US duplicity in Iraq

 

In many ways, the United States’ misadventure in
Iraq and the conduct of some of its troops, continue to question the claim of many Americans to superior moral conduct. 

Perception of the US, under President George Bush’s watch, as a rogue state is increasing, and the duplicitous manner the administration is handling reported cases of gross human rights abuses by American soldiers in Iraq has not helped matters. 

An article in last week’s edition of The Economist¹ magazine indicated that many American soldiers who committed grievous crimes, including premeditated murder and rape, against innocent Iraqi civilians, are never given tough sentences. 

American Civil-liberties groups such as Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch even allege that only an insignificant fraction of such crimes has been adequately investigated. 

The US which is not only the aggressor but also illegally occupies
Iraq promulgated a law which gives its soldiers immunity from prosecution. Even where global outcry, like in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, forces it into action, Americans always insist on carrying out the investigation on their own with little or no input from the Iraqi authorities. 

This level of arrogance is at the root of the inflamed passion in the
Middle East. 

For a country that claims to lay much stock on fundamental human rights, this double standards galls. What moral right does the Bush administration have to incarcerate suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda militants at

Guantanamo
Bay for more than five years while shielding American soldiers who have committed similar, or even more grievous, crimes against humanity from prosecution?

 

Nuhu Ribadu’s List Of Prejudice

Nuhu Ribadu, EFCC chairman 

Every well-meaning Nigerian, both at home and in the Diaspora, should be worried at the direction the country is headed. Once again, Nigeria is tottering on the brink of political crisis, the implications of which, nobody can fully predict.   In countries where the people matter, with only two months left before general election, the tempo of political activities would have peaked by now. The politicians ought to be criss-crossing the nooks and crannies of the country, selling their vision and their parties’ manifestoes to the electorate, pleading and hoping that the people buy into such programmes. But not in Nigeria! Here, barely sixty days to the polls, Nigerians hardly know the candidates, what they stand for and why they should entrust their destiny to them. Many political parties are yet to flag off their campaigns. In fact, many are yet to finally decide on their candidates.  Two months to the elections, party leaders are busy lining their pockets with filthy lucre from would-be candidates, selling tickets to highest bidders. And you ask: what was the need for the primary (s)elections? As the April polls approach, the party apparatchiks are busy submitting, this minute and withdrawing the next minute, lists of candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). As they engage in this game of musical chairs, the names on the lists continue to change. Within 24 hours, an aspirant’s status could change from a candidate to defeated aspirant and again to candidate.  Again, the implication is that rather than going to the grassroots to canvass for votes, many aspirants have relocated to Abuja in their desperation to safeguard their tickets. At the end of the day, many of those who would fly the parties’ flags, if the elections hold, are not necessarily those produced by the parties’ internal democratic mechanism but those whose pockets are deep enough to assuage the greed of unconscionable party officials.  As if this distraction is not enough, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) finally threw the axiomatic spanner in the electoral works last week by releasing its so-called list of “investigated and indicted” politicians who are not worthy of holding public office. As expected, this latest EFCC gambit, an action which smacks of political mischief, is generating controversy. It will be interesting to see how the EFCC chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu convinces Nigerians, who can easily see through the subterfuge, that his overriding goal in compiling this list is to further the ends of the fight against corruption. It will be sad if, rather than levy a resolute war on sleaze, those saddled with this historic responsibility resort to blackmail, fighting proxy wars on behalf of certain political interest groups. It will even be more so if in doing this, they disingenuously exploit the deep seated aversion which ordinary Nigerians have for graft and their simmering desire to rid their country of this asphyxiating malaise. It is in itself an act of corruption, in fact a more hideous genre, to feed on such a national phobia, knowing full well that even when barely disguised political vendetta is hoisted on the totem pole of anti-corruption, many people are wont to tread carefully in opposing it. By allowing the commission to be tied to the apron strings of the presidency contrary to the dictates of the EFCC Act, Ribadu will continue to commit this avoidable faux pas, which smacks of bad faith and hypocrisy. And by so doing, he would, sooner than later, erode the confidence of Nigerians in the only agency they can look up to in their desperate quest to retrieve the soul of their country from kleptomaniacs who steal out of compulsion. How do I mean? Even to the most undiscerning, it is obvious that the list could well have been compiled in Aso Rock and handed to the EFCC. 

