Tuesday
June 8, 2010 |
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Last week, a twelve-person jury at the
Southwark Crown Court in London convicted two Nigerian women on charges
of facilitating extensive money laundering activities by former Governor
James Onanefe Ibori of Delta State. One of the convicts, Christine
Ibie-Ibori, is a sister of the embattled former governor, the other,
Udoamaka Okoronkwo (nee Onuigbo), his former mistress. A third woman,
Adebimpe Pogoson, the former governor’s erstwhile assistant, was
acquitted.
Then just yesterday, Judge Christopher Hardy sentenced both convicted
women to five-year jail terms – the stiffest possible punishment for
their crimes.
Judge Hardy did something else that was both unusual and more
devastating. He castigated Nigeria’s judiciary for working to protect
big-time looters from the sanctions of the law. Nigeria has a few
courageous and bold judges, but too many occupants of the country’s
bench – on the evidence of their bizarre judgments – seem all too ready
to sell their bench to the highest bidder. Judge Hardy deserves
commendation for delivering his well-aimed punch at the soft, seedy
underbelly of Nigeria’s corrupt, craven judges.
The two women’s convictions testify eloquently to a society – in this
case, the British – that takes its laws seriously. At one point during
the trial, some of the accused women – especially the notorious Udoamaka
– appeared to think it was child’s play. One day, she taunted Nigerians
who’d come to the court to observe the trial. She cast several poses,
flaunting her backside as if she were at a strip joint, not a courtroom.
In finding the duo guilty, the British sent a clear message that those
who break their laws must count, if count, on getting due grief.
By contrast, Nigerian officials and courts telegraph the message that
crime pays. And the bolder the Nigerian criminal, the greater the
dividend he or she may reap.
Here’s a pertinent tidbit about the London convictions. In making their
case against Ibori’s associates, British prosecutors used a few
documents forwarded to them by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission. Yet, the EFCC’s case against Ibori – the principal accused
in the British as well as Nigerian legs – came to a futile end.
Three years ago, the EFCC charged Mr. Ibori with 170 counts of money
laundering and abuse of office. Unlike the British case, which was
prosecuted with professional rigor, the one in Nigeria went through a
familiar rigmarole.
Like other Nigerian public officials accused of corruption, Ibori
vociferously professed his innocence. Even so, he didn’t trust that his
profession of innocence would impress Justice Shuiabu, a Kaduna high
court judge with a reputation for being irreproachable – a man who holds
himself, and his office, so highly that he would not sell himself. So
Ibori persuaded a federal appeal court to declare that he should be
tried in the state where his alleged crimes were committed. There was
strategic calculation in that appeal.
In a series of curiosities, the Delta State government, headed by
Emmanuel Uduaghan, Ibori’s maternal cousin, bought and donated a
building to serve as the high court in Asaba. Former Attorney General
Michael Aondoakaa, who did a poor job of hiding his partiality to Ibori,
assigned the prosecution of the corruption case to a lawyer who had
earlier written a memo to the effect that there was no case against the
former governor. Marcel Awokulehin, a hitherto little known judge, was
asked to preside over the case.
It was a perfect stage for farce. Rather than a trial, the proceedings
resembled a defense bonanza; the prosecutor, judge and defense counsel
often seemed indistinguishable.
Few were surprised when, after what struck many as a mock ritual,
Justice Awokulehin ruled that he couldn’t find a single indictment that
stuck on Ibori. If the good people of Delta ever imagined that one kobo
of their funds developed wings during the eight years that Ibori ran
their affairs, well, they were grievously mistaken – and gravely
ungrateful to Ibori.
Here, then, is a mystifying angle to the whole drama. If a jury in
England could conclude that Ibori’s associates helped him to launder
funds, why was Mr. Awokulehin unable to see that Ibori engaged in any
hanky panky with public funds?
One answer, of course, is that Ibori’s case was – by design – prosecuted
incompetently. There was little doubt that then “President” Umaru
Yar’Adua, the PDP hierarchy, and Ibori’s cohorts (including Aondoakaa)
were invested in the collapse of the government’s case.
Even so, it’s one thing for government officials, who may have come into
office via rigging and who may themselves be interested in illicitly
amassing wealth, to wish to free one of their own with soiled hands.
It’s quite another thing when “ordinary” Nigerians, the victims of
graft, step up to defend or champion their dispossessors.
A lot of the so-called supporters are, of course, hired hands. Yet, all
too often we also witness such veneration of villainy from people and
sectors of society you’d expect to possess sterner moral insight.
Nigeria is in danger, I fear, of becoming a space where impunity and
other forms of shady conduct are regarded as normal. If one listens to
the lyrics of some popular songs or pays attention to everyday
conversation, one begins to grasp the increasing sentiment that wealth
is an ultimate value, and its acquisition even by foul, fraudulent means
is deemed heroic.
The sheer number of scandals over the last twenty years or so years is
stupefying. There’s the still unaddressed question of what happened to
more than $12 billion in additional revenues that Nigeria earned from
oil sales during the first Gulf War. There’s the scandal of June 12,
1993, when a stellar election was annulled for reasons that nobody has
articulated. There are the scandals of the Sani Abacha years, including
billions of dollars taken away from the Central Bank, the debt buy back
scam, and deals in which the dictator, his family and friends imported
toxic fuel into Nigeria. Then there are the Obasanjo-era scandals and
scams, including Obasanjo’s Transcorp shares, the contract for the Abuja
stadium, the billions of dollars wasted on so-called power projects, the
shadowy process through which oil blocs were handed out, the absence of
accountability in his management of Nigeria’s oil sector, and Pentascope.
Then there are the Siemens and Halliburton scandals whose stench touched
a huge number of Nigerian officials.
In nations where public officials are held to count, those implicated in
scandals of such scope and enormity would be spending long spells in
jails. In Nigeria, by contrast, the perpetrators of these grave schemes
are labeled “prominent” Nigerians, tagged “stake holders” (or, in my
translation, “steak holders”), garlanded with national honors, and
called “chieftains”.
Today, Ibrahim Babangida is angling to become president of Nigeria.
This, despite the fact that he has not explained the mystery of the
legendary wealth he accumulated whilst reducing Nigeria to a pauperized
state. Olusegun Obasanjo is back to his strutting ways, presiding over
secret caucuses on the affairs of Nigeria. Yet, this was a man who, in
the eight years of his presidency, worked zealously to destroy Nigeria –
including his protection, if not outright encouragement, of hoodlums who
in 2004 used Anambra State as the theatre for a three-day spree of
arson. Does anybody seriously picture Obasanjo giving Mr. Goodluck
Jonathan wonderful ideas to positively transform the lives of Nigerians?
Enlightened Nigerians ought to insist that people like Babangida and
Obasanjo be compelled to answer for their questionable actions in
government, that they be docked if found to have committed crimes. If
those who become presidents, governors and ministers in Nigeria don’t
believe themselves to be too exalted to steal, to rig elections, or to
collude with foreign corporations and local businesses to fleece their
country, then we must insist that they belong in jail.
It’s an anomaly that Nigeria has not unmasked one beneficiary from the
Halliburton bribe scandals – even though American courts have sentenced
Halliburton executives to jail, and imposed stiff fines on the company
for paying off “top” Nigerians. Siemens executives have similarly been
sanctioned for their illegal bribing of Nigerian officials, but none of
the Nigerians who took their lucre has been named.
Unless Nigerians establish the principle that a thief is a thief,
regardless of his rank, and susceptible to the punishment set out in the
criminal code, we run the risk of nurturing a generation of citizens who
embrace the idea that it’s noble to steal everything in sight – and much
that isn’t.
