The intelligent man’s response to the recently announced anticlimactic end of the Alamieyeseigha case is a question: Exactly, how much does a Nigerian public official have to steal to elicit real judicial odium? This is a valid question. Some years ago, Tafa Balogun’s prodigious larcenies as Inspector-General of Police were rewarded with public ridicule and a slap on the wrist. The disgraced police chief went for a plea bargain arrangement with the EFCC which saw him return his some of his loot in exchange for a safe landing. Many Nigerians were outraged by this innovation in fighting corruption under which thieving officials could simply give up part of their loot in order to enjoy retirement with benefits.

Two weeks ago, after two years of bluff and bluster, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him by the EFCC. Consequently he received a twelve year jail term of two years for each of the six counts brought against him to run concurrently starting from the date of his incarceration in late 2005. All of this meant that the ex-governor was virtually a free man. This bit of judicial sorcery followed a widely reported meeting between Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and Alamieyeseigha. Clearly, political expediency outweighed any other evidence and thus tipped the scales of justice in Alamieyeseigha’s favour. The calculations are fairly obvious: in exchange for the soft landing and his arranged freedom, the ex-governor will bring his influence to bear on the Niger-Delta peace process initiated by President Umar Musa Yar’Adua. His release, which was one of the demands of some Niger Delta militant groups, is a gesture of good faith which he is expected to reciprocate by prevailing on his kinsmen to lay down their arms.

The release of Alamieyeseigha from prison is a wrong move for a number of reasons. The anti-corruption campaign for years has been badly in need of symbolic justice – the spectacle of high profile scape-goats and sacred cows being sacrificed to fulfil the moral imperatives of crime and punishment. The prosecution of Alamieyeseigha and others of his kind presented an opportunity for the government to establish a critical precedent. It has failed to do so. What the Yar’Adua administration has done with Alamieyeseigha is the very sort of moral contortion that Obasanjo executed in 1999 when he hastily pardoned Salisu Buhari, the youthful conman who had scammed his way in to becoming the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives. Obasanjo threw away a golden opportunity to institute the war on corruption as a national religion, while hastily conferring unjustified mercy on the disgraced fraud. The release of Alamieyeseigha cast a pall of ironic incredulity on Yar’Adua’s warning to his newly appointed ministers that same week, that his administration would display “zero tolerance” for corruption.

Very few persons in the government seem to realize the scale of the challenge facing the new administration in the arena of anti-corruption warfare. The situation is not the same as it was in 1999 when Obasanjo’s homilies laced with moralistic fervour met with public applause and approval. After eight years of melodrama, pious hypocrisy, selective morality and some brave crime-fighting, the Nigerian public is quite cynical about politicians who declare loftily that, “there will be no sacred cows,” or that their administration will demonstrate a “zero tolerance for corruption.” Obasanjo succeeded in making corruption a central issue in public policy discourse but undermined his own efforts with a penchant for double-standards and a readiness to sacrifice morality on the altars of political expediency.

Yar’Adua emerged from a flawed electoral process that is even now the subject of contention at election tribunals. The credibility problem is amplified by a widespread loss of faith in public institutions. Nigerians cannot vouch for their leaders. Nigerians expect their leaders to plunder the state treasuries. Nigerians expect their leaders to preach about the evils of corruption while taking official graft to new heights of impunity. The level of faithlessness in leaders, institutions and processes should alarm the current administration. Widespread lack of faith in the system is a prelude to lawlessness. A loss of legitimacy and moral authority will paralyze the government and holds the seeds of future anarchy. Groups like the Niger-Delta militants, OPC, the Ogwugwu cult, Okija Shrine and the Sharia movement are prototypes of parallel government and manifestations of public loss of confidence in the system. The only way to restore public confidence in the system is to show that the system is capable of regulating itself.  The prosecution of corrupt public officials by the government is an opportunity to demonstrate this capability. The judicial circus that ended the Alamieyeseigha saga can only be seen as a disastrous forfeiture of this opportunity.