First, the agency leaked the list to the media early last week; making it known that it was only then dispatching a copy to the presidency. The idea was to create the impression that the list was compiled independent of any external influence. Ribadu, in an accompanying letter said the list was to help guide the parties in their choice of candidates and therefore merely advisory. Yet, this list only came after the parties had concluded their primaries. Shouldn’t such a list aimed at helping the political parties make more credible choices come before the primary elections? Second, the presidency said it had no hand in compiling the list. Yet, on the same day, Wednesday, February 7, that the list was leaked to the media, the same presidency that denied fore-knowledge had already set up an administrative panel of enquiry, summoning 26 of those whose names are on the list, through the Nigerian Television Authority, to appear before it on Friday and Saturday, to defend allegations of corruption against them. A day later, 62 more names were included in the list of those invited to face the panel. When did the presidency study the list, which if Ribadu is to be believed, it only got on Wednesday; and when was the panel set up? Why would the EFCC send the list to the presidency rather than charge the accused to court, as required by the EFCC Act?  Third, the fact of the panel is an act of bad faith. Granted, the Federal Government has the power to set up a panel of enquiry pursuant to Section 103 of the 1999 Constitution. But is this panel investigative, in which case, it will only look into the veracity or otherwise of the allegations, or is it, in the manner of the Bayo Ojo-led panel, that purportedly indicted Vice President Atiku Abubakar, judicial? It is obvious that this panel was set up for the sole purpose of indicting those invited in a desperate bid to satisfy a constitutional precondition for barring a candidate from contesting election. Having been “investigated and indicted” by EFCC, what guarantee is there that the accused will get fair hearing from this panel, which constitution has the imprint of the same EFCC? That makes the anti-graft body the accuser, investigator, prosecutor and judge, all in one. That flies in the face of justice. EFCC has the powers to investigate and charge an accused to court. It has no power to indict, as that power falls only within the purview of courts and duly constituted tribunals. Fourth, Senator Ahmed Aruwa, the Kaduna State All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) gubernatorial candidate told his colleagues in the Senate on Thursday that he was never at any time invited by the Commission in connection with any investigation. Many of the so-called “investigated and indicted” politicians whose names are on that list have equally cried out. How could a man be investigated and indicted for serious crimes without being given a fair hearing? What offences did they commit and when, how and where were the offences committed? Nigerians need to know. After all, these are supposed to be crimes committed against Nigerians and the Nigerian state and not against the person of Ribadu. As much as Nigerians want corrupt officials to be sanctioned, they don’t want to be turned into a lynch mob, corralled into baying for the blood of people who at best are mere suspects.  Here, Ribadu cannot claim to be constrained by the constitution because many of those involved do not enjoy any constitutional immunity from investigation and prosecution. He could even arrest most of them if he so wished. So, why didn’t he do that? Why is he “charging” his quarries to a presidential panel of enquiry rather than the courts after unilaterally investigating and indicting them? Why the seeming haste to sacrifice fairness and justice on the alter of political expediency? The most plausible explanation is the impression so brazenly created that the driving force behind this so called war on corruption is vendetta, not justice. After all, Ribadu cannot say in good conscience that the courts have not been sympathetic to the anti-corruption cause because such a claim will not be borne out by the facts. EFCC has secured many historic convictions via the courts? It flies in the face of justice to deny people indicted of corruption an opportunity to defend themselves in court. Beyond the issue of bad faith is Ribadu’s duplicity as this list of “investigated and indicted” politicians would show. Granted, it will be difficult for one book to contain the names of all the corrupt people in
Nigeria, because that book could well be a multi- million page book. Yet, no credit is done either to Ribadu’s integrity or the credibility of EFCC when certain names are conspicuously missing from the list. For instance, is it not curious that the name of Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, deputy governor of Oyo
State and PDP gubernatorial candidate is missing from the list? Yet, here was a man who Ribadu, ten days ago, publicly declared unfit to be a leader on account of gross misdemeanour. When did Ribadu realise that Alao-Akala is a saint after all? Is it not curious that in Anambra, those whose names are on the list, from the state House of Assembly, are the very lawmakers who opposed the purported impeachment of Governor Peter Obi? Could Ribadu tell Nigerians what crime Dr. Olanrewaju Tejuosho, ANPP senatorial candidate in Ogun Central, a man who is not a public official, committ other than having the audacity to challenge Nigeria’s reigning “first daughter” to a political duel?  It will be a grave error on our part to indulge Ribadu, no-matter how altruistic he may claim to be, by giving him the God-like powers of sitting in the comfort of his office and determining all alone, with no provable evidence other than his hunch, which Nigerian is corrupt, and therefore not fit to hold public office, in this politically charged atmosphere. Only angels could be entrusted with such responsibility without fear of possible abuse and they (angels) are not known to dwell among men, at least, not in the EFCC office. Ribadu should appreciate that waging this all-important anti-corruption war from the platform of prejudice is to defeat its essence.  Nigerians have for long come to the inevitable conclusion that corruption is a malignant cancer blighting the soul of the country; it is a spectre which has haunted them endlessly and which they have agreed must be exorcised from our body-politic if we are to reclaim our country. But using the war on corruption to serve political ends will not only be a disservice, it will ultimately boomerang.                  

