How Lawless Can A People Get? 

By Ikechukwu Amaechi 

 

If I were President Olusegun Obasanjo, I would be nursing a very deep sense of unease now; I would be clearly worried over some of the emerging trends in the country.
Nigeria is gradually but inexorably becoming a very lawless state and this is frightening. If I were him, I would be concerned about my legacy, the type of society I would bequeath not only to this generation but those yet unborn. I am saying this because Nigeria under Obasanjo’s watch is gradually proving to be no better than a country like
Somalia. And anybody who thinks this is an exaggeration should simply pause and listen to some of the comments coming out of Ibadan, Oyo State capital in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement on the Governor Rasheed Ladoja impeachment case. 

I couldn’t believe it myself that some of these statements are being made in a country that lays claim to being governed by the rule of law. It doesn’t matter if the threats being made by Alao Akala and Lamidi Adedibu are nothing but empty braggadocio and grandstanding of people worsted in the court of law. That these threats are being made at all and openly with impunity is the issue. And in any case, why would Adedibu’s threats be taken lightly? Hasn’t the man a track record of delivering on his threats? 

No-matter the political battle Obasanjo claims to be fighting; no-matter the political score(s) he is striving to settle, the fact that he is allowing
Nigeria to slip into a lawless jungle is the most atrocious legacy any leader could aspire to leave behind. Not even General Sani Abacha, with all his malevolence descended to that level. Obasanjo is behaving as if there is no life after 2007. How short can human memory be? 

If a report in The Guardian newspaper of Friday, December 8 concerning Adedibu’s utterances shortly after the Supreme Court verdict is anything to go by, then there is every reason for all of us to be worried. According to the newspaper, Adedibu holding court at his ‘

Molete
Republic’ and surrounded by his hordes of thugs boasted that Governor Ladoja can never return to the Agodi Government House. Said he: “I have predicted what may happen and I said if the Supreme Court still confirms the declarative judgement, it is not helpful to Ladoja….Akala is not a party to the suit, so no order of the apex court is binding on him. Ladoja cannot come because the law is not on his side. The court must issue an order to the police and no such order has been made by the court. 

“It is not the court that installed Akala or Ladoja, it is the people and the wish of the people is that they don’t want Ladoja again and they put Akala there. So, how can the court upturn the wish of the people? Ladoja can never come to rule

Oyo
State. If he is still interested in becoming governor, let him go to another political party to test his popularity. As far as we are concerned, he cannot come back here to upstage Akala.” How cheeky can someone get?  

Imagine Adedidu, not only interpreting Supreme Court judgement but also literarily sitting in judgement over the Justices of Nigeria’s apex court, some of the best legal minds in the world, questioning their competence and authority. 

I know that some people will ask; why blame Obasanjo for statements made by Adedibu? I will resist the urge of saying that both are two sides of the same coin though that is indeed what they are. But the fact remains that Obasanjo is the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the man on whose table the bulk stops. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Moreover, Obasanjo has in the past seven and half years wielded absolute power in
Nigeria and does not fight shy of using same. So, if any individual or group of people are threatening the peace of the country or a part of if, it behoves the man whose responsibility it is to act to do so. Obasanjo has for long shirked from this sacred responsibility unless in situations where his very selfish and narrow political interests are at stake. 

The fact that the president welcomed the Supreme Court verdict and directed the police and other security agencies to immediately implement it does not distance him from Adedibu’s premeditated comments. If anything, it even makes his case worse. That Adedibu is making this audacious statement even after the president supposedly made an unequivocal commitment to the restoration of Ladoja to his position smacks of a sinister plot. In the first place, Adedibu is a faithful student of Obasanjo who has in the past shown unbelievable contempt for court judgements even those given by the Supreme Court as the
Lagos case typifies. 

