A Senate of Forgers or a Nation of Forgers? -By Adeolu Ademoyo

Adeolu Ademoyo

…even if the crass and ethically impoverished face of law is sustained under Abubakar Olubukola Saraki, such crass legality will not remove the global view that the Eighth Senate is a Senate of forgers. On the contrary, such ethically impoverished crass legalism will actually deepen the local and global view that the Eighth Nigerian Senate is a Senate of forgers. And this will be tragic for Nigeria’s new Change Mission, and law making in Nigeria for the next four years.

The investigation by the Police of the process of “election” of Dr. Abubakar Olubukola Saraki as Senate “President” and Mr. Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate “President”, which established a case of forgery, has rekindled a past image Nigerians, both at home and in the Diaspora, had hoped they were gradually putting behind them with the new government of Mr. Buhari. The image is that of a country where law and morality are often set aside. The name of this is corruption.

Sadly, something brought the global nature of the knowledge of the alleged forgery in the Eighth Nigerian Senate under Bukola Saraki back home to me this week. The context is that of simple city dwellers, a pool of city volunteers, common folks who returned to their city’s recreation park to help clean up after a tennis tournament. And because of the ordinary everyday-life nature of the context, it makes the negative impact of the popular nature and knowledge (even among non-Nigerians) of Nigerian corruption and forgery in the Eighth Nigerian Senate devastating to me.

In my small city, Binghamton, New York State, we have just ended our annual tennis tournament. It is the Binghamton Tennis Challenger, which is often backed up and supported by a pool of energetic and enthusiastic city volunteers running everyday errands to make the tournament successful. I was part of the pool of volunteers and community crew that helped put down the physical structures erected by the Binghamton community for the tournament. As we, members of the community, were enthusiastically putting down these structures, a dialogue commenced between two fellow volunteers, a lady and a gentleman, and me. After a brief lull to a conversation of an interesting global topic, the following came up among us:

Man: Wow! You have such rich experience, where are you from originally?
Me: Nigeria (I said very proudly).
Man: Oh, that country known for its corruption…
Me: Oh, no, no, no, it is not like that, that is not particularly true, all countries have their challenges and anyway em em all that is coming to an end… we have a new government in place-Buhari… and we are fighting this thing and putting it behind us…
Man: But didn’t they say your Senate leadership forged the documents that got them elected a few weeks ago?
Me: Well but you see… we will handle that…

Fortunately for me, the interlocutor and a fellow male volunteer needed a hammer for our joint community work, and as he went for it, my fellow female volunteer mused about how gorgeous the weather of our small Binghamton city was on that day! I knew what the lady was doing. She was trying to divert the conversation, given that the point had been made about the corruption in my country, Nigeria; and given my obvious discomfort.

Emptied, I replied dryly and awkwardly, “yeah the weather is so cool…” and we quietly, as if the conversation about Nigeria did not just take place, continued our community labour of love for Binghamton and for our children, hammering away at planks, wood, tarpaulins, metals, and putting structures away to make our community tennis court clean and glistering again after the tournament, for our community children to come back to the court to continue to realise their potentials as we love them to do.

By the time my male compatriot came back with the hammer, the topic had changed and that helped. I didn’t miss the earlier depressing point. It was a sobering lesson for me. Far away in a popular everyday street context, among common folks in my small city of Binghamton, New York, and thousands of kilometres from Abuja, Nigeria where the infamy of alleged forgery by the Eighth Nigerian Senate took place, and ironically a few days after a good outing by President Buhari in Washington DC, the lesson was brought home to me in a depressing manner that we (Nigerians) are a country of forgers.

But I know that to say we, Nigerians, are forgers just because the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Salisu Maikasuwa, together with some Like Mind Senators, under the leadership of Abubakar Olubukola Saraki, allegedly forged the document with which they conducted the Senate election that made Saraki and Ekweremadu Senate “President” and “Deputy President” is a fallacy.

It is a fallacy because, first, it is overgeneralisation to conclude that just because a few people are forgers then the whole people of 150 million are forgers; second, one will be using a small part (the alleged forgery by a few Senators and the Clerk) to judge a whole country; and third, it is a huge fallacy to give the questionable conduct of a part (the pro-Saraki Senators and the Clerk) to the whole, the country.

And the fact that the Senate group under Ahmed Lawan, called the APC loyalist Senators or the Senate Unity Forum, did not partake in the infamy of forgery is sufficient to call to question the fallacy that the whole Eighth Senate is one of forgers and that we are a country of forgers. But despite the fact that it is fallacious, its flaw is one thing, and the set back in our global image as a people and as a country in the global public domain as a result of this alleged forgery by Nigeria’s highest law making body, Senate, is another. Why? Bad news travel faster for, devastating as it is, it is no news if a dog bites a man, but it is big news if a man bites a dog!

This is a lesson the Nigerian politicians and rulers need to learn in the highly technologised 21st century, where global travels, global migration and the power of culture and technology have all shrunk the world and turned it into a global village. We the people are the purveyors of culture.

Therefore, as global carriers and messengers of culture, we the people are the ones who can effectively defend the country when things get hot for the country locally and in the Diaspora, and not the millions of sometimes questionable image-making and public relations stories told by the retinue of Special advisers on Media and New Media to President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy Senate President, House speakers and other Nigerian government officials. This is why Nigerian politicians must conduct themselves properly, especially ethically, so that Nigerians can stand up for the country in difficult situations.
We hope the Nigerian judiciary will take judicial notice of this alleged forgery which has been established by the Nigerian police. Let lawyers on both sides present their arguments before a proper court and let justice prevail.

While we await court decision on this issue, for the so-called Like Mind Senators under the tutelage of Dr. Abubakar Olubukola Saraki, their legal and media spokespersons, to insist on legislative immunity of the Senate in the face of a legal and moral infraction, crass legalism in the face of a legal, procedural and moral ambush of Senate rules and procedures by Saraki and his clique is instructive and ominous.

This is because if the status quo is sustained, and Abubakar Olubukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu remain as Senate “President” and Senate “Deputy President” then it is a huge indication of the lawlessness, corruption and ethical deprecation of the law under the guise of crass legalism and formalism that will prevail under the Senate Leadership of Saraki and Ekweremadu.

And even if the crass and ethically impoverished face of law is sustained under Abubakar Olubukola Saraki, such crass legality will not remove the global view that the Eighth Senate is a Senate of forgers. On the contrary, such ethically impoverished crass legalism will actually deepen the local and global view that the Eighth Nigerian Senate is a Senate of forgers. And this will be tragic for Nigeria’s new Change Mission, and law making in Nigeria for the next four years.

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