LAST week was draining for many citizens. This opening statement sounds stupid. The question that should naturally strike anyone who has lived fairly consistently in this country for 25 years since the inception, or rather, return of rule by civilians in 1999, is how many weeks these past two decades and a half have we been spared the debilitating and wearisome drama of the absurd? How many times? And the absurdities are carefully crafted and orchestrated by a section of the ruling elite to keep Nigerians chewing their thumbnails in disgust and disbelief. But the joke has always been on us though we do not get it. It would appear that our mumu (local lingo for collective foolishness) is factory made, or as we say in this clime ‘follow come’.
If the truth be told, it has not always been like this. Citizens’ activisms against repressive governments from the colonial era to successive military dictatorships have been the fact of our national life. Protests by university students in the 1960s helped to abort an obnoxious Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact early in the life of an independent Nigeria. There was also the bloody May riots of 1989 or so that moderated the Ibrahim Babangida plot for a wholesale adoption of the International Monetary Fund (IMF’s) Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) prescriptions for economic recovery. We have lost the verve as a people and the younger elements whose futures are more in jeopardy do not seem interested in looking for where the ball was dropped.
Many decades ago, flamboyant journalist the now late Dele Giwa wrote two articles which were published about the same period. In one, he titled it: ‘Adewusi’s men can’t shoot straight’. Sunday Adewusi, also late, was the Inspector-General of the Nigerian Police Force. Almost 40 years after the provocative headline, police operatives under Adewusi’s successors still cannot shoot straight unless they are targeting innocent and unarmed protesters.
Two recent examples will illustrate the state of the police – the murderous put-down of the August 1-10 #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests, and the show that was put up at the Kogi State Government Lodge in Abuja last week. In the August protests police killed scores of Nigerians in cold blood while those who survived are currently in captivity facing charges ranging on terrorism, treason, treasonable felony, subversion and attempt to overthrow the Federal Government. The charges may sound phony, and they certainly do, but they are in sync with the ways of repressive regimes worldwide.
However, last week the police/security details of Kogi State Governor Musa Ododo and his predecessor, Yahaya Adoza Bello, the White Lion, and the police of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), both federal police, shot at themselves in a firefight, shattering the peace of the Asokoro-Abuja night for a considerable length of time.
When the dust settled in the morning of the day after, a Thursday, there were no deaths; no reports of injuries; and, there were no arrests. It would not matter that there could have been some residents of that neighbourhood with heart and/or other pre-existing health conditions whose situations could have been exacerbated by that night of madness by government security agents. In a sane place, the expectation is that there may at times be collateral damage in the course of an official task by security agencies. But that was not the case in this Abuja ‘shootout’. The EFCC police and those of Ododo/Bello were merely entertaining themselves at the expense of Nigeria.
The sorom chia (Igbo for comic display) by the EFCC and their ‘prey’ Bello, will be a box office hit any day, and a classic in later years. Creative Nollywood must have taken note. What’s the genesis? Bello was governor of Kogi state for eight years until last January. Corruption allegations swirled around him even as a governor. He had absolute immunity, so nothing could be done to him. We have conveniently forgotten that there’s an existing court decision that a sitting governor can be investigated but not prosecuted while in office, thanks to the efforts and doggedness of the late Gani Fawehinmi, a renowned and unblemished anti-corruption crusader. Well, Bello installed his relative Ododo as governor. Then the EFCC slapped a charge of N80blllion misappropriation/money laundering on Bello. The former melted away but tied up the case in court through proxies. He did not for once appear in court. At one point he even insisted that only the courts in his Kogi State and the judges he appointed while he was governor had jurisdiction over his matter. He fought his cases up to the Supreme Court. And he lost all of them.
