A Putrid Elite, Due Process, and The Appeal To False Analogy -By Adeolu Ademoyo

Adeolu Ademoyo

As the fight against corruption in Nigeria gathers steam under President Buhari, Nigerian elites and their defenders with skeletons in the cupboard, have, expectedly, started speaking in tongues and even “quoting” the “Bible” and “Koran”! Thus, in “quoting” the “Bible” and “Koran” the case of the corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their defenders fits the classical saying that even the devil quotes the Bible and Koran in order to appear saintly.

They do this by using innocent but naïve members of the society, lawyers, journalists, scholars, committees etc. And their primary tool is the appeal to due process and then false analogy to muddle investigation, attract sympathy in the public domain, in order to escape prosecution and judicial and moral justice. After looting our treasury, Nigerian corrupt elites have turned the correct and legitimate moral and legal practice of “due process” in civilized, open, accountable and transparent societies to a tool in Nigerian context to slow down investigation, prosecution and blackmail anti-corruption measures.

Corrupt Nigerian ruling elites have used many stealthy means in this regard. The latest was the pastoral cum political visit of the Abdulsalam Abubakar headed Peace Committee to President Buhari.

Since corrupt Nigerian elites and their defenders have a way of muddling issues in their poor defense when corruption is being investigated, let me put the issue in black and white to avoid any misunderstanding. Due process is a high moral and legal ground. It is the high ground and moral call of the deep. So, due process ought to be followed in all cases. But we do not need the hypocritical preaching of the corrupt Nigerian elites and their defenders who never adhered to due process in stealing the nation’s commonwealth when they were in government before we know the value of due process.

Stealthy and calculating, Nigerian politicians are full of intrigues. This is why the Abdulsalam Abubakar’s Peace Committee’s sudden pastoral and political visit to Buhari in the middle of a major anti-corruption agenda of the present government and after the visits of ex-presidents Jonathan and Obasanjo is highly instructive and ominous. Since the Peace Committee has raised the issue of due process in the investigation and prosecution of corrupt Nigerian ruling elites, it is important to take a comprehensive view of due process.

The Peace Committee’s articulation of due process and its articulation by corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their defenders  is narrow and limiting. This is because contrary to the wily behavior of corrupt Nigerian ruling elites; due process is not just about investigation and prosecution. Due process is a fundamental ethical requirement that includes the daily conduct of public governance. In this regard, when corrupt ministers, governors, former presidents, retired generals, managers of public, private corporations, NGOs, etc.   flaunt “their wealth”; due process requires us to ask if the acquisition of what they call “their wealth” followed due process. Therefore, it is against the fundamental principle of due process to limit its meaning and application to just investigation and prosecution as corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their advocates want to do. Due process is a total and un-limiting way of public life.

Additionally, it is suspect and self-serving when corrupt Nigerian elites and their defenders in an attempt to dodge investigation and prosecution cite decent and civilized countries in the west where due process is upheld. When members of the corrupt Nigerian ruling elites were in government, they failed to subject themselves to the best moral and legal practices known to a global, civilized standard, instead, for them, it was a legacy of looting spree visited on the Nigerian public treasury.

This is because then when the corrupt ruling elites-under the regime of ex-president Jonathan were individually and severally challenged to be transparent, accountable and to apply due process in the conduct of governance they argued (in native Nigerian lingo) that “oh, that your due process is foreign ooo, it cannot apply here ooo. Go back to your America, abegi. This is Nigeria it is not America, abegi hm!” Now, for these Nigerian corrupt ruling elites to start alluding to how due process   works in the western countries-where we have high legal and moral practices- only when they are being investigated and about to be prosecuted is an appeal to false analogy.

It is trite to say you compare like with like. You do not compare apple with stones. Like the devil who quotes the Bible and Koran, in their liken of apple to stones, the corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their defenders not only cross the line, they  re-possess the Bible and Koran, mutilate them and re-configure them beyond recognition. They want to eat their cake and have it. Nigerian people will challenge them all the way every inch of their self-serving arguments.

For those who rely on this false analogy-by referring to how due process is followed in decent and civilized countries whose elites will not loot the commonwealth of their people the way Nigerian elites do- to defend corrupt Nigerian elites, it may be necessary to give concrete examples.