A Country And Its Strange Citizens

Nigeria’s Vice President Atiku Abubakar

Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), asked a question that has concentrated the minds of many, particularly people outside our shores, for too long.

Speaking during a seminar organised by the University of Ibadan chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Ribadu wondered aloud why in the face of the wanton rape of our patrimony by unconscionable men and women who call themselves leaders, Nigerians are not angry.

No doubt, it was a deeply pained Ribadu that asked his audience why they chose to remain the “happiest” people in the world in the face of their contrived grim situation. “Why can’t we be angry?” he asked them. Knowing Nigerians well, rather than mope and feel very unhappy and full of pity for themselves at that point, most must have giggled hysterically.

But Ribadu was not done yet. “Where is the outrage among our compatriots who are so easily pricked to revolt in instances of ethnic and religious challenge…where is the revolt from the elite, the academics and the professionals who are engines of social growth in any community?” Of course, he got a standing ovation for his speech.

But Ribadu could well have saved his breath. Nigerians are a special breed of people. They have the incomprehensible and bizarre capacity of being happy in the worst of circumstances. A Nigerian could even applaud a man, contemptuous enough of him, to rape his mother in his presence.

Ribadu was wondering why any human being with any sense of self would perceive Chiefs Lamidi Adedibu and Bayo Alao-Akala as leaders.

In any decent society, Adedibu would by now be spending his thuggish life in jail. But not in
Nigeria! Here, he is applauded, even by those at the highest reaches of government, as the issue in Oyo, if not Yoruba, politics. And you wonder what calibre of human beings populate this country.

You can hardly see any other people than can endure the humiliation, degradation, deprivations, squalor and ruin that our so-called leaders visit on us everyday. Rarely can you see any leadership elsewhere, treat its citizens with so much contempt, scorn and condescension without having a revolt on their hands.

Revolt does not necessarily have to be violent. But there comes a time in the life of a people when they cannot but protest against the attitude of their leaders towards them. Why are Nigerians not revolted by the salacious confessions of the two highest ranking public office holders in the country?

Early last month, many Britons were up in arms against the Communities Secretary, Ms Ruth Kelly, who decided to send her son to a £15,000-a-year specialist private prep school in Oxfordshire to help with his learning difficulties. Her nine-year-old son is suffering from dyslexia, a slight disorder of the brain that causes difficulty in reading and spelling. Before taking on her current job in May 2006, she was the Education Secretary for 17 months.

Ms Kelly’s three other children still attend a state school in Tower Hamlets, east London. The outrage over her decision to put her son with “substantial learning difficulties” in a private school forced her to issue a public statement explaining that she took the decision based on “professional advice – which the local authority accepts” and that the boy will only be in the school for two years “before he begins at a state secondary school.”

But the people were not impressed. Their anger was not assuaged by her plea. To them, the minister’s conduct was hypocritical. While conceding her the right to offer her child the best, which includes placing him in a school that will be able to meet his particular needs, their angst border on the fact that not all Britons can afford to send their dyslexic children to a £15,000 private school. They argue that it is the responsibility of the government to strengthen the capacity of public schools to handle such cases by increasing funding for special-needs provision within the state sector.

Here in the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s children are enrolled in the same public schools attended by the children of the Nigerian immigrant who is working as a factory labourer.

Presently, the anger of the British people is boiling over because of the cash-for-peerages scandal. Penultimate Friday, the police interviewed Tony Blair for 45 minutes. That was the second time he would be quizzed over the matter. Lord Levy, Labour Party’s chief fundraiser had already been arrested and questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. The people are scandalised that their government was selling “national honours,” which ought to be conferred on merit, to the highest bidders.

