By Peter Claver Oparah.
Suddenly, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is finding his voice.
Suddenly, he seems to be in a big hurry to discard the tag of see-nothing-bad,
do-nothing president who hugs the conspiratorial garb of inaction while Nigeria burns.
He seems to be in a hurry to shell out and seize the public space after he
attempted to employ silence to evade his real public perception as just same of
the same. Yar’Adua must have been advised to source motion in appearing defiant
and tough, as his mischievous benefactor was wont to do. Coming shortly after
the gritty battle to ease off a Speaker that jabbed her itchy finger in the
public till and kept a straight face about it with Yar’Adua hiding under the
guise of safeguarding the independence of the arms of government to evade
offering a voice while that shameful play unfurled, there is no doubt that
Yar’Adua feels scandalized that his outing in the Ettehgate scandal needs some
possible redemption. When we remember that Yar’Adua’s representative in the
House of Representatives, who was reported to be one of his closest confidants
dropped dead waving the bandana of corruption for the disgraced Speaker, it is
not difficult locating what drove Yar’Adua’s public silence as the first real
litmus test of his integrity presented itself after he failed the one that came
with coveting a stolen presidency. There should have been nothing wrong with
Yar’Adua speaking, as often as is necessary but there is everything wrong with
Yar’Adua’s manner of public speech perhaps because they always seem obtuse from
the people’s expectation.
Last week, Yar’Adua was at a forum with the governors where
he claimed that his government does not face any legitimacy problem. Beautiful!
And you wonder why he is desperately poaching into the greed of Ume Ezeoke-led
faction of the ANPP and Orji Kalu’s PPA and luring them into a nebulous
government of national unity when he had a moonslide victory in the sham
election his predecessor wrought in April. The other day, he fell short of
telling the Nigerian judges that they are being influenced by mass sentiment in
most of the recent judgments, especially those that border on electoral
disputes. While I would not waste much time on the earlier, tongue-in-cheek gaffe
of a man that is struggling to maintain a balance between the dubious cloak of
integrity sewn for him by a dubious con man and retaining his stolen loot, I
will try to look into Yar’Adua’s later statement that purports to indict judges
for appealing to mass sentiment in their recent decisions. For this, we can
draw much for what Yar’Adua left unsaid in his address at the judges’
conference.
There is no doubt that Yar’Adua is deeply dissatisfied that
things are going the way they are going in the country’s courts and if he had
more legitimacy, he would have constituted himself into a higher court as his
guile-wracked predecessor did as his lawless and Byzantine reign lasted. In
making this contention, we should note that apart from one or two symbolic postures
here and there, Yar’Adua is yet to come to grips with the fact that the
deep-rooted house of fraud his predecessor built is due for dismantling. From
INEC to NNPC, to PHCN, to the ministries, to the NPA, down to the BPE, all the
vital incubation and breeding vaults of corruption Obasanjo and his minions
employed to rob and shortchange this country are still intact. There has been
no attempt to audit or probe the scandalous acts that hobbled this country for
eight years. In essence, Yar’Adua was imposed to safeguard these
corruption-breeding institutions from harms way and his grouse with judges that
seek to reverse cases of electoral fraud is that they reach at the core of the
stolen commission he and his fellow puppets are basking in. So, if Yar’Adua has
all along been eating and cavorting
with a stolen mandate, there is virtually nothing to suggest that he does not
relish the aroma of the dish he eats from and should naturally feel
uncomfortable that the judges are rising to the need to reverse despicable
cases of electoral robbery that defaced the country’s democratic aspiration
last April. There is no doubt that Yar’Adua prefers the courts allow the grand
electoral robbers and the beneficiaries of the country’s monumental electoral
heist go home and enjoy their loot while the citizenry pine in unending trauma
of enduring a brood of impostors that take suzerain liberty with the
commonwealth to the pain and sorrow of all. There is no doubt that when
Yar’Adua was yodeling about irregularities in the process that threw him up and
urging aggrieved parties to go to the tribunals, he was just being sly like his
dubious predecessor and hoping that the courts would, as usual, maintain the
status quo and the aggrieved parties will sulk home and await another grand
charade in 2011. It is apparent from Yar’Adua’s quarrel with popular decisions
of the courts that he does not, in the least, believe in his much vaunted
aphorism of respect for the rule of law but is only handicapped by the realisal
that he is still decked in borrowed coats and straining himself to interfere
with the courts will only exacerbate the legitimacy crisis he is enmeshed
in.
