to sweep the polls, when the victims of Pinochet and their heirs harkened to the battle cry which resonated in the voice of a 35-year-old mass protest leader, Gabriel Boric.

    They then built the widest coalition of victims ever seen in the country.

    The movement simply called itself ‘Social Convergence’ as it was truly a convergence of all who want to bury the Pinochet legacy and re-orientate large sections of the populace which under Pinochet were fed diets of savagery and had been conditioned to accept brutality and criminality in governance as a normal.

    This progressive coalition included The Commons, Democratic Revolutionary and Common Force parties.

    In the November 2021 presidential election, JAK, the candidate of the Pinochet party, won with 1,961,779 votes or 27.91 per cent.

    Boric came second with 1,815,024 votes or 25.82 per-cent. With votes split in various ways and without a clear winner, a rerun had to hold.JAK assumed that with the rerun, he would rally other parties and secure a landslide.

    He told his supporters: “Chile deserves peace and freedom – and that’s what we’re going to give you…We are going to choose between freedom and communism – between democracy and communism”.

    On the other hand, Boric expressed confidence that “hope will triumph over fear.”

    In the rerun, the silent Chilean population especially in the rural areas woke up to the reality of another fascist government looming in the horizon; they turned out in record numbers pushing the voter turnout of 47 per cent in the first round, to 56 per cent.

    This secured Boric 55.9% of the votes and the Chilean Presidency which he is scheduled to assume in March 2022.In his victory speech in a country where one per cent of the population owns 25 per cent of the wealth, Boric declared: “We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding that our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business.

    “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, but we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”

    With the victory of progressive forces in the Bolivian, Honduran, and now, Chilean elections, the forces of fascism are in retreat in Latin America; once more, a demonstration that a people united can change their circumstances.

     

  • FG talks tough, says IPOB/ESN members will not escape justice for abducting, beheading police officers

    FG talks tough, says IPOB/ESN members will not escape justice for abducting, beheading police officers

    The Federal Government has condemned the recent murder of two policemen in the South-East, warning that those who carried out the killings will be apprehended and brought to justice.

    Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, gave the assurance during a press conference in Lagos on Monday.

    Although the Anambra State Police Command had said two officers were attacked in the state over the weekend and their bodies burnt afterward, Mohammed, however, was not specific if the November 27 attack was the same as that which took place in Anambra.

    In a statement issued by his spokesman, Segun Adeyemi, the Minister described the abduction of three policemen and the killing of two of them as the most horrific and barbaric, saying it was an unacceptable attack against the state.

    “We have credible information that ASP Francis Idoko (AP No. 154945); Inspector Emmanuel Akubo (AP No. 222336) and Inspector Rufai Adamu (AP. No. 285009), all serving officers of the Nigeria Police, were abducted by members of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), acting on the instructions of their leader, Chinonso Okafor, aka TEMPLE, on 27 November 2021,” the Minister said.

    “Two of the officers, Inspectors Akubo and Adamu, were killed in the most gruesome manner and their decapitated bodies videotaped and circulated widely. The leader of the ESN team that killed the two officers is one ‘GENTLE’.

    “Chinonso Okafor, the most influential commander of ESN in charge of Imo and Anambra States, as well as ‘Gentle’ and all those who perpetrated the abhorrent act will be made to face swift and sure justice.”

    He noted that the targeting and killing of security agents, under any guise, is a direct attack on the state and will not be tolerated.

    The Minister wondered why those calling for a political solution to the IPOB issue have yet to condemn the appalling murder of serving police officers.

    He equally paid tribute to the officers, who made the supreme sacrifice in the service of their fatherland, as well as all security agents who are serving the nation to the best of their abilities in a most difficult moment.

    Mohammed condoled with the families of the slain officers, praying that God will comfort and strengthen them.

