BY Emmanuel Onwubiko
Ruminating typically on what may have served as intellectual but fictional
inspirations for one of the world’s most brutal tyrants, Adolf Hitler of
pre-World War 2 Germany, I came up with the findings that there were
specific cowboy novels that played that role.
This brutal dictator Adolf part Hitler apart from creating cross country
and cross borders’ disagreements and problems that precipitated the Second
World War is held responsible for the genocides of over 6 million Jews.
One of such novels are the adventure stories of Karl May set in the
American Southwest have charmed millions of Germans, but especially
Hitler, who patterned Nazi policies on their plots.
Alan Gilbert, a John Evans Professor at the Josef Korbel School of
International Studies, University of Denver, offered clearer elucidation
on these adventures.
His words: “The aura of Indian names—Massachusetts, Monangahela, Arapahoe
County, Mississippi, Minnesota—hangs over America, even after the
indigenous people are often gone. A Founding Amnesia has long erased the
stories of Native Americans in history texts and the media. From silent
movies until the ’60s, “cowboys and Indians”—John Wayne as a hero, “Apache
blood” as a sign of “savagery”—were fixtures and fixations of Hollywood
films, the last bastion of the ugly, 19th century military watchword
Manifest Destiny.”
“Thanks to the resistance of the American Indian Movement, however, the
record has been corrected, at least in part, to reflect the actual stories
of white America’s encounters with native people: tales of expropriation,
admirable resistance, and genocide from coast to coast. Nonetheless, the
Smithsonian still has a collection of 20,000 indigenous skulls, cut off in
massacres, the flesh boiled down. Many had initially been sent to Dr.
Samuel George Morten to concoct 19th century anthropometry, a
pseudo-science of “racial” measurements alleging “Anglo-Saxon”
superiority. But in 1990, Congress at last passed NAGPRA, the Native
American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. Slowly, slowly, body parts
are being returned to indigenous communities for burial.”
An avid reader may by now be swimming in the imaginative pool of what
nexus there is between the above narratives and the existential narratives
of our contemporary political existence in Nigeria Vis-à-vis the
corelationship between the executive and judicial branches of government.
But you need not wonder any further because the earliest impressions of
how bellicose and tumultuous the relationship that exists between these
two arms of government currently, manifested with the refusal of President
Muhammadu Buhari to respect three separate court orders to release on bail
the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Director of
the United Kingdom based Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu.
The current federal administration also showed disobedience and discontent
against an order of a high court of Abuja which asked it to release on
bail the erstwhile National Security Adviser to the President Colonel
Sambo Dasuki.
Colonel Dasuki as he then was is said to be the young military officer who
played key role in the palace coup that saw the overthrow of the then
military ruler Major General Muhammadu Buhari who now as a retired
Infantry Major General succeeded in winning election after four
attempts as the democratically elected President.
Buhari as the head of the executive branch of government is by virtue of
Section 6 of the Constitution not clothed with the Judicial Powers of the
federation but is obliged to respect all orders of competent courts of law
which rightly exercise such Constitutional Mandate to adjudicate over all
matters.
It is being interpreted that personal vendetta is behind the ordeals of
the former National Security Adviser who is facing multiple accusations of
alleged diversion of security votes of nearly $2 Billion USD.
President Muhammadu Buhari has denied all these conspiracy theories weaved
around the contrived ordeals of Colonel Sambo Dasuki.
Nnamdi Kanu is also receiving these Illegal treatments because as the
inspiration behind the global agitation for the restoration of Biafra in
line with international humanitarian laws such as the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights regarding self-determination
clause, he has reportedly angered Muhammadu Buhari for his attacks
through the Europe based Radio Biafra of the personality of Buhari.
It would seem the judiciary was cajoled and arm twisted using security
apparatuses at the disposal of the Executive arm of government to kowtow
to the caprices and whims of the powers that be in Abuja currently.