So, the speed with which the presidency accepted this verdict is quite uncharacteristic. It can only be compared to the speed with which Obasanjo accepted the defeat of his third term project in the National Assembly. We are all living witnesses to what he has done since then over the same matter which he claimed was dead and buried. So could it be that while Obasanjo is making a public show of his acceptance of the Supreme Court ruling in the Ladoja case, he is at the same time prodding Adedibu to reject the verdict and precipitate a violent and bloody crisis so as to have the excuse to declare a state of emergency and deny Ladoja the fruits of his almost one-year legal battle? 

If that is not the new game plan, then Obasanjo must act fast to rein in Adedibu because his Molete declaration is a very serious challenge to the president’s authority. If the president of Nigeria is saying that the ruling of the highest court in the land must be obeyed without any delay and has in fact ordered his security chiefs to act immediately and an ordinary citizen is sitting down in the comforts of his living room to give counter orders, then the president should not only be worried, but should act fast to redeem the vanishing glory and prestige of his office. But why wouldn’t Adedibu disparage the judiciary when the president and federal government agencies including the EFCC are leading the dangerous campaign to discredit the judiciary?  

When Akala’s reaction to the judgement is thrown into the mix, then the augury becomes starker. My people have a saying that when a bird is dancing in the middle of the road, the drummer is always somewhere in the evil bush. While rejecting the November 1 judgement of the Court of Appeal, Akala said he would quit office if the Supreme Court nullifies Ladoja’s impeachment. Now that the Supreme Court has done just that, Akala has brazenly gone back on his words. 

Not only did he go on air through his SSG, Chief Olayiwola Olakojo to urge the people to disregard the Supreme Court judgement, he actually caused Olakojo and Diran Odeyemi, his media adviser to address a press conference pooh-poohing the judiciary and warning Ladoja of the futility of any attempt to reclaim his mandate. 

“Ladoja should not make that mistake. He dare not make such mistake. The Yoruba have a saying that there cannot be two kings in a town. Akala is still the governor of this state and not Ladoja and he will continue to be governor after 2007…. Ladoja has not been reinstated, he dare not come to the office to say that he wants to resume. We will not allow it,” Olakojo said. 

In every society governed by law, the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. The courts are sacred institutions and members of the Bench must be respected. Ridiculing the judiciary and making the pronouncements of law courts not worth more than the papers on which they are written is the first step to anarchy. 

Most worrisome is his concluding statement: “It is one thing for the court to give judgement; it is another thing to enforce it. So I urge you journalists not to publish that Ladoja has been reinstated as governor.” Even the state’s Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, Mr Michael Lana had the effrontery to insult the Justices, calling their judgement “mere academic exercise” and “wild goose chase.” And instead of ordering the immediate arrest of these men, Obasanjo is busy meeting with Adedibu and Akala in Ota. Since I read these statements, I have not stopped wondering. It is only the president that can cause this judgement to be enforced since the police and other agents of state coercion are solely answerable to him. Could it be that the Adedibus of Oyo State know what many of us don’t know? Could such privileged information be the reason behind their swank?  I have a hunch that these agents of darkness are still up to some mischief in

Oyo
State. They are yet to play their joker. After all, was it not the PDP secretary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, who said while announcing the intention of his party last Friday to take a look at the judgement that: “In this business, it is not over until it is over.” Could that have been a Freudian slip? If a case is not over after the Supreme Court has given a ruling, when then will it be over? If the president refuses to call his Ibadan attack dogs to order and their utterances and actions lead to violence, then he should be held responsible for any life lost in the event of any crisis.  

But if he is the one goading them, my simple advice is that he should remember that history has a way of repeating itself. In 1993, rather than siding the cause of justice by supporting Chief MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12 presidential election, he signed a pact with evil, by helping to set up the illegal Ernest Shonekan-led interim government, all in a bid to spite his kinsman. For that act of transgression, he nearly paid with his life when the evil tree he helped to plant bore the iniquitous and malevolent fruit called Abacha. Sadly he is at it again.