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Authors Chris Odetunde A Need For A Genuine Office Of Independent Counsel.
Authors Chris Odetunde A Need For A Genuine Office Of Independent Counsel. | A Need For A Genuine Office Of Independent Counsel. |
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| Written by Christopher Odetunde, Ph.D. | |||||||||||||
| Monday, 10 September 2007 | |||||||||||||
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To any ordinary citizen of a sovereign nation, the purposes of Laws ought to be made clear. Laws are fundamental means of protecting lives, properties, even surprisingly government and of community life. From the date of our independence up to the present time, Nigeria laws have been seen to favor those that are privileged or those that have acquired privileges through criminal tendencies, through, looting being one of them and through the political status of their parents. There are many poor and innocent citizens in Nigerian prisons today that were captured to replace children of bigmen/women in prison, and many young men and women who stole ordinary loaf of bread but are incarcerated for life. The so called bigmen who not stole billions of Naira but in the process destroyed a whole community and nation doing so are left walking freely and making noise around the country. The citizens’ inability to know the laws, understand their rights under human and natural evolutionary laws and observing our nation’s laws not applied uniformly are the reason for Nigeria’s underdevelopment, her inability to build a democratic momentum, and why government and leaders think they own the corporate entity called Nigeria instead of the other way round. The only hope in a developing nation like Nigeria is to establish sound, uniformly applied and severally obeyed laws. The establishment of laws in Nigeria, although may reduce the amount and frequency of plunder amongst ordinary citizens, it has not caused the evil and miscarriage of justice in the privileged group to disappear. The desire of one man to plunder another is, unfortunately, as much a part of life as breath itself. We must understand that the authority granted to government to protect properties and lives is a grant of the right (not privilege as seen by most African leaders) that comes to all men at birth, to protect as each individual has the right to. When this authority is, by consent, granted to government, it is granted only to the extent that each individual possess himself. Citizens of an independent nation such as Nigeria cannot grant to government something that they do not have, themselves, the power to apply. This is the basic concept of government and the rules of laws. The concept of laws, if properly setup and executed then, allows for the punishment, at the hands of the community, transgressions of the rights of lives and properties of any individual within the authority of the community. If, however, this is the concept, instrumentality and justification of law then how have we come to accept that law has the right to wrongfully take from us the very lives and properties it has been designated to protect? The answers lie in the very fundamental cause for the need of law in the first place. As we allow government a greater degree of control in our lives we also allow ourselves to submit to the common desire to plunder. We have allowed government to plunder us to sustain itself. The need for more property on the part of government -- the insatiable desire for government to expand it's empire has manifested the desire of those who represent us to plunder as much as any evil monarchs in time past. The law has become the means of accomplishing what the law was first imposed to prevent. Plundering is the illegal or unlawful conversation of one man's property and replacement of one man’s life for another. This action can take two forms, and frequently does. The first is what initiated the need for law in the first place. This is conversion by people who would normally be referred to as criminals, con-artists, swindlers, 419ners, thieves in society and in government, etc. Laws were instituted to punish those who violated, by plunder, the rights of another citizen. What other form of plunder could exist that would not fall within the description presented above? For this answer we have to look at the means by which we have communally empowered certain people, leaders in government, pastors in churches, Imams in Mosques, etc. with the responsibility to control the above mentioned specie of plunderer. We have provided a legislative body with the authority to invoke our nation’s laws for our protection. In the process of building safeguards for this protection we have also created a means by which the very authority assigned to protect us can take from us. We have been further conditioned that we must help those that are willing to receive help from us, even though the help may be indirect sometimes. We, however, are denied any portion of the decision process whereby the beneficiaries of our efforts are rewarded. The rolls of those willing to take without giving are growing at an alarming rate, and unfortunately this is encompassing generation after generation of recipients since our independence. In fact, what we have here is the same person who might otherwise be plundering from us in an illegal manner, now being plundered for by the government. The difference is that when there is a third party involved, whether that third party be the government or some government authorized entity such as the NNPC, police, military, Professors, teachers, the plunder is deemed legal by society, even though the results and the beneficiary be the same. We have learned to call this system of plunder government help or almangeries (in the North), which, by legal definition, means well doing or well being of average Nigerians, not charity for the rich and the privileged. So, how is this second form of plunder achieved? It is acquiring what belongs to all the citizens for self and for cronies, it is police accusing us of crime we do not commit in order to extract money from us, it is through the taxes that arelevied against us under the guise of developing our infrastructures, providing a sound healthcare delivery system, building a world class education, providing 24/7 electricity, and protecting us. It is the conversion of our collective resources to the use of others, whether they be those in government or those that are the beneficiaries of government handouts such as the sycophants and cronies. In either case, we are not being protected from transgressions against our rights -- rather we are being transgressed upon by those who offer the lip service of protection. The second form of plunder is the taking of any resource that is beyond that which is needed to carry out the minimal function of government and causing capital flight meant for our collective development. The plunderers are, quite simply, when government grows beyond a point of service, to the point that Nigerian citizens become slaves in their actions and purses to government’s whims and caprices. We have achieved a situation where we have become afraid of those who are paid to protect us. For instance, being stopped by a Nigerian police for a traffic infraction which is not unlawful, but rather a violation of rules imposed upon us without