Aside President Buhari’s failure to respect binding court orders in the
above cases, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has since
unleashed incredible disrespect for courts of competent jurisdiction and
has on many occasions been compelled to cough out huge compensation and
legal fines for serially engaging in illegal and arbitrary arrests and
detention of suspects.
This writer attended the Abuja Pre-London anti-graft summit which was
convoked by the Ministry of Justice and funded by the department of
international development (DFID) of the British Council during which an
aspect of the position paper drafted by the office of the Federal Attorney
General States that there is a strategy being put in place whereby
anti-graft watch dogs such as the agencies under the direct purview of the
executive arm of government would be mandated to monitor life styles of
Judges.
The above position can only be acceptable if Nigeria is part of the
adventure stories of Karl May expounded above or if members of the
Executive branch of government have self-transmuted into EXECUTIVE
COWBOYS.
Some judges especially those handling the aforementioned cases seems to
have bowed to the overreaching and insidious powers of the Executive to
issue frivolous verdicts denying the duo of Sambo Dasuki and Daniel Kanu
of the bails which other courts of competent jurisdiction had granted
earlier. IN this instance we can assume that most judges are now judicial
cowards. Put this side by side with the fact that the National Judicial
hierarchy are going cap in hand to veg the executive arm of government to
increase its budgetary appropriations shows a picture of a judiciary that
has been totally subjugated.
If this is the true picture then our democracy is imperiled because the
most fundamental ingredients of virile democracy is the constitutional
principles of separation of Powers and the independence of the Judiciary.
This plot to institutionally weaken the Independence of the Judicial arm
of government by an executive branch whose top officials have set out to
arm twist judges to decide cases in the favor of government through
subterfuge is a direct affront to the constitution of Nigeria which
provided for separation of powers.
The Constitution of Nigeria in Section 158(1) unambiguously states as
follows: “In exercising its power to make appointments or to exercise
disciplinary control over persons, the Code of Conduct Bureau, the
National Judicial Council, the Federal Civil Service Commission, the
Federal judicial Service Commission, the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal
Commission, the Federal Character Commission, and the Independent National
Electoral Commission, shall not be subject to the direction or control of
any other authority or person.”
This shows that the adventures by EFCC and office of minister of Justice
and the Presidency to subjugate and cow the judiciary into institutional
surrender of its independence to the executive branch of government are
absolutely unlawful and illegal.
Few years back, a justice of the supreme court of Nigeria Emmanuel
Olayinka Ayoola had warned of the dire consequences of any attempt by the
executive arm of government to usurp the powers of the judicial arm.
Delivering a lecture titled: “The importance of the rule of law in
sustaining democracy and good governance”, the retired Supreme Court
Justice had asserted that: “Although the Constitution says that
‘sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria’, it is clear that
sovereignty can only be exercised through the Constitution by adherence to
and enforcement of the values which are fundamental to the Constitution.
Elected representatives of the people, empowered by a democratic
franchise, can abuse the terms of representation with impunity if there is
no institution to call them to order”.
He proceeded thus: “This is why the role, which the judiciary should
perform as guardian not only of the Constitution but also of its values,
cannot be taken lightly. Where the judiciary abdicates that role either
deliberately or because of insufficient awareness of its responsibilities,
the Constitution is trampled upon and disrespected. The result is
despotism as was witnessed in the period of military rule.”
Despite all the Constitutional safeguards and the moral and ethical
challenges that follows the attempt by officials of the executive arm of
government to intimidate, harass and coerce the judiciary to do their
biddings, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Department
of State Services have continued in their bad ways thereby portraying
themselves as executive cowboys.
For instance, a certain Abuja High Court Judge was so disappointed by the
brazen disobedience to his orders by the Department of State Security
recently that he openly threatened to throw the case file away unless the
suspect is produced in Court on the next adjourned date.