Yar’Adua, by his contention is of the feeling that the
decisions of the law courts need not elicit mass acceptance of the type that
have followed most of the decisions of the courts in recent times. To him, the
more court decisions depart from the general expectance of the people, the more
right it is in law. To Yar’Adua, the courts can do well by pandering to the
whims and caprices of a select few and displeasing the masses for them to look
right. To him, the law should rather than elicit mass gloom than spark mass
satisfaction. To Yar’Adua, the judges would be doing the right thing when they
offer comfort to vote robbers and inheritors of stolen mandates like him for it
to be right. The law must offer comfort to such reprobates like Andy Uba, who
are closet friends of Yar’Adua and his benefactor than allow the people’s wish
to prevail for it to be seen right. The law must protect fraudulent electoral
victories such as the one Yar’Adua is cashing on now for it not to be seen as
being influenced by mass sentiment. To Yar’Adua, the law must attend to the
gluttony for power and official perks of a select crop of mandarins than give
joy and feeling of satisfaction to the public for it to be seen as right and
proper. To Yar’Adua, public sentiment is taboo in what is judicially right and
a continuation of the tradition of ignoring the feelings of the people in
determining judicial cases makes law tick.
cc I don’t know what bones a
self-proclaimed servant leader has to pick with judgments that spark mass joy
and acceptance if he is not another pretender that is not different from the
very cabal that forced him on all of us. I don’t know why Yar’Adua feels that
mass sentiment should not be taken into consideration in deciding cases in
Nigerian courts. Yar’Adua is only being true to type in wishing that Nigerian
judges continued padding the excesses and misdemeanors of this cabal, of which
he is a gold card member. Truth is that
Yar’Adua neither sees himself as anybody’s servant leader nor does he believe
all the fairy tales of integrity that was suddenly concocted as his sudden
presidential desire was provoked. He is yet to answer to the query of what he
left in Katsina State
after eight years in power or how he managed to make close to a well-doctored
one billion Naira in eight years just by servant-leading a penury-ravaged Katsina State. He is yet to fill in the loose
gaps in his heavily-talcumed campaign image, which is in dissonance with his
noticeable actions. He is yet to explain the paradox of how the only ‘sincere
and honest governor’ in 1999 to 2003 Nigeria, was so honest to covet the
fruits of a badly manipulated electoral process and is basking in the allure of
such stolen mandate.
What Yar’Adua’s recent postures, as espoused in his recent
public speeches show is that Nigerians should brace up for grittier days ahead.
I am sure the judges never hearkened to Yar’Adua’s strange postulations that
the ‘right’ judgments are those that displease the whole and please a few. I am
sure that the Nigerian judges are on an irrevocable commitment to ensure that
court judgments meet the basic expectations of Nigerians. I am sure that the
judges listening to Yar’Adua were convinced that he was just one of the
impostors that stand to be weeded away by the emerging judicial activism that
is sweeping through the judiciary presently. I am sure that Nigerian judges
know that Yar’Adua with all his contradictory web of incongruities trailing him
is the least person to prescribe what is judicially right for them. Above all,
I believe that Nigerian judges realize that what would best serve the ends of
justice is the dismantling of the façade on which Yar’Adua mounts his
hypocritical sermons that are meant to safeguard his loot and those of his
friends. In other words, I believe that Nigerian judges realize that Nigerians
are baying for more of those decisions that are backed by massive mass sentiments.
These are what safeguards the efficacy of the courts, replenishes the trust of
the people in the judiciary and ensures this country is not turned into an
enclave for unconscionable scoundrels that source protection from the law.
Peter Claver Oparah.
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com
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Posted by Robot| 06.11.2007 06:16