our consent. These criminal plunderers make for themselves a safer and more convenient field to play on, at our expense. For example, insurance companies in Nigeria collect premiums, again at our expense, but they have become a substitute for justice to the original plunderers. As long as we can replace our loss, at our cumulative expense, we have justice served, or do we? It is imperative that we begin to analyze the laws and how they protect us, if at all they do. We must begin to understand the reasons for laws in the first place, then, to consider if they are being applied as they should be. Along this line of getting our legal grooves back, we have noted that the judiciary is trying very hard to get out under the cloud of favoritism, nepotism, getting bribe to tilt judgment on the side of money bags. Such judicial paradigm shift is still in its infancy and as such there are still some elements within the judiciary that are prone to taking bribe in order to tilt their judgment on the side of the money bag. Even then, such shift by the judiciary is still strange to ordinary Nigerians because it is an aberration for now because it goes against the grain of what Nigerians are accustomed to. Nigeria with the help of her judiciary must remain focused on a “Law and Order” society. On one hand, the law is the imposition of a set of uniform rules by which all citizens (leaders and the lead) must be guided to establish an orderly society which has eluded Nigeria since independence. It is, however, this very order that is referred to whenever the term "law and order" is invoked by the law enforcement agency that has bastardized our common psyche? Perhaps, we have been sidetracked inadvertently from the order intended to an orderliness more consistent with a control of the masses. Now, k nowing Nigeria the way she has always been, a country where every one thinks they are bigger than the law of the land. There are bigmen and women who are just simply incapable of showing their bigmanism through obeying the laws of the land but through setting aside and violating the laws of the land. These same big men and women are, unfortunately, in the leadership position by default. Knowing this as a fact, is it wise to agitate for the office of independent counsel? Now, what is an Independent Counsel? An independent counsel is a special prosecutor or a judicially appointed investigator of charges of misdeeds by high government officials. The purpose of such an appointment is to avoid conflict of interest that might develop if the executive branch (i.e. our judiciary which until now is controlled on the national level by the executive and on the state level by the executive Governors) investigated its own officials. That was why the nation applauded ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Abubakar Atiku when they both inaugurated the EFCC and ICPC. Little did we know that even though the intensions were honorable, the actions were dishonorable because, though, EFCC was independent in its external outlook, but it was dependent and under the control of the executive as a wish hunting tools of real and perceived enemies. It must be said that inspite of the shortcoming, EFCC served Nigerian society in some way. Instead of the perceived illegal government (by act of rigging) to build a solid independent counsel, it has, through its Attorney General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa’s several vexing pronouncement, established that it does not really believe in the rules of laws. Indeed, it is really business as usual. That Kalu cannot be persecuted by the EFCC for crime against his nation and for looting his state to poverty and laundering the funds overseas. Rather than wrongly flexing the power given to him by “we the people,” the President ought to have made the EFCC an independent Counsel to deal with wayward government officials. Michael Aondoakaa’s actions are inimical to the President telling government officials to loot, launder more and cause more capital flight as much as they wish because his government will see no evil, will hear no evil and will speak no evil. Infact, what he is saying is that the people that did not put him in office have no say in what goes on in the control of their life. It will be a travesty that inspite of the dangeorous and rickety vehicle that brought President Yar ‘Adua into office, Nigerians in their characteristic lackadaisical attitude still expect a lot of positive changes from him. Are we wrong again and so soon? I would like to see President Yar ‘Adua redeem himself by reconstituting the EFCC in the true sense of an Independent Counsel by letting the Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa r ecuse himself from acts that pertain EFCC by: a. Not Having authority to convene grand juries, plea bargain, grant immunity, or issue subpoenas on wayward politicians other than inaugurating the Independent Counsel; b. Not basing a determination under the Independent Counsel that information with respect to a violation of criminal law by a person in government is not specific and from a credible source upon a determination that such person lacked the state of mind required for the violation of criminal law; c. Not basing his determination under the Independent Counsel that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that further investigation is warranted, upon a determination that such person in government lacks the state of mind required for the violation of criminal law involved, unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the person lacks such state of mind. Only a leader of warped mind will steal from his own house and give the loot to strangers; and d. Not be allowed to railroad Nigerians by allowing criminals to get away scotch free. Allowing this, infact, would create better thieves in government. If President Yar ‘Adua did not reverse Michael Aondoakaa’s negatively laden statement, negative to the corporate existence and development of Nigeria, why did he reverse the positive but not yet fleshed out Naira redenomination proposal by Chuckwume Soludo? There is something definitely wrong here. It is time for the president to review his flip-flopping stance and be solidly on the side of “we the people.” To make Nigeria untied, to cause massive moral, legal, technological, physical, fiscal development in Nigeria, President Yar ‘Adua better truly begin to set himself apart by following the rules of the laws and making “we the people” govern ourselves through representation. I believe that instead of controlling all facets of our lives, the politicians must agitate for an Independent Counsel office to investigate all bad deeds. “We the people” and the law are not saying a citizens of which politicians are part cannot willingly commit crimes against their nations, but no law established on behalf of the citizens must protect illegalities. In order to stop gap clear and present dangers looming over the nation, this President especially must be above board in light of the challenged legitimacy of his government. Is there a need for Nigeria to set up office of Independent Counsel? Mr. President, by the way your fellow politicians have been riding your fellow citizens like horses and donkeys, you bet, an Office of Independent Counsel with teeth needs to be established pronto. 
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