Shortly after, the acting chairman of EFCC Mr. Ibrahim Maju an assistant
commissioner of police was quoted in the media to have threatened to
investigate Judges who are in the “habit” of granting bails to suspects
facing anti-graft cases brought by the anti-graft panel.
The powers to grant bail to suspects is at the discretion of judges so
Ibrahim Magu can only be referred to as an executive cowboy if he carries
through his threats and intimidation against judges.
As if they were keeping faith to the old saying that “bad habit die hard”,
the EFCC have severally threatened to deal with Defence counsels
challenging them in courts even as that agency recently dismissed the
Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) as an organization made up of rogues and
vultures.
This extremely vexatious description of the Nigerian Private bar by EFCC
resulted from an innocuous position taken by the newly sworn in President
of the NBA Alhaji A.B. Mohmood (SAN) that the EFCC needs to be divested of
prosecutorial powers so it can face investigations.
But the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) took a swipe at
the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for demanding that its prosecutorial
powers be whittled down.
According to EFCC, such call should not be made by a bar peopled with
suspected rogues and vultures incapable of being professional and
objective in the on-going anti-corruption war.
The Head, Media and Publicity of EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, who rebuked NBA in
a statement, disagreed with the association’s proposition, which
specifically stated that the role of the commission be limited to
investigation alone.
The NBA had at its 56th Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers
State advocated the reform of EFCC and the Judiciary.
Its President, Abubakar Mahmoud, who delivered his inaugural speech
shortly after being sworn in as the 28th President of the NBA at the
occasion, called for the review of the broad operations of the EFCC as an
investigative and prosecutorial agency, recommending that the commission
should be limited to only investigation.
But Uwujaren attacked the character of the messenger by saying that the
commission viewed with concern, the call by the NBA president that the
EFCC be stripped of its prosecutorial powers and deplored the views.
Hear him: “A bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues
and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.”
Uwujaren noted that, “More importantly, the commission cannot comprehend
how the redefinition of EFCC’s mandate in narrow terms, ultimately
whittling it down, fits into the clamor by Nigerians and the vision of the
President Muhammadu Buhari administration for a vibrant and courageous
anti-corruption agency.”
“Instead, Mahmoud’s suggestions appears perfectly in sync with a cleverly
disguised campaign by powerful forces that are uncomfortable with the
reinvigorated anti-graft campaign of the EFCC and are hell-bent on
emasculating the agency by stripping it of powers to prosecute with the
tame excuse that an agency that investigates cannot also prosecute,” he
added.
According to Uwujaren, the question Nigerians must ask the Mahmoud-led NBA
is, what is wrong with EFCC prosecution, adding that “Mahmoud is in a
position to answer this question”.
The EFCC Spokesman committed further fallacies of argumentum ad hominem
(fallacy of attacking the messenger rather than the message) when he
noted that the NBA President was the Attorney General of the Federation’s
counsel in the trial of former Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the
Federal High Court, Asaba, a case which EFCC lost in questionable
circumstances.
He alleged that “the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch
Ibori a 13-year jail term in London”, and that “Mahmoud is also the
commission’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous perpetual
injunction from arrest and prosecution by former Rivers State governor,
Peter Odili, which is still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port
Harcourt, many years after it was filed”.
Uwujaren considered it too much of a strange coincidence that the
suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated
few months after the commission, in unprecedented fashion arraigned some
senior lawyers for corruption.
These different ramifications of subtle, open and brazen attempts to
destroy the independence of the Judiciary must be halted now before our
hard won democracy is destroyed. The Nigerian people must speak out and if
possible pour out on the streets in Defence of democracy. The future and
prospects of a better Nigeria depended on not allowing executive cowboys
to achieve their diabolical mission of turning judges into judicial
cowards. God forbid that this scenario should be allowed to take firm grip
on us.
*Emmanuel Onwubiko is the head of the Human Rights Writers Association of
Nigeria and blogs at www.emmanuelonwubiko.com