LANRE AJIBOYE'S MEDLEY CORNER

Olanrewaju AjiboyeFriday, May 20, 2011
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MEMO TO PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN: WHERE WE WERE COMING FROM (I)

Preamble:

Society that does not know where it is coming from is most likely unsure of where it is and would mostly be blank on where it is headed, hence the need for us as a country to truly examine how we got where we are and plan rationally for where we want to go. This piece will therefore be serialised on what the author perceives as the lapses and laxity that get us where we are.


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FORTIFYING RULE OF LAW:

Without digesting its meaning, it is difficult to appreciate how it should be guarded. Rule of law definition therefore encompasses the following;

  1. �The principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised�in accordance with written publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure.�

  2. �The core of existing principle is�that all persons and authorities within the state, whether public or private, should be bound by and entitled to the benefit of law publicly and prospectively promulgated and publicly administered in courts.� �Lord Bingham of Comhill.

  3. ��a foundation for both our liberties and for order�the rule of law respects us as equals�allows us to organize our lives, plan our futures, and resolve disputes in a rational way.�- Stan Rule (Kelowna, BC, Canada).

These definitions among others were once enumerated by this writer in a piece published on February 15 2008 in the Nigeriaworld.com online news website.

If these definitions are thoroughly digested, it would be discernible that this core fundamental value of decent human society�s interactions and interrelations called the rule of law, does not give room for any form of oppression either from the constituted authority to other members of the Society or intra oppression among members of the Society. Suffice to say that the police, army, navy, air force, SSS, NIA, DMI, Immigration, Customs, Civil Defence, KAI, LASTMA should operate within the confines of the law and exercise utmost caution for human dignity and self esteem. The rule of law also frowns at coterie of murderous gangs in whatever guise, be it OPC, BOKO HARAM, MEND, CULTISTS, AREA BOYS, NURTW among others bullying, maiming, intimidating, killing, raping and robbing other members of the Society with impunity.

These aberrations are as old as our history as a country or as a nation as we often call it. Mutual suspicions, intolerance and perfidy among power mongers in the first republic spawned cells of illegitimate warriors protected by legitimately empowered politicians. Over the years these aberrations became more forceful, deadlier and brazenly defiant. They turned handier when politics completely became a business enterprise without rules and ethics. Known criminals buy their ways to political offices and sustain their positions by keeping a secondary army that can be quickly deployed to cause mayhem when their interest is threatened. If in doubt of the atrocities of these societal scourge, ask property developers who work and sweat only for the fruits of their labour to be unjustly taken by the �bad boys�. To have a graphic and chilling account of their monstrosity, engage in frank talks with market men and women as well as commercial drivers and those in logistics and haulage businesses.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service, (FIRS) runs after businesses that manage to keep afloat doing business in a very hostile environment but lack the courage and wherewithal to ask for revenue from the NURTW whose principals are engaged in conspicuous consumption and extravagant lifestyle. Why? Simply because NURTW are in unholy dalliance with the authority saddled with instrument of coercion, such that when they unleash violence, they do it with impunity.

These underground cells have multiplied rapidly that they now have cells of hired killers, kidnappers, arsonists, rapists and hirelings in land dispute wars.

On the part of government employees especially law enforcers, defenders of internal and external aggressions, Para-military organs, traffic managers and environmental sanitation employees, decay and decadence are the order of the day. Extortions, exploitation, intimidation, harassment, blackmail, bullying, perjury, extra judicial killings are their stock in trade. Years of military rule had aided and sustained these aberrations and it is proving very difficult to uproot after twelve years of uninterrupted democratic rule. The first eight years of unbroken democracy could even be overlooked because the Sustainer- in- Chief is the democracy nemesis.

We have utter disregard for sanctity of life, human dignity and self esteem. When a murder is committed, a senior police officer is unconcerned with the feelings of the bereaved. His or her press briefings in the presence of those who lost their dear ones is totally bereft of any sense of emotion. Murderers are within every force, rapists abound among them and ditto for ritualists. Why would America not remain attractive to her inhabitants? That is the society where criminals feel the heat and human lives are highly valued. If you do a serious crime, you would go in for a serious time ranging from long sentences to life imprisonment or even death penalty but after painstaking investigations. Were Strauss Kahn to have committed the alleged sexual assault in Nigeria, going by his status, it is the unsung victim that would be cooling off in detention if not murdered in the process to cover the tracks. We may be far away from God�s redemption than nearer to it if we do not change our ways especially our acts of glossing over serious criminality like murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and human rituals among others.

We do not attach values to old age and we neglect our seniors; we do not respect our women and children. We do not have any welfare programs for the elderly; we rape women at will, our lecturers intimidate and force female students to dispose their intimacy against their will, we refuse to provide for our young ones and we deny them the rights to education and health (Cannibals even kill them at will in Akwa Ibom on the wild allegations of their being possessed with witchcraft), family values and the cherished extended family association are imploding and the State is unable to arrest the drift. Public office holders are in mad competition in their stealing propensity.

We need to urgently arrest these delinquencies if we are genuinely desirous of moving Nigeria forward, a favourite clich� of our political leaders. If we could do it during the last general elections when the federal government put her feet down that it would conduct standard elections, cynics who thought it was mere rhetoric are still licking their wounds on the account of stockpiled arms that could not be put to use and which had put them in high indebtedness.

The president should make it unfashionable for the police to continue to oppress the citizen because they are the closest to the people and they are the worst violator of human rights. The Army, Navy and the Airforce should also be compelled not to see others as �bloody civilians� who