Yet he would not answer to the summons of the EFCC for interview nor present himself in court for arraignment and to prove his innocence. In what has now been exposed as a contrived frustration, the anti-graft agency declared Bello wanted and caused his name to be published in the Red List of the International Police Organisation (Interpol) as a global fugitive. Interpol may have taken the notice seriously. But not Nigerians. And now with the events of last week not even the EFCC took their wanted notice on Bello seriously. Nigerians and the EFCC knew that Bello was in this country and enjoying immunity by other means. In April, the EFCC had besieged the Abuja residence of Bello but failed to apprehend him, just as it failed again last week. But this time what transpired was different. It could have been treated as comical but for its national implications.
So what was different this time? Bello, a fugitive, according to the EFCC visited the offices of the anti-graft agency in the company of Governor Ododo in broad daylight. They loitered around in the open. They exchanged pleasantries with the operatives and the staff of the EFCC. It was even alleged that they sent a message to the chairman of the EFCC announcing their presence and the desire of the former governor to be interrogated. The chief of staff to the helmsman was alleged to have told the VIP visitors that the chairman was busy and so had no time for them. The guests were allegedly told that the EFCC would revert to them to arrange for a meeting at a convenient date and time. After about four hours of loitering around what otherwise should be a security zone, Gov. Ododo, former Governor Bello and their team triumphantly left the EFCC complex.
A report even claimed that the EFCC staff and operatives who encountered Bello were very noisy in hailing him. Bello the fugitive, Bello the villain, Bello the accused plunderer is about to become Bello the law, Bello the warrior, Bello the saint, Bello the saviour, and Bello the persecuted. There’s no doubt that the depth that the country has fallen may yet be difficult to fathom, but some tales about some things that happen here still beggar belief. A fugitive over whom you had asked for global help in arresting walks into your den noisily exchanging pleasantries with your operatives, requests for a meeting, and you let him walk away freely could only fit tales under the moonlight. The greater tragedy is that the man who heads that agency was still sitting pretty in office as at last weekend when we wrote this. And he has also not been fired by his appointer, Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But truly, that the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, was not summarily suspended preparatory to his being fired on the heels of this global embarrassment should not come as a surprise. It is a case of akwu rere ere nime ikwo puru epu or rottenness on top of rottenness equals rottenness.
By the way, the accounts we related above about Bello’s visit to the EFCC offices came from the media team of the ‘fugitive’. So the natural question will be why not balance their claims with the position of the EFCC? Sadly, there’s nothing to balance or counter. The EFCC did not refute the story that Bello was in their premises on Wednesday, September 18. It did not deny that Bello’s company made contact with the office of the EFCC chairman while they were around. EFCC did not disclaim that Bello met some of their staff whether at the agency’s parking lot or anywhere else in the complex. The agency did not deny anything that was propagated by the media team of ‘fugitive’ Bello. All that the EFCC said in their shameless and pitiable counter press statement can be summarised in six words – Bello is not in our custody. Read it again. Do not try to digest it because it will cause you indigestion.
Hours later that same day but this time under the cover of darkness, the same EFCC allegedly made contact with Bello’s people, established the location of the ‘fugitive’, and then dispatched a team of police ‘sharpshooters’ to apprehend him. Of course, the EFCC failed again. All they succeeded in doing that fateful Wednesday night was to humiliate and embarrass themselves, disturb the peace of the upscale Abuja neighbourhood, frighten residents and passersby, and then retreat with their tails behind their backs.
Memes have gone viral in the social media world about the magical powers of Bello, the (in)famous White Lion, and the invincibility of his juju man or men. A marabou that could pull off a feat that could rival the biblical story of Daniel inside the den of a lion deserves more than a passing attention. Indeed, some Nigerians have suggested that instead of wasting taxpayers money on domestic and offshore trainings of the EFCC operatives with little or no results to show, it could be more beneficial if the EFCC befriended Bello, forgave him of his alleged transgressions and encouraged him to introduce the agency to his juju man or men. Fortified with such magical powers, the EFCC will easily fish out corrupt persons, bring them to court and cast a spell on judges to quickly return guilty verdicts, and pronounce long term jail sentences. This will also work well for plea bargains. The harvests will be bountiful with corrupt people being made to disgorge all that they stole from the commonwealth. Nigeria happens to everybody. It’s a matter of time.
