Date Published: 11/15/09

Who is keeping Nigeria’s book of infamy? By Idang Alibi

You do not need any one with any special gift of insight to know that there will be a day of reckoning in Nigeria. That day will be the day when men and women who have jointly or severally done one thing or another to bring this potentially great nation low will be called upon to account for their misdeeds.

No one, except God, can say for certain when that day will come. But I am certain about one thing: that the day will surely come for as the Holy Books say, no sinner will go unpunished. My haunch is that a man more ruthless than J.J. Rawlings of Ghana will come soon to cleanse the Augean Stable that Nigeria has surely become. My problem however is that when such a man comes, what records is he going to rely upon to bring the accused to book?

I joke to some of my friends that Nigeria is a nation of awaiting trial inmates. So many people have done so many despicable things against Mother Nigeria that those who are not already convicts and in jail houses are walking about proudly and without remorse only because a righteous judge has not yet come on the throne. When the man of destiny who will come to cleanse the mess happens unto the throne, there will be a gnashing of teeth by millions. On that day those who have done obvious and not so obvious things to despoil Nigeria will be made to answer. Do I sound apocalyptic? Ignore what I am saying here at your own peril.

The fear however, is that since the death of Gani, who was undoubtedly the most authentic conscience of the nation, there is no man I can see now who is meticulous in record-keeping and who has a missionary zeal to punish wrong doers who may be relied upon to provide the revolution with a record of who and who have done precisely what wrong at what time and in what measure so that each can get his just deserts.

We urgently need a man or woman who can be called a Chronicler of Nigeria’s National Infamy. His brief, as his name implies, is to keep the books of all the sins, misdemeanours and the acts of omissions and commissions with ruinous effects that people have committed against Mother Nigeria. In that book the Chronicler will meticulously and impartially document the sins each of our nationals has committed against the laws of our nation and those against the laws of God Almighty. Some have even committed crimes against humanity as their wrongs have contributed to the death of thousands.

I am worried that there may be no reliable record to work with because our secret services which are supposed to keep unbiased records to aid in such a national cleansing have become so badly compromised that I doubt if any righteous crusader can rely on whatever records they come up with. Our secret service agencies instead of serving the best interests of the state now serve the interest of any regime in power. Witness the el-Rufai passport saga as an example. It has since come to light that the sacked Director General of the National Intelligence Agency who ought to advise the government of the day about what to do to enhance Nigeria’s image abroad is the very one who issued a memo that our foreign service should become a tool in the scheme to victimise some citizens that the government of the day perceives as its enemies. The name of that guy who has more or less been conveniently made a scapegoat in order to distance the presidency from the whole sordid affair, ought to be in that book of infamy as the kind of bureaucrats we do not need in a new Nigeria that will soon come.

It is truly lamentable that all institutions and agencies that are supposed to protect the state have all become tools for committing acts of infamy against Nigeria. That is why nothing is working in our country today or working in a straight manner.

Civil servants who are supposed to check the excesses of politicians are now hands-in-glove with them in the grand raping of Nigeria. Members of parliament who are to act as a check on the executive now surpass the executive in stealing and graft. The law courts are increasingly becoming a tool for unconscionable politicians to achieve their political objectives. The judges give certain strange rulings that completely defy common sense and justice.

Is there any one noting those judges who abuse their oath of office by giving interim injunction in order to serve a particular political interest? Is there any one recording in our national book of infamy those judges who in electoral disputes use the same body of facts but arrive at different pronouncements depending on who is involved? The Election Tribunal verdict on the governorship in Zamfara and Sokoto states will be of special interest to future corrector of things in Nigeria.

Who are those doctors who abuse their Hippocratic Oath by refusing to treat patients who are in critical condition unless money is deposited? Who is keeping record of those notorious lecturers who are supposed to teach the girls put under their care good morals but who end up betraying the trust put in them by sleeping with people’s wives and daughters?

Is there any one keeping records of those ministers who are supposed to travel abroad for official duties with some aides but who collect the estacodes of those aides, pocket them and go alone? What of some of those male ministers who may ‘bench’ one of the aides and substitute him with a girl friend so that they can have a good time abroad at the expense of the nation?

Who is keeping records of EFCC operatives who turn around to blackmail the thieves they are supposed to haul to court and ask them for settlement so that they can be left alone? In Nigeria many thieve catchers are themselves greater thieves.

Is there any one keeping records of officials of INEC and other regulatory institutions who are supposed to be impartial officials of state but who end up as partial judges? Who is keeping the record of journalists who are expected to tell the truth but who now give dubious awards to persons they know full well are dishonourable men and women?

Who is keeping record of those pastors and imams who dine and wine with politicians they know are oppressing the people? We direly need a record keeper to aid justice in this land.