Here in New York state, a deputy majority leader of the State Senate- Republican Tom Libous- (No 2 person in the state senate) recently resigned from the Senate after he was convicted of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about using his influence to help his son get a law firm job. Also, the previous state Senate leader –Republican Dean Skelos-also resigned his leadership position in May on corruption charges.

Let us compare these two American cases where due process is a way of life and conduct of governance  with the Nigerian scene where ex-president Jonathan and his PDP both past, present and disguised in APC buried due process. Here in Nigeria, the present leadership of the Eight Senate, under Abubakar Olubukola Saraki, was elected on alleged forgery, a forgery, which the police investigated and established. In other words, the Nigerian Senate leadership and administration forged documents to elect its leadership.

Rather than allow the police to do its work, the Eight Senate Leadership sponsored people to scuttle due process! Nigerians complain. The police stepped in. No sooner did this happened than sponsored lawyers and defenders, in a brazen attempt to scuttle due process, fanned out in all directions in appeal to an alleged immunity of the legislature in the face of the patent and egregious crime by the individual members of that leadership. Today as we write, that Eight Senate leadership is sitting tight in office on forgery, yet advocates of corrupt Nigerian ruling elites close their eyes to this only to appeal to a false analogy by citing due process in western societies.

When Farouk Lawan a member of the Seventh House of Representatives was caught on tape taking bribe from his businessman friend Femi Otedola, nothing happened. Lawan sat through his time as a member of House of Representatives under the then speaker and who is presently APC governor of Sokoto state-Aminu Tambuwal. In Ekiti state, the PDP thug called Governor-Ayo Fayose- used the Nigerian police to harass and physically lock out members of the previous Ekiti state assembly for months without paying their salaries-nothing happened. And when Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke, (ex-minister of petroleum) the known ally of ex-president Jonathan was accused of turning the NNPC to a private estate, and that she and members of her family used government money to fly first class, Nigerians were told how rich she was before she became minister! These are the two countries –United States of America and Nigeria-defenders of corrupt Nigerian ruling elites are comparing!

Let me repeat to make this clear. In New York State, a Senator resigned from office after he was convicted of lying. What is the lie? He lied to the FBI that he did not use his office to get a job for his son when in fact the country’s FBI established that he did! He has to leave the state Senate for lying. And he left. Can this happen in Nigeria? But in Nigeria, the Eight Senate leadership got into office through forgery- (a form of lying, but worse), which the Nigerian federal police (equivalent of the US FBI) established, the same group of people (lawyers, journalists, “scholars”, National Peace Committee members etc.) who are referring to due process in America cited Senate immunity in Nigeria to scuttle due process and help Nigeria Senate forgers to want to escape prosecution!

If Senator Libous were a Nigerian, will he not be celebrated in the churches and mosques for getting a new job for his son even when that was done against due process and the nation’s constitution? If Libous’ son (beneficiary of a violation of due process) were in Mr. Ayo Oritsejafor’s church, will Mr. Oristsejafor of CAN and member of the Abdulsalam Abubakar Peace Committee that visited Buhari not raise Senator Libous son’s hand up in his church and praise the “Lord” for his abundant “blessings” and “mercies”? Will the Nigerian mosques and churches not be in prayers and songs of praise for what “Allah” and “the merciful Lord” in his “mercy” has done for Senator Libous’ son? In other words, will Nigerian Churches (Mr. Oristejafor of CAN) and Mosques (Sultan of Sokoto) not suspend due process in order to worship and bless corruption?

This is the false analogy corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their defenders fall into when they argue that due process must be followed in their cases because due process is practiced in western societies. It is an outrage and an insult on our intelligence when corrupt Nigerian ruling elites and their lawyers, journalists, “scholars” cite due process in America and other western countries as a move to create soft landing for themselves and avoid investigation and prosecution.

Until the corrupt Nigerian ruling elites do for Nigeria –when they are in government-what the elites in the west do for their countries (i.e. build Nigerian institutions that work, and build and adopt due process when they are in government), corrupt Nigerian elites, their lawyers, and the “scholars” who defend them should as a form of defense stop comparing their Nigerian cases to cases in the western part of the world.

The looters of Nigerian commonwealth must be investigated and prosecuted under due process, and if found guilty let them face the judicial, legal and moral justice of their looting of our commonwealth and the emptying the future of Nigerian children.

Adeolu Ademoyo aaa54@cornell.edu Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.