The hunter as a quarry
By Levi Obijiofor

LIFE is a metaphor. It represents two ladders. One ladder leads to the pinnacle of power. The other ladder leads to the bed floor of power - a place reserved for scumbags and low, worthless persons. While the path to the peak of life's ladder is jammed with ambitious men and women, who scheme and plot to out-manoeuvre one another, you will not find many people lining up willingly on the other side of the ladder - the downward ladder. The upward ladder is harder to ascend because virtually everyone scrambles to get to the peak of that ladder, regarded as the quintessential mark of achievement in one's professional career.

Perhaps the most profound and shocking fall from power in Nigeria in recent times was demonstrated this week when former Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun, appeared before a Federal High Court in Abuja in handcuffs to answer to serious allegations of money laundering and for corrupt enrichment. How else could the anti-corruption agency - the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) - effectively humiliate a former police inspector-general other than to show him to the world in handcuffs in a court of law. Whatever happened to the long-held tradition of presumption of innocence until accused persons have been proven guilty before a court of law? The apology tendered by the EFCC, a day after it had humiliated Balogun, must be deemed unacceptable. Whoever ordered that Balogun appear in handcuffs should be sanctioned.

Without prejudice to the outcome of his court battle, Tafa Balogun is a man trapped. If he triumphs in the courts, it could take a lifetime for him to clear his name in another court, the court of public opinion. They are two different courts. In the former, you follow established judicial process to defend yourself against criminal or civil charges preferred against you. However, in the latter, you submit your fate to the whims and idiosyncrasies of a public that may, on average, lack full and clear understanding of your case.

In Nigeria, once a high profile officer has had his or her name smeared with mud, it will take the most effective cleansing agent to remove that mud. Unfortunately for Balogun, no such cleansing agent has been manufactured in Nigeria or elsewhere in the world. If he is convicted and sentenced, Balogun's name would forever become a subject of caricature in the media. In 1988 in the state of Queensland, Australia, the state police commissioner, Terence Lewis, a man knighted by Queen Elizabeth of England, was tried and jailed for corruption. He was released on parole a few years ago but his name and his achievements as police commissioner had been damaged beyond repair.

There is another way to understand the dilemma confronting Tafa Balogun, the man whose name, only three months ago, struck fear into the hearts of criminals. As a lawyer and a police chief, Balogun was metaphorically a blessed man. He possessed the rare combination of qualities that is hard to find in the hierarchy of the police. However, the arraignment of Balogun before an Abuja High Court and the humiliation of watching him in handcuffs would have serious repercussions not only for Balogun and his immediate family members but also for the image of the Nigeria Police Force.

For many years, the police force has been associated with corruption. To corroborate this notion, there were, in the past few weeks, disturbing reports in the Nigerian press about police officers shooting innocent commercial vehicle drivers simply because the drivers refused to part with a mere N20 note. These incidents and the media reports remain etched in the memories of the Nigerian public. Despite these incidents and the tattered image of the police, Balogun deserves to be granted the benefit of the doubt until the courts have passed judgment in his case.

Apart from Balogun and his travails, two federal ministers and a senate president have tumbled from the top of their political careers. Former Federal Minister of Education Fabian Osuji and former Federal Minister of Housing and Environment Mobolaji Osomo must feel now that their fall from their federal ministries must have been nature's own way of asserting that the faster we rise to power, the faster we fall from power. Consider their case this way. Both ministers lost their jobs not because they were the most corrupt ministers in President Olusegun Obasanjo's index of corruption. Osomo and Osuji fell from power not because they were the least effective of the federal ministers. Far from it! Osuji and Osomo fell because they made many errors of judgment. One: they were too na•ve in the way they played politics in Abuja.

Two: they trusted virtually everyone they interacted with in the course of their duty, believing stupidly that men and women would always uphold their words, even with a gun thrust to their heads. Three: they wanted to impress Obasanjo at all cost -- to convey the impression that their ministries were the most productive. Four: Osuji and Osomo did not understand the true meaning of distrust and betrayal; in federal politics, betrayal is an art; those who survive the political intrigues and power play in Abuja are usually those who undermine their colleagues. Five: Osomo and Osuji were simply overzealous. In their judgment, if they worked very hard and achieved their target objectives, Obasanjo would not question the means by which they attained those goals. They were wrong.

Osomo is reported to be "shell shocked" at the strength of denial and hand wringing by prominent and eminent citizens who were allocated federal houses in Lagos on the basis that they expressed interest in those houses, tendered for them, and paid for the houses partially or in full. There were of course other problems that Osomo overlooked or simply did not want to address, namely how and when the houses were valued, and how the ministry arrived at the sale prices. Confounded by the public and media fuss over the manner in which federal houses were allocated to the rich and famous citizens, Osomo tried to justify the decisions made by her ministry. It was at that moment that she exposed the moral and ethical gaps in the sale of the federal government houses. Rather than resign, she stayed on, hoping that her response to the query from Obasanjo would exonerate her.

She under-estimated the mood of the nation and the outrage of her boss. Osomo should never have stayed in her job one day longer than necessary. She ought to have resigned her appointment soon after she was served with an official query. In a matter like this, it is useless arguing in the media with desperate men and women, in particular high-ranking officers who were determined to extricate themselves from the tangled deals that have now become a major scandal. No one likes to have his or her name sullied in the media, especially when corruption is mentioned. The scandal surrounding the sale or for that matter unethical sale of federal government houses in Lagos has become a hot potato cast onto the tender hands of the beneficiaries.

As Osomo ponders over the disappointment of falling from her exalted position, one must pity former senate president Adolphus Wabara. Ever since Obasanjo dragged Wabara's name into the list of those alleged to be involved in the N55 million budget inflation deal, Wabara had remained silent and stayed away from official public events. Guilty or not guilty, Wabara has become a fish trapped in the net cast by the Presidency over the waters in the National Assembly. The situation is so tricky that Wabara has not been able to mount robust denials in the media other than what his senior aids have been parroting to the media. In his valedictory but short speech on Tuesday, Wabara hinted about his preference to clear his name in the courts. The nation is waiting. He must not wait too long because the longer he delays it, the faster the public would make up its mind about Wabara's innocence or guilt. The legal burden is on the accused to clear their names in the right and proper manner.