  • #EndSARS report: We expect accountability, justice for all victims – US Secretary of State Blinken

    #EndSARS report: We expect accountability, justice for all victims – US Secretary of State Blinken

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States welcomes the conclusion of the independent panel of inquiry established by the Lagos State government to look into the events that took place at the Lekki Toll Gate in October, 2021.

    Blinken stated this during a briefing at the State House in Abuja on Thursday, shortly after he met with President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

    He said, “This report is amidst the EndSARS protest including the killings and other alleged abuses by security forces.

    “We anticipate and look to the state and federal governments’ response to the findings and expect these to include steps that show accountability and address the grievances of the victims and their families.”

    The Secretary of State further noted that the US is working with the Nigerian government to help those who are most affected by conflict and violence in the country, particularly in the Northeast.

    He stated that the United States is providing vital humanitarian aid to approximately 2.2 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).

    Blinken’s statement comes shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari said the Federal Government will allow the system to exhaust itself, and will, therefore, wait for pronouncements from state governments that set up panels to probe police brutality in the country.

    “So many state governments are involved, and have given different terms of reference to the probe panels,” spokesman, Femi Adesina quoted the president as saying.

    “We at the Federal have to wait for the steps taken by the states, and we have to allow the system to work. We can’t impose ideas on them. Federal Government has to wait for the reaction of the states.”

  • Invasion of Odili’s home appeared like mission to kill, maim her – Supreme Court

    Invasion of Odili’s home appeared like mission to kill, maim her – Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court management, on Tuesday, broke its silence on Friday’s raid on the home of one of its Justices, Mary Odili.

    In a statement by its Director, Press and Information, Festus Akande, the apex court said the invasion which “depicted a gory picture of war” appeared like a mission to kill or maim her.

    It said the raid carried out under the guise of undertaking a search based on a “questionable and baseless” warrant was “uncivilised and shameful”.

    “We are alarmed with the news of the unwarranted and despicable raid on the official residence of one of our senior justices in the Supreme Court, Hon. Justice Mary Peter Odili, JSC, CFR on Friday October 29, 2021 in a Gestapo manner that unfortunately depicted a gory picture of war by some armed persons suspected to be security operatives representing different agencies of government, who seemed to have come to kill and maim their target under the guise of undertaking a search whose warrant was questionable and baseless.

    “We are deeply saddened and taken aback by this uncivilized and shameful show of primitive force on an innocent judicial officer that has so far spent several years of her productive life serving the country she calls her own.”

    Condemning the raid, the apex court drew parallels between it and the similar one carried out by the State Security Service (SSS) operatives on the houses of some judges, including two Justices of the Supreme Court, in Abuja and other parts of the country in 2016.

    In a fashion like the SSS operatives’ 2016 invasion of judges’ homes, some security operatives including police officers laid a siege to the home of Mrs Odili, the wife of a former Governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, at Imo Street, Maitama, Abuja, on late Friday.

    A chief superintendent of police, Lawrence Ajodo, had applied for and obtained a search warrant from the Wuse Zone 6 magistrate’s court in Abuja, for execution on the Maitama, Abuja residence of Mrs Odili, who is the second most senior justice of the apex court.

    Mr Ajodo claimed, in the court document, to be acting on behalf of a certain joint asset recovery team allegedly being coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Justice.

    He said the application was based on an ongoing investigation into whistleblower information suggesting that “criminal activities” were taking place in the house.

    Security operatives invaded the home on October 29 to execute the search warrant obtained from the magistrate’s court, but it was doubtful they were able to gain entry.

    The magistrate who issued the search warrant reportedly revoked it later that day on the grounds that he was misled to issue it.

    The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, who superintends over the Federal Ministry of Justice, distanced himself from the raid and the court processes on Saturday.

    “This incident brought back, rather painfully, the ugly memory of the October 2016 midnight invasion of the homes of our respected justices with no satisfactory explanations as to the true motive behind such brazen assault on our collective sensibility,” the Supreme Court’s statement said.

