Opinion: N2bn Arms Deal, Loot Recovery Or Brute Gunnery

By Jude Ndukwe

Since the issue of the alleged $2bn loot recovery spree by the Buhari-led administration came to the fore, Nigerians have been grossly entertained by the principal actors in the macabre dance of “nollywood” actions “based on true life stories” spanning over a long period of series (or is it seasons now?) especially by the protagonists of State who are overzealously bent on acting out a script in order to receive lead roles in other subsequent movies as written by the democratic dictator, the writer, director and producer of the movies.

In this movie, the one that has been pencilled down for ultimate victimisation and humiliation is former President Goodluck Jonathan, the one that must die is Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Nigeria’s immediate National Security Adviser (NSA). How these two agenda is achieved is immaterial, it does not matter if the innocent are punished in the process, the laws of the land are grossly flouted, court orders are brazenly defied or judges humiliated in the process. It does not matter if rights of the citizens are grossly abused, if the rule of law is trampled upon and if executive gangsterism is applied in achieving the dictator’s wish.

Or how can one explain the fact that the Department of State Services have been acting in manners akin to a country run without laws and processes? How can one explain the fact that Dasuki was granted bail by a competent court of law to seek medical attention abroad for just three weeks due to the nature of his illness and had a credible surety who would be made to stand trial in his place should he jump bail in the person of a former governor, Boni Haruna, yet, Dasuki was turned back from the airport twice and prevented from travelling for the purpose of getting treatment. Upon that, the DSS subsequently laid siege to his house for close to one month effectively placing him under house arrest.

Suppose one even agrees with the DSS that the medical condition for which Dasuki is seeking medical attention abroad could be effectively treated in Nigeria, the siege laid to his house would not have even allowed him to go out to seek the needed attention even if the hospital was just next door. If not that the idea is to have him killed by instalments, even when his house was eventually stormed, raided and he was forcefully taken away, what a well-trained and humane security agency would have done would have been to take him first to a hospital for checks and possible management of his ailment since he had been denied same one month after it was due in order for him to be able to stand the rigours of trial. Rather, he was taken into custody and subjected to possible harrowing process of questioning that could aggravate his medical condition. Like Justice Adeniyi Ademola noted, it is only a living being that can stand trial.

But some of our security agencies under Buhari do not care. In fact, the judicial process is too long for them and too protective of the innocent that is supposed to be found guilty only after trial, they would rather see their victims diminish up to the point of death. It is rumoured that this is the same strategy that was used to achieve the Diepreye Alamieyeseigha tragedy!

One wonders what kind of country delights in seeing its citizens die before facing justice. In saner and more civilised climes, it causes the authorities pain when a suspect dies without facing justice, or when death snatches even a convict prematurely because to them death grants these suspects/convicts the pleasure of escaping the full wrath of the law. But in our own country, where justice is clothed with vengeance and law laced with vendetta, a suspect can as well be “killed” deliberately or otherwise as a way of “paying for his/her sins of the past” rather than be made to face justice and enjoy the luxury of a humiliating judicial process even if he would have been found innocent in a free and fair trial. It does not matter as long as the dictator has exacted vengeance by hook or by crook even if in the name of loot recovery.

No one is advocating that those who looted our treasury should not be made to face the music. In fact, they should all go to jail for the great disservice they have done to this nation over the years. But in doing this, those of us who advocate that treasury looters be made to face the music must also be satisfied at the end of the whole process that the man going to jail for this purpose or for any other criminal purpose is being sent to jail after a trial that is not only fair but seen to be fair. It is only after this that the looters would go to jail satisfied and the looted would heave a sigh of justice without any doubt in the process or pricked by their conscience.

Lastly, and unfortunately, a section of the media has joined in this diabolic trend of demonising and pronouncing people guilty even before they stand trial. All in the zeal to play out their own part of the script, they throw up names and make claims that are not only spurious but false in its entirety just to whip up public sentiment against the one that must die, that is, the suspect. The plan is to use their mediums to influence justice and judges by creating a false impression that the opinion of the sentimentalised must be the way the judiciary must go. Fortunately, and as seen over the years, the judiciary is hardly swayed by such tactics. Those who go to the courts must go with incontrovertible evidence. That is what the courts work on and not the parade of charade of some media charlatans.

In conclusion, the Gestapo-style with which the DSS carries out its assignment leaves no one in doubt about their motives. The plethora of gross invasion of homes, both private and official, forceful evictions with reported exchange of gunfire, defiance of court orders etc, leaves no one in doubt about where our democracy is quickly and surely heading to. If we eventually get there at the rate things are going, both the protagonists and the antagonists might not enjoy the privilege of saying a romantic goodbye to each other! It is Sambo Dasuki, Nnamdi Kanu and Kayode Are today, it could be anyone else tomorrow!

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[email protected]; Twitter: @stjudendukwe

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