“Justice cannot be for one side alone but must be for both” –Eleanor Roosevelt.
To a keen observer of 2015 APC presidential campaign, the question as to whether Buhari will probe past governments on being elected was somewhat obfuscated. At the prologue, the statement “I will fight corrupt officials” was the common denominator in the gamut of all that Buhari said. When the drama actually started, the question was flip-flopped. At the epilogue – in the wake of shift to 28 March – Nigerians awoke to the news headline: “Buhari: I won’t probe past govts”.
APC and Buhari in their last ditch effort to win the election observed that probing past administrations would amount to waste of time and distractions. According Buhari, “Anyone who embezzles even a single kobo afterwards will not only be made to refund it, but will face prosecution as from May 29, 2015 if elected.”
With the election done and dusted, and with Buhari now the elected president of Nigeria, the script was changed. Buhari deemed it fit to be himself – at least for a moment. Hence another headline popped up: “Buhari will probe only Jonathan’s government.”
Why this about-face? And why must it be only Goodluck Jonathan’s administration? Inferentially, two reasons will do: (i) Buhari is a man that craves for international recognition and trust. And he can’t gain that without probing the corrupt officials. (ii) The decision was the child of the trauma he suffered after his inauguration – whether to belong to some people or to nobody and everybody.
The announcement generated – as expected – a hell of hue and cry across geopolitical zones, ethnic cleavages and political divides, even among clergies. The revered political scientist and Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Hassan Kukah, in an interview with Channels TV averred that Buhari should “stop talking too much about probe and concentrate” in his work. He stated uncompromisingly that “probe is not a substitute for governance”. Bishop Kukah didn’t go scot-free but was bombarded by missile of disparagement from citizen journalists that dwell in the ambience of twitter. The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, on his own part advised Buhari that “those found guilty [of looting] should not only have their assets seized and forfeited to government but also they should face jail sentences”. Nigerians at the beer parlours and follow members of Free Readers Association were not left out as they did contribute in the said issue.
In all these arguments, one thing is crystal clear: For our democracy to work, corrupt politicians should never be canonized but should be brought to their rightful place – Kirikiri Maximum Prisons – so that upcoming ones will understand that leadership is a double-edged sword that ought to be wielded with caution and utmost propriety.
But in so doing, justice, impartiality and fairness should be the watchwords. And this ushers us into the primary task of this piece – puncturing Buhari’s selective prosecution.
In jurisprudence, selective prosecution comes to bear when a person or group of persons are selectively picked in a pool of like minds to be prosecuted not just because of the crime they committed but because of their ethnic group, colour, ideology –and in this case because of the administration they worked under.
This was the case in the infamous Obasanjo administration when the Ribadu-led EFCC was transformed into political witch-hunting machine. Many corrupt politicians then didn’t know that the anti-graft agency existed because they were singing every tune dictated by their payer Obasanjo. Just a little fallout, EFCC would be knocking at your door. Contact Alamieyeseigha and Ibori for the rest of the story.
So is Buhari trying to wear the cloak of Obasanjo? Why must it be only Goodluck Jonathan’s regime? And why will other administrations be spared? Buhari by this decision is telling us that nothing has changed in Nigeria. He has leaped into the bandwagon with “Operation bring down all the GEJ men”. He must have studied Obasanjo’s regime very well – Ribadu must be laughing by now!
Even before the announcement, Goodluck Jonathan had already condemned selective prosecution. In advising the then incoming Buhari administration, the former president maintained: “If you are very sincere” in fighting corruption, “then it is not only Jonathan administration that you probe.” Continuing, he observed that a probe that centred solely on his administration will amount to “witch-hunt”. “In Nigeria, there are a lot of many things that will be probed, very many things, even debts owed by states and debts owed by this country from 1960 up to this point.”
This unsolicited advice by Goodluck Jonathan was not just more logical than emotional but it also x-rayed the dumbness that beguiled the former’s administration. He knew all these and did nothing! But that said, Buhari should have listened to him. In a country like Nigeria where many people analyze politics through the binoculars of ethnicity and religion, Buhari should have known that selective prosecution may throw open the Pandora box.
Many legs are sticking out in IBB’s regime; they are sticking out in Abdulsalami’s regime; they are sticking out in Obasanjo’s second coming and Nigerians are yet to know the bazaar of looting that took place when Yar’Adua was having a date with the grim reaper in a Saudi hospital. So why must it be only Goodluck Jonathan’s government?
If Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade is to be credible, it needs to be applied against the Third Republic and all the administrations in the Fourth Republic and not that of Goodluck Jonathan alone. All living corrupt leaders must be brought to book.
Having said that, fighting corrupt leaders is just one side of the corruption coin that the Buhari administration is expected to tackle. The other side is the corruption with the followership.
Nigerian society itself is awash with corruption. Rarely do you see an aspect of Nigerian society that has not been brought down by corruption. As such, the only way to reduce corruption to the barest minimum in Nigeria is by restructuring our institutions to checkmate themselves – that is the secret behind American success story.
Corruption in Nigeria is hydra-headed and it “fights you back when you fight it”. For Buhari to adequately fight corruption in Nigeria, he must live above party politics, the Sagay-led panel must enjoy independence and, more importantly, he has to divorce his beautiful wife Aisha and be betrothed to the legal damsel, Themis.
Jonathan Asikason