    The apex court said the judiciary being the third arm of the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria “should be respected and treated as such”.

    “We have had a full dosage of this fusillade of unwarranted and unprovoked attacks on our judicial officers and even facilities across the country and we say it loudly now that enough is enough.”

    It added that the judiciary should never be misconstrued by any individual or institution of government as the weeping child among the three arms of government that must always be chastised and ridiculed to silence because of our conservative disposition.

    The Supreme Court it had carried out an investigation into the incident, but also called on the Inspector-General of Police, Alkali Baba, to discretely probe the matter and make its outcome public.

    “We commenced a full-scale independent investigation to unravel the true masquerades behind the mystery as well as the real motives behind the whole imbroglio,” the statement said, but did not disclose the findings of the probe.

    It added : “Similarly, we call on the Inspector General of Police of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to rise up to the occasion by carrying out a discreet investigation and make his findings known to the Nigerian public with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice as quickly as possible.”

  • Miyetti Allah, Governors and Justice, By Sonnie Ekwowusi

    Miyetti Allah, Governors and Justice, By Sonnie Ekwowusi

    By Sonnie Ekwowusi

    Make no mistake about it, the latest resolve of the federating units to collect VAT within their respective units and use the revenue generated therefrom solely for the development of their units as well as enact anti-open grazing laws in order to protect the lives and property of their citizens are indicative of the direction Nigeria is irreversibly, inexorably and irresistibly headed-restructuring so as to create greater regional autonomy and weak centre. The power of the Federal Government under the 1999 Constitution to keep custody and determine the terms and manner of the revenue and allocation of the funds that accrue to the Federation Account to the detriment of the federating units is, to say the least, an unconscionable socio-economic and political injustice. Considering the new self-determinist wave blowing across the different States of the Federation at the moment, I wager that in no distant future all these unproductive parasites idling away in different government offices in Abuja and waiting for monthly allocation and free money will be going hungry for lack of free money. It is a case of Monkey dey work baboon dey chop otherwise how can you rationalize the fact that idle parasites are constantly feeding fat from the revenue generated and wealth created by the federating units?. Happily, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has woken up other State Governors from their slumbers to reality. This is why these State Governors are now enacting the VAT laws in their respective States in order to utilize the revenues accruing therefrom for the socio- economic and cultural development of their respective regions. Lagos State enacted theirs last penultimate week. It is not unlikely that more States will follow suit.

    Additionally, the State governments are enacting their respective anti-open grazing laws in order to get rid of the nuisance of the Fulani herdsmen attacks and killers. Penultimate week I listened to the arguments of the Miyetti Allah chieftains on why the anti-open grazing laws are satanic and therefore should be brought out and quashed. According to the said chieftains, the anti-open grazing laws will work untold hardship and injustice on the Fulani cattle herders and Fulani pastoralists; that the State Governors should learn to accommodate their Fulani herdsmen brothers; that the anti-open grazing laws would send the Fulani herdsmen and millions of people who depend on the livestock value chain into poverty; that the anti-open grazing laws will threaten the social order and undermine the relative peace and stability enjoyed between farmers and Fulani pastoralists in local communities.

    The above arguments, with the greatest respect, are bunkum. They are myopic, unintelligible and gutter arguments and therefore should be ignored by the State Governors. It is a paradox that the Miyetti Allah chieftains are complaining that untold hardship and injustice are being visited on the Fulani herdsmen when in fact it is the herdsmen who are terrorizing innocent local farmers, destroying their crops and farm lands, forcefully dispossessing them of their farmlands and occupying same, raping, maiming and murdering the citizens in their thousands?. Do these chieftains truly understand the meaning of the notion of justice? Do they think that we are fools or what?. Who or what can be adjudged as satanic, Miyetti Allah or anti-open grazing laws?. It is obvious that these chieftains are not reasoning properly otherwise they would not have glossed over the atrocities and crimes being committed by the Fulani herdsmen across Nigeria in demanding for their so-called open grazing right? Is Miyetti Allah not aware that the anti-open grazing laws are the fallout of the atrocities and crimes being committed by the Fulani herdsmen?

