Thousands of years ago in the city of Jerusalem, an innocent man, Jesus Christ, was brought before Pontius Pilate, who was the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea at the time. Pilate tried but in vain to save Christ from his traducers because he was well aware that the Jews had determined to kill Christ for no just reason.
When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to that yourselves.”
The band of murderers and the army of Pharisees and Sadducees did not want to let go. They said, “His blood shall be on us and on our children!”
Last week, a drama of sort played out in Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power, where senators in solidarity with Bukola Saraki, Senate president, vowed to “swim and sink” with him.
Unlike Pilate who wanted to release Christ having found him innocent of the charges brought against him, the court that is trying Saraki is not in a haste to set him free, not with many allegations that appear real that are pouring in against the Senate president.
Unlike the Jews that cried “crucify him, crucify him” out of envy and hatred for Christ and prayed “let his blood be upon us and our children” in desperation to see an innocent person go down, Saraki’s colleagues at the Senate vowed we will “swim and sink” with him in what people have regarded as a manifestation of desperation to maintain a stranglehold on power and in desperate effort to pervert the course of justice.
Senators, who are loyal to Saraki have vowed to “swim and sink” with the Number Three person in the country in his ordeal before the court of law.
Saraki is currently facing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) following a 13-count charge levelled against him by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) over an alleged corruption and false declaration of assets.
While street talks and debates point to a likely change in the leadership of the Senate as many people see the cases against Saraki as very “incriminating” and “serious”, his loyalists in the red-chamber legislative assembly believe that the Kwara State-born politician is simply being persecuted by some influential elements in the current administration.
While Saraki is facing the court over false declaration, some more sinister discoveries are still being made, compounding the lawmaker’s ordeal.
Last Monday, Nigerians were jolted by the report of an online release where Saraki’s family were among some prominent Africans named in a newly discovered secret offshore assets scam released by a German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The German newspaper had released the Panama Papers, the biggest leak in the history of data journalism, publishing online 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which showed how world leaders, celebrities, athletes, FIFA officials and criminals hid money using anonymous shell corporations across the world.
The Panamanian law firm, regarded as one of the world’s most secretive companies, according to the documents, has helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax.
When the news broke in Nigeria, resentment grew against some of the big names that made the infamous list. And the #PanamaPaper as it has come to be known appeared to have worsened Saraki’s case.
However, some senators have elected to “die” with him, even if Saraki were to be found guilty of the allegations trailing him, because according to them, they are protecting the “integrity of the Nigerian legislature” and would not want it “rubbished”.
Leading this “swim and sink” group is Senator Ibrahim Rafiu, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kwara South and chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, who, while speaking with journalists said Saraki’s trial was a ‘mere persecution’ and an attempt to tarnish his image in ways not experienced before.
“We have since discovered that the trial of the Senate President is a mere attempt to blackmail him and make him look bad in the court of public opinion. No more, no less. A dispassionate analysis of the proceedings at the CCT, has pointed to the fact that the APC-led executive is still embittered against Saraki over the manner of his election as Senate President.
“This is why we are standing for the Senate President and we will so do till the very end. We are doing this not for him but for the institution of the Senate that he eminently represents. We will never allow any arm of government to rubbish the cherished autonomy of the Senate.”
Over the years, the inability of government to successfully prosecute those it had accused of having skeletons in the cupboards has continued to encourage corruption.
In saner societies, public office holders are not being protected once they overstep their bounds. In such places, law is a respecter of nobody. That is why we hear and read about former presidents being sent to prisons; serving ministers going to prison; and in some extreme cases execution of former corrupt leaders.
But in Nigeria, things hardly add up. The law is only meant for the poor and the downtrodden. The rich are never reprimanded. When they are dragged to the court at all following public outcry, conviction is never secured against them.
In a country where the greater percentage of the population lives in abject poverty, the masses easily shift attention from such prolonged cases; and the ruling class capitalizes on that to play all manner of pranks. After a long period of noisemaking, grandstanding and publicity stunt about the so-called high-profile trial, what usually happens is that government goes to withdraw the case and through the Attorney-General of the Federation, orders the discontinuation of such prosecution.
Since the return of the country to civil rule in 1999, government has never made a public show of any of those big names it claimed were caught in corruption. From the Olusegun Obasanjo era to the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua years all through the days of President Goodluck Jonathan, the story has remained the same. No “big man” has ever been convicted and sent to prison on account of graft.
When President Muhammadu Buhari came on board smoking and threatening that those who had stolen Nigeria blind would be made to stew in their own juice, a few weeks to the first anniversary of his government, not even one conviction has been secured, yet people had been identified to have been prodigal in the use of public funds.
It is against this backdrop that Saraki’s loyalists are brimming with confidence that nothing would ever happen to the Senate president, whether or not he was culpable is immaterial.
Some of them are not saying that the Senate president did or did not commit the offence (s) for which he is being tried; their argument is based on “precedence”. They say that if some people had been discharged and acquitted in the same case that Saraki is facing, what then is the big deal about what he has done?
The Senators are very sure that Saraki will never vacate the seat because of the trail, whatever is the outcome.
This also goes to show how Nigerians have elevated individuals above institutions. Those in Saraki’s group, who apparently have elected to “die” with him to secure their positions as chairmen of certain committees, see the Senate president as their benefactor and are afraid that any change in leadership would buccaneer their privileged positions. They are not thinking about sanitizing the country; they are not thinking about the ordinary masses of their various constituencies, but they are only about self and the welfare of their immediate families.
In a society where the accused rent a crowd to sing their praise in court cannot achieve the desired sanitisation. It is common to see situations where women besiege the court, wearing uniforms, in what they called solidarity with the person being tried.
By so doing they see in the person being arraigned as a saint whereas those who are trying him or her are being vilified and even assaulted in extreme cases.
So, it still boils down to the failure of successive governments to show its seriousness in the fight against corruption. What has prevailed over the years is lip-service to the fight.
Until government and the judicial system in the country realise the need to make the rule of law work by insisting that those who fall foul of the nation’s laws are brought to book irrespective of their positions in society, Nigeria will continue to sink under the infamy of a privileged few whose actions have continued to bring the country to public opprobrium.
Zebulon Agomuo
