Early in 1984, the lot fell on me to cover the Special Military Tribunal in Kaduna that was trying political office holders who were kicked out office by the military and brought before the Tribunal to complete their circle of wrenching ordeals.
The trials were held in secret. Then on the last day of the trials, the military will call us the reporters out and herd us to a military facility that was converted into an emergency court room. They will then do what they considered a privilege to the reporters by reading the judgment to us.
We the reporters at that Tribunal considered former Governors Abubakar Rimi and Sabo Bakin Zuwo, all Kano State star performers of the Tribunal. It is either they provided fun or big news during the period of delivering the judgment. While Rimi who spoke the Queen’s English would deliver a stinging criticism of the military regime and their system of justice, Bakin Zuwo who barely went to school would provide gallows humour in his staccato English.
The Tribunal had the mandate of the military government to deliver harsh and rather grotesque sentences. One day after Bakin Zuwo bagged over 200 years at the tribunal, he was asked by the Chairman of Tribunal, Naval Commodore Elegbdede to plead for mitigation of sentence. Bakin Zuwo refused to do any such thing saying after all this was year of Olympics (I think there was Olympics games going on somewhere in the world) and him and his good friend Jim Nwobodo former governor of Anambra were in competition as who would win. Jim Nwobodo too had been awarded hundreds of years to serve in prison by the Tribunal sitting in Enugu.
Bakin Suwo said he was not surprised with what the Tribunals were doing to him and other political office holders because “Nigeria is under judicial hara, hara, hara, hierarchy, hara-kiri”. Many of us burst into laughter at Bakin Zuwo’s incomprehensible sentence so loudly that we were warned by the Tribunal.
Like the second republic, most acts of obscene corruption in Nigeria take place at the state level. In fact compared to what is happening today, the second republic state government were headed by saints. At least those ones did not loot the treasury with the reckless abundance that is being done today. Those ones did not hijack the funds meant for Local Government and hand it over to their wives as bed room allowance. Those ones respected the leaders of their political parties and were willing to take correction when called to order. These days the state governors have amassed so much power that it is an understatement to say of them, what used to be said in the past that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The best description of their various acts of aggravated gluttony today is what Professor Aminu Jibril described to me that “one with governor makes the majority.”
This started in the days of president Obasanjo when the governors acquired so much power that they controlled the local governments by hijacking the funds allocated to that level of government by the federal government and through the State’s Electoral Commissions decided who was elected into office there, controlled their own governments at the state by appointing their cabinet members and even tried to control the federal cabinet by dictating who represented each state there.
The only saving grace of the Obasanjo years was the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The pioneer Chairman of the Commission came as a hurricane, demonstrating so much strength, gusto and style that we all thought would clip the ever growing wings of the gubernatorial men.
For all his bravado, Malam Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could not charge one let alone convict one governor while in their first term in office. The constitution gave the governors immunity and nobody could touch them. At his appearances before the Nigerian Senate to give accountability of his stewardship, he accused the majority of the governors of “direct stealing”. When the immunity clause which saved from such travails, expired, he charged only eight out of 36 state governors from the previous administration. Out of these 8, only two have been convicted and are serving prison terms.
One of the governors accused of the biggest direct stealing by Nuhu Ribadu of EFCC fought the Commission successfully and in court obtained an perpetual injunction against the EFCC.
“Therefore there is a perpetual injunction restraining the EFCC from arresting, detaining and arraigning Odili on the basis of his tenure as governor based on the purported investigation,” Judge Ibrahim Buba said.
I remember that immediately she took office, we questioned Nuhu’s successor in office at the EFCC Mrs Farida Waziri about this perpetual injunction and she promised to appeal and get it vacated. Sadly until she left office, she never got it vacated. The hope that this judgment will ever be vacated and Odili and other accused persons will face the law appear to be getting more and more dim. The accused persons and their lawyers have continued to obtain injunctions have hampered the speedy trial of corruption cases by the courts. These injunctions are minor compared to what has it is reported to have happened at Supreme Court.
The supreme court has now ruled that the EFCC no longer has the right to arrest or prosecute any state governor after his tenure.
This decision was made in the ruling of the case involving dr. Joseph Nwobike SAN vs. the federal republic of Nigeria, last week.
The supreme court has held that the EFCC does not have the powers to prosecute offenses that are not corruption cases and that the only corruption cases it can investigate are cases involving the movement of cash from Nigeria to foreign countries and corruption cases involving federal finances, being a creation of federal law.
The court also held that the EFCC has no power to look into the finances of states. Thus if a governor stole money from a state where he was governor, the EFCC has no power to prosecute that governor.
The governor can only be prosecuted by the attorney general of the state or the Nigerian police, or any other agency that is covered by the Criminal Code, Penal code, or any other law.
Thus the EFCC, by the judgment in the case of Dr. Joseph Nwobika SAN VS Federal Republic of Nigeria, can no longer hide under section 12 to 18, and section 46 of the EFCC Amended Act 2004, to prosecute all kinds of cases whether emanating from the state or federal government, as its powers are regulated by the global action against corruption as regulated by the United Nations conventions which Nigeria signed.
According to Barr Emperor Ogbonna Onunaekwuruoha who has been the following the case; “This decision may have dwelt a very big blow to any fight against corruption as governors of the states can now steal as they like.
A governor and his cronies can now steal as much as they want from the State, and all he needs to do is to ensure that the new governor was installed by them and the new governor would watch the back of the old governor, although this is subject to the powers of the police to charge anyone to court but the powers of Nolle prosequi of the Attorney general of the state under section 179 of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 and under the Criminal Code and penal code is still supervening and all-embracing.
Also, the EFCC can no longer investigate government contractors or anybody that was complicit in stealing or embezzlement of state money.”
This has come after the same Supreme Court has confirmed conviction of people persecuted by the EFCC. Maybe if Bakin Suwo were alive, he would explained to us what he meant when he said in 1984 that “Nigeria is under judicial hara, hara, hara, hierarchy, hara-kiri”.
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