    Anyway I don’t blame Miyetti Allah for challenging the State Governors. Why won’t they try to wrestle down the State Governors when Mr. President is solidly behind them?. The reader knows very well that the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, founded in 1970 with the primary objective of promoting the welfare of Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria, has been acting as a parallel or alternative government under the Buhari government. To begin with, the Miyetti Allah is above the law of the land. It meddles in the affairs of government. In fact, the Miyetti Allah is such a powerful alternative government that it can call for the resignation of an elected public office holder. Read again the excerpt of the ultimatum issued by Miyetti Allah to the then Senate President Saraki, “We are tired of Saraki’s style of leadership at the National Assembly. Therefore, we are now warning him to honourably resign his position as President of the Senate or we will force him out.”. Similarly in the aftermath of the killing of about 200 Nigerians on the Plateau State, the Miyetti Allah quicky issued a statement accepting responsibility for the killings. The worst was that instead of regretting that they had wasted many precious human lives on the Plateau, the Miyetti Allah regretted that they had lost about 300 cows. Which means that cow lives are more valuable to Miyetti Allah than human lives. According to Chairman of the North Central zone of Miyetti Allah Danladi Ciroma, “These attacks are retaliatory…“We lost 300 cows, no one should expect peace in Plateau…” .

    To date, the Miyetti Allah still thirsts for human blood. It has continued to utter statements that clearly verge on treason and treasonable felony. It rejects ranching. It has warned that no State in Nigeria has a right to enact anti-open grazing law. It issues threats and ultimatums. Yet the Miyetti Allah is neither proscribed nor prosecuted as a terrorist organization. Instead of proscribing or prosecuting the Miyetti Allah, President Buhari is openly supporting them. Despite murdering many Nigerians the Fulani herdsmen are still moving around freely in Nigeria aided and abetted by our security operatives. Instead of raising such an alarm that the Fulani herdsmen are committing crimes across Nigeria, President Buhari prefers to be raising an alarm that the Fulani herdsmen criminals are not being protected or granted “grazing right” by the State Governors. Do Mr. President and Miyetti Allah understand that right, in the words of the late Supreme Court Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, is not a one-way traffic? Right is reciprocal. Right is intertwined with and conditioned by duties. For example, the “right” of Fulani herdsmen to be freely going about and killing their fellow citizens stops where the right to life of their fellow citizens begins. Besides, what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. If Mr. President and Miyetti Allah are raising an alarm that the Fulani herdsmen are denied open grazing right, why are they not equally raising an alarm that the same Fulani herdsmen are killing, maiming and raping Nigerian citizens? It is worrisome that Mr. President and Miyetti Allah are yet to understand that by virtue of the Land Use Act all the lands in the various Nigerian States are exclusively vested in the various State Governors (not in the Presidency or Fulani herdsmen) who are at liberty to grant or convey or assign same to any applicant for his use.

    Anyway, the State Governors are unyielding and unbending in their resolve to enact and enforce the anti-open grazing laws to the letter. No amount of cajole, cheap blackmail or open or veiled intimidation can deter them from this resolve. Under our presidential democracy governed by the principle of separation of power and all that, neither President Buhari nor Miyetti kingpins can dictate to our elected State Governors and State legislators the way and manner of enacting their laws. The State Governors and State legislators are primarily accountable to the citizens of their respective States not to President Buhari or Miyetti Allah. State laws are enacted in consonance with the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of the respective States not the wishes of Miyetti Allah. Therefore if the State legislators, after due and proper consultation with the stakeholders and people of their respective States, have resolved to enact the anti-open grazing laws in order to protect the lives and property of the citizens of their respective States, President Buhari and Miyetti Allah have no right to interrogate them for doing that.