Recently, Washington DC erupted in anger as Americans vented their spleen on their president over the Iraqi war. All over the world, people revolt against their governments when they err. But not in
Nigeria! You would hardly hear a whimper no matter how horrendous a government policy is.

Britons are angry that a former Education Minister sent her educationally-challenged son to a private school rather than ensuring that the government provides the same facilities in public schools where the children of both the poor and the rich would have equal access. And you ask: Why are Nigerians not angry that their leaders destroyed public schools only to establish private universities and secondary schools where only the children of the rich can acquire decent education?

Why are Nigerians not angry that their leaders send their children to the best private and public schools in Europe and America, with public funds, to acquire the best of education while own children are left at the mercy of demoralised teachers, dilapidated infrastructure and cultists?

Why are Nigerians not angry that the Lords of the manor are busy equipping their children with the right skills through decent education, acquired at public expense, while ensuring that their own children end up as ‘drawers of water and hewers of wood?’

Why are Nigerians not gnashing their teeth at their so-called leaders who are happy leaving the Nigerian hospitals the way they met them eight years ago – mere consulting clinics or even worse, while they travel abroad for the treatment of the commonest of ailments?

Almost every Nigerian leader who has died in the past decade died either in a South African, Saudi Arabian, European or American hospital. They proudly announce when they are going for their regular medical check-ups abroad. Yet, hospitals at home cannot boast of the commonest of drugs and the people are not complaining.

Why are Nigerians not fuming that the private businesses of their leaders, which they run from public office, are flourishing while theirs are dying everyday due to harsh economic environment?

While are Nigerians not beside themselves with rage that their leaders can raise N2 billion “loan” from the banks, using nothing other than their offices as collateral when they cannot get from the same banks a paltry N20,000 to finance their small-scale businesses?

Ribadu alleged that a governor bought four aircraft for his personal use. Nigerian leaders no longer travel in commercial aircraft. Those who have not bought their own planes now charter jets to move about in the country and even to travel abroad. The aircraft in the presidential fleet is enough to resuscitate the moribund Nigeria Airways. Our leaders now fly from one part of the country to the other in jumbo jets. When they land at the nearest airport, they hop into waiting helicopters to complete the journey to their villages. Yet, in this same country, poverty walks on all fours. Minimum wage a month remains N7,500, equivalent of £30.

Why are Nigerians not fuming that those who are enjoying these luxuries at their expense have not been considerate enough even to build good roads for them?

Why is it that Nigerians don’t get angry when they see men and women with whom they were living in squalid ‘face-me-I-face-you,’ riding in the same molue bus with 44 sitting and 77 standing, and eating at the same buka only yesterday suddenly become multi-millionaires who can afford to send their children to Europe and ride the best cars simply because they are now in government?

Why is it that Nigerians cannot get angry when they go out on Election Day to vote for those they want to be their leaders, only for other people to be announced winners at the end of the day?

What stops indigenes of Oyo State from venting their spleen on Adedibu and his co-travellers on the boulevard of infamy? What stops them from staging a massive protest in Ibadan, vowing never to get off the streets unless and until the police arrest Adedibu over his illegal possession of six Independent National Electoral Commission’s Direct Data Capture machines.

What stops Anambra indigenes from marching to the state House of Assembly and sacking the thugs pretending to be lawmakers? What stops indigenes of Oyo from sacking the ruffians who have turned the hallowed lawmaking chambers into marijuana smoking complex?

Why can’t Nigerians protest unless someone rents them for the purpose of scoring cheap political points against their enemies?

Of course, many will point at the brutal character of the Nigerian state and sadistic tendency of those in power who will not hesitate in unleashing violence on citizens who dare protest. But that is defeatist. How many people can the police kill when the righteous anger of the people boil over.

Nigerians have themselves to blame for the impunity of those in power. In any other clime other than ours, the anger of the people would have by now left so many so-called leaders swinging in the wind. In
Nigeria, we would rather pray for them to live long. They kill, maim and rig themselves into power and insult us with the mumbo-jumbo that power comes from God and we ululate.

And to imagine that these same people that cannot raise a finger of protest in the face of impudent heist of their patrimony will not think twice before pouncing on each other, killing and maiming themselves, in an orgy of religious cum ethnic warfare. Ours is indeed a strange county, populated by strange people.