Thirdly, it should be noted that even the political calculations that informed the release of Alamieyeseigha are gravely flawed. The deliverance of a felon from the jaws of justice will not resolve the crisis in the Delta. Indeed the government should be more interested in expanding its inquiry to include the plunder perpetrated in those parts by politicians like Alamieyeseigha. Any intelligent approach to the crisis in the region must also make the important distinction between the radical political elements and the criminal elements hiding under the banner of an idea that they scarcely understand. Pandering to the demands of the latter by freeing Alamieyeseigha sends two terribly counterproductive messages to the world. The first is that criminality, terrorism and blackmail pay. Alamieyeseigha was no freedom fighter; he was not a political prisoner in the mould of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Isaac Adaka Boro or even the feisty Asari Dokubo. Yet his bid to cast himself as some kind of prisoner of conscience was bought by the government. Releasing Dokubo might have been eminently reasonable but extending the same treatment to a man whose compulsive kleptomania impoverished his people and earned Nigeria unsavoury attention internationally is completely unnecessary.

Equating the release of the thieving ex-governor with a step forward in resolving the Niger Delta crisis indicates an under estimation of the breadth of the issues posed by the crisis. Aspects of the problem include the control of resources, fiscal federalism, land ownership and socio-economic justice, none of which is addressed by the contrived deliverance of a thief from his just rewards. Alamieyeseigha cannot and will not stop militancy in the Delta. What is occurring can no longer be simply interpreted as the eruption of ethnic angst but as the historic culmination of revolutionary impulses ignited by Boro and Saro-Wiwa. Instead of futile gestures the government should work on the root issues involved. This may require a measure of vision and political courage that is rarely exhibited by Nigerian politicians. Suffice it to say that phased increments of revenue allocation aimed at achieving 100% derivation in may be twenty, thirty or fifty years has to be on the cards. Contrary to the sophistic posturing of some politicians, 100% derivation will not end the Nigerian federation; it will renew the Nigerian union and destroy the culture of laziness, mediocrity and parasitism sustained by the easy flow of petrodollars. Doubtless, this idea will be resisted by a rapacious, lecherous elite unwilling to relinquish access to unearned wealth and unmerited power. That too is to be expected. It will eventually become evident that the crisis in the Niger-Delta is less about misguided youths than about historic inevitability and the hurtling of forces towards the resolution of long standing socio-economic injustices perpetrated by the elite and the state. The government will be forced to rethink its position when it runs out of Ijaw criminals to release from prison.

In the mean time, the intelligent man’s conclusion following the underwhelming turn of events in the Alamieyeseigha saga is an unsolicited proposition to other ex-governors currently facing prosecution. Joshua Dariye should plow some of his loot into the training and deployment of youths in Plateau state as a new militant group. The considerable presence of expatriates in Jos implies an economic opportunity for youth militancy similar to what obtains in the Niger Delta. Such a group can make the exploitation of tin ore in Plateau state a real cause. With any luck, Dariye will mutate into a political prisoner and be released to negotiate a peace with the militants of his own making. Saminu Turaki can sponsor the formation of a similar group to fight for the resurrection and control of groundnut pyramids. Orji Kalu, can of course, cast his travails as part of a larger conspiracy to marginalize the Igbo. He could sponsor a group to engage in the potentially lucrative kidnapping of spare parts traders in Aba. Eventually, he too would be released to work for peace. As we have seen, these are not outrageous proposals.

A terrible precedent has been set by releasing Alamieyeseigha. Since this is the case, then Raph Uwazurike of MASSOB whose only crime is fantasizing aloud about the geopolitical impossibility dubbed ‘ Biafra’ should be released. If the government can treat felons with such magnanimity, then Uwazurike, an innocent activist guilty only of melodramatic pretensions to radicalism should as well be set free.   

Robot  # 1 | 09.08.2007 01:35

The intelligent man’s response to the recently announced anticlimactic end of the Alamieyese...Read the full article.