How Buhari regime uses political terrorism under guise of Anti-Corruption fight

It is no longer hidden that President Muhammadu Buhari and his co-travellers in the country’s current state of toxaemia have fully resorted topolitical terrorism and barbarism in their so called “anti corruption crusade”. Hiding under the guise of “anti corruption” to perpetrate heinous State crimes such as treason, State murder and other forms of official terrorism, had been a recurring decimal in Nigeria; dating back to January 1966, during Nigeria’s first military coup. Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari (as he then was), used the same excuse to oust the democratically elected Presidency of Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983.

Since then, successive military and civilian governments in Nigeria had laid claims to “fight against corruption” as the cornerstone of their administrations. The Obasanjo civilian administration of 1999-2007, was exceptionally noted to have gone extra mile in creating visible anti corruption agencies such as EFCC and ICPC, created between 2000 and 2004. His anti corruption policies were also relatively proactive, civil and rule of law compliant; whereas those of the past military and civilian administrations particularly that of the Buhari military regime (1984-85) were archaic, retrogressive and repressive. This is on repeat mission in the current Presidency of Muhammadu Buhari with worst yet to happen.

In all these, Nigeria has ended up losing billions of dollars to its criminal political gangsters with over 90% of the looted funds ending up not recovered. The worst is that the more the host administration shouts “fight against corruption”, the more public funds are looted in its present and connivance with reckless abandon. Corrupt practices in Nigeria have not only gone e-gold or electronically undetected, but they have also been entrenched and clothed with impunity. As we speak, criminal enrichment in the country going viral with illicitly acquired properties springing up in leading Nigerian cities. A trip to Nigerian roads and security checkpoints is another eye opener and a fundamental measurement of President Buhari’spolicy-noise on corruption. Extortion at military (including soldiers and navy) checkpoints is now scientific and artistic with civilian agents recruited as collection agents under negotiated percentage settlements.

In Nigeria of present political composition, looters are endlessly looking for the looted with the looting going on rampage underneath or expressly. A president who is flown in a private jet, acquired with looted funds, is busy looking for the looters. Lawyers particularly the Silk, who illicitly charge roguish serving and former political office holders hundreds of millions of naira as consultancy and professional fees in high profile State graft or electoral cases, from illicit public funds, have joined “the fight against corruption”. Those who milked dry States like Rivers, Lagos and Edo and left them in quandary of indebtedness and penury are now “agents of anti corruption”; likewise print, visual and a number of pro establishment online media, acquired with looted public funds.

Some mainstream CSOs and their leaders with juicy cuts from looted funds; propertied and motorized, are also “singers of anti corruption in Nigeria”. Today, in Nigeria of Buhari’s Presidency, political opponents and opponent activists and independent senior judicial officers are cajoled, threatened, repressed and labelled “looters” and treated like violent criminals. These respected citizens are routinely taken into custody before investigation with prima facie evidence thousands of miles away to be laid on against them. When in custody, torture becomes a routine to force them to admit committing non-existent crimes or offences. Where reverse is the case, they are held incommunicado for months with impunity and untried.

Fighting corruption with “captains or doyens of corruption” leading the way or procuring the “government in power”, is akin to inviting a serial human parts dealer to come and become a defender of human rights in the human rights community. These explain the current State of bastardized and corrupted anti corruption policy direction of the Buhari Administration; where political terrorism and barbarism now hold sway.

Having carefully studied the recent late night State violence by President Buhari’s DSS against some respected senior judicial officers and associated revelations by some of them including Hon Justices John Inyang Okoro and Sylvester Nwuta Nwali (serving Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria) as well as Hon Justices Adeniyi Ademola, Mu’azu Pindiga and Nnamdi Dimgba (serving Judges of the Federal and State High Court); we are, again, shocked and dismayed as what Nigeria has turned into in the past 17 months of Buhari’s Presidency. The roles of the print and visual media and a number of pro establishment online media are also very saddening; likewise the turn-coat position of the NBA.

These quickly remind us of an immortal advice handed down to one Chris Ubah by Mr. Peter Obi (as he then was), who later became the Governor of Anambra State. The latter had advised the former to “guide his unguided utterances against judges handling the then Anambra State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal (September 2003 to August 2005) because it will take him 20 years to become a judge, that is if he so wishes and goes back to school to continue from where he dropped in junior secondary school”

These explain our deep sadness over coordinated attacks and image damnation launched by the Buhari Administration against the named serving senior judicial officers, using its riotous DSS and compromised media. While we have no apologies for any serving senior judicial officer that corruptly enriches him/herself or that allows him/herself to be corrupted, provided he or she is processed, prosecuted and punished in accordance with due process and constitutionalism; we condemn in unequivocal terms the deliberate and coordinated ruination of innocent others who have toiled and laboured to build and protect their integrity by being contented and refusing to be corrupted or tainted.

Launching campaigns of calumny and criminal stigmatization against a set of innocent serving senior judicial officers on account of their refusal to pervert the course of justice to impress the riotous agents of the Buhari Administration, is totally an irreparable damage, not only to the judges and their career but also to the collective image of Nigeria as a whole. This is more so when it is logically grounded that three out of every five Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Nigeria’s 774 LGAs may most likely not produce a Supreme Court Justice in twenty years, if not more than that.

It is also tearful and heart-bleeding as how the conscience of the nation or democratic institutions in the country has turned over nightinto agents of darkness and layers of dictatorship and lawlessness. Rather than standing up at all times in defense of democracy and rule of law, reverse is now the case. To the extent that Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) (staunch defenders of the rule of law) now call for the suspension of rule of law in a democratic setting; likewise defense of illegalities by some, if not many of Nigeria’s foremost professors of criminology, constitutional and criminal laws as well as human rights activists, stomached by the Buhari Administration; Nigeria and its democracy are doomed.

In all these, our questions to the Buhari Administration and its riotous DSS are: What is the difference between a mad man running amok with a sharp knife in a crowded market and a perceived sane man running behind and chasing him with another sharp knife in the same crowded market? Between two of them; who is insane and who is sane?

We asked the above questions because it has become an entrenched routine for the Buhari Administration to bend rules and resort to short-cut, lawlessness, illegality and unconstitutionality in its governance approaches, particularly in its so called “anti corruption crusade”. Though President Muhammadu Buhari himself, seconds President Jacob Zuma of South Africa in the world ranking of the least educated Presidents, yet it is also an incontestable fact that his Administration parades an assemblage of leading scholars in law and criminology. The movers and shakers in Nigeria’s mainstream CSOs are also part and parcel of its Administration; yet the Administration has continued to behave or operate as an outlaw or a brigand political entity.

For the purpose of putting the records straight and advocacy and technical enlightenment,crimes, as we have them today in the globe are divided into two major categories of “mala inse” (crimes with global application and acceptance such as murder, armed robbery, asportation, carjacking, aviation terrorism, rape, arson, burglary, etc) and “mala prohibita” (anti social conducts defined differently by different countries as crimes or otherwise, such as adultery, victimless crime (i.e. prostitution) and some categories of white-collar crimes).

Further, “corruption” and most of its agents as a crime appear to fall under “mala inse” because of its global reprehension leading to the adoption ofthe United Nations’ Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) by the member-States of the United Nations including Nigeria in 2003. The UN Anti Corruption Convention entered into force on 14thof December 2005 with 176 signatories and 140 full State-Parties including Nigeria, which signed it on 3rd December 2003 and ratified same on 14thDecember 2004.

“Corruption”, globally is a complex social, political and economic phenomenon which still battles with a uniformed global definition. It involves misconducts in public and private sectors for the purpose of illicitly obtaining material and non material gains or favors. To be punishable,corruption must pass through the process of codification in a written and known criminal law by a member-State of the UN. Corruption, on its own, cannot a constitute crime or an offense, except aided by its agents such as bribery, fraud, kickbacks, extortion, embezzlement, money laundering, obtaining by false pretence, etc.

Corruption also belongs to the family of invisible crimes called “white-collar crimes”. “Invisible crimes” are so called because of difficulties in detecting them. Most importantly, they arenonviolent in nature (i.e. their perpetrators do not use physical violence in perpetrating them). They are very common in “white-collar” society or civil service or pen-culture society, dominated by government and corporate entities. The opposite of “white-collar crimes” are “blue-collar crimes” or “street crimes” (stealing, robbery, auto theft, burglary, youth crimes, abduction, arson, etc),usually common in “blue-collar society” or commercial areas or cash-economy.

To Prof Edwin Sutherland (1949) of the Chicago Criminological School, “white-collar crime” is a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his or her occupation or office business. It arises from fraud, embezzlement, electronic or cyber crime, bribery, insider trading, kick-backs, contract inflation, over-invoicing, identity theft, forgery, money laundering etc. The concept of white-collar crimes was popularized by Prof Sutherland in 1949.

Pieces of evidence required for an offense ofcorruption against any perpetrator substantially start from electronic and paper based evidenceand end in same. Investigations associated with corrupt practices start from behind-the-scene (i.e. data mining with or without the knowledge of the suspect) and end with investigator-suspect interface (for clarifications and pre-prosecutorial fair hearing). Investigations into corrupt cases do not require late night invasion of homes and other dwelling houses as well as breaking into such homes with sledge hammers, acid substances, etc or corruption and abuse of search warrants (if any). The defence of retrieval of criminal proceedsis watery and impeachable; even if the movement of criminal proceeds was detected by secret police at ungodly hours, intelligence and policing surveillance methods remain the legally acceptable or permissible approaches until the godly hours return.

Search warrants must not be executed unless the suspects are present and put on credible notice. Forcing suspects (i.e. Justices and Judges) to sign such warrants or purported inventories for items purportedly recovered, amount to armed robbery, burglary, torture, assault and threats to life and properties. Besides, corruption must be handled by the requisite anti graft agencies such as Police, EFCC and ICPC. DSS has no statutory or constitutional duties whatsoever in the law enforcement aspect of anti corruption crusade. If for any reason, it has intelligence, it should be exchanged or passed to anti corruption agencies like EFCC, Police and ICPC.