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Rule of Law Under Fire!
By Chude Jideonwo

Reading Simon Kolawole’s column last week (Sunday, 14th October 2007) and coming in contact with the forceful passion that always hits home with the readers, I almost changed my rigid stand against the reckless methods of the Ribadu-led EFCC. His premise was simple: corruption is killing all of us, and the EFCC is helping us strike at corruption; that single fact should make us ready, eager in fact, to give it the benefit of the doubt, especially at the expense of those who are responsible for the bad roads and the deaths in the hospitals. And it is an excellent point. One that got me thinking long and hard about my insistence on ‘technicalities’.

Thankfully, before I could convince myself that perhaps this one time, law and order should give way for Nuhu Ribadu to stomp his feet on the mud of corruption, it sharply came back to me why that, no matter how tempting, no matter how satisfying, that option would be most dangerous.

You see, the one big misconception the media, especially with its retinue of influential columnists, is responsible for is conveying the easy, but very erroneous, impression, that the cry for ‘rule of law’ only comes up in respect of former Governors and other political ‘heavyweights’; or that lawyers (senior lawyers) only battle the EFCC for the sake of their ‘big’ clients who are in the line of fire.

Oh but nothing could be further from the truth. To put that in proper perspective: the only reason that these cases receive so much attention is because they are news – it is the nature of news to concentrate on the Iboris and the Dariyes rather than the unknown Adamu or Chinonye walking the streets of Ikeja, with the EFCC on his/her trail.

What is even sadder? The media has turned out the worst culprit of the offence for which it points accusing fingers. Ignoring the common man.

The fight against the EFCC’s recklessness goes far, far beyond our present focus. The hue and cry for rule of law is not just about Nuhu Ribadu and his media savvy kitchen cabinet. The practical reality around the nation is that, due to the wide space given to the EFCC chairman and the fact that he is widely seen as able to circumvent the rule of law, even for Governors and other influential Nigerians, his foot-soldiers working in the EFCC offices around the country have become demi-gods. They have become judges. They decide who is guilty and what punishment the person should get. And no one could say anything, or call it to order, under Obasanjo, because the EFCC could no do wrong.

Have we forgotten that before the rule of law became a mantra, the EFCC could match into a House of Assembly, drag its members out, relocate them to Lagos and detain them indefinitely until they could coarse ‘confessions’ out of them? They would torture, threaten, intimidate until they got what they want – have we forgotten so soon?!

The reason why lawyers have become most critical of the EFCC is simple. Because of the nature of their profession, they are the ones that most witness the cruelty, the degradation, the recklessness that have become trademark of the EFCC’s operations. They witness the agency interrogating without any respect for basic decency and with no limit as per torture tactics, they see it arresting people without following any of the set down procedures, they see it interfering in all manners of matters that are really not their business if indeed they have their hands full investigating corrupt government officials, they witness its officials weighing in with an debilitating high-handedness that seemingly has no limits; barging into your house at mid night, beating you up, taking you to the station, keeping you there, and choosing lawyers for you!

But no one hears about those – of course no one would – because this commission has become so media-savvy and adept at manipulating goodwill that no one pays attention to the appalling methodologies that have become its staple. It is only those families, those colleagues, those who have been victims of this recklessness, who have been stripped of all humanity that would understand the importance of the rule of law. It is only when we come in contact with the EFCC’s fangs at close contact that we will get the point. Sadly.

It’s not just about the governors! But the fact is, you cannot expect the EFCC to treat the ‘common man’ with dignity and respect if they think they can get away with it! It’s how we get them to treat the guys in the news that will dictate how they will treat the guys not in the news! And the only way they can get in line is if they follow the uniform laws that are set out, and that is the rule of law! This is not about Ibori; it is not about Dariye - this is about the right of all people to be treated according to constitutionally recognized safeguards!

No matter how much people like Odili and Kalu decide to manipulate the context and purport of the ‘rule of law’ to suit themselves, it cannot and should not be jettisoned because we must remember it is better that ten guilty men go scot-free than for one innocent man to go to jail.

The rule of law: the legal architecture and the burdens and obstacles that the EFCC, and a large chunk of the Nigerian media, view to be a nuisance to quick prosecution of ‘corrupt’ politicians is actually deliberately so organized to make sure the system is thorough and to protect the few that will ultimately be proclaimed innocent. It is there to make sure innocent people do not suffer from the rabid illogic of emotion, from the misguided rush of the demagogue, from a desperation to ‘do good’ that suffers from an excruciating lack of objectivity such as we observe now. If emotions were to guide the course of justice, many would have seen sentenced to jail without being able to prove their guilt. And some of them will be able to if given the chance.

When we insist that Ribadu on his larger level respects the rule of law, due process and the fundamental right of the ‘accused person’ to be presumed innocent, along with respect for orders and instructions of constituted authority (in this case the courts) we send the message down the line that the law must be obeyed no matter how much we think we are in the right.

Any way else, and we so corrupt our system that no one would be able know where ‘right’ ends and ‘wrong’ starts. And when this train of misguided self-righteousness reaches our door, or the door of a neighbor, and we call on fairness and equity, and neither can avail us because emotions have clouded the eyes of the multitude – then we will appreciate how important it is to have an objective, standardized architecture like the rule of law to protect us when no one else is ready to.

Fellow Nigerians, in our desperation to ‘fight corruption’, let us be careful what we ask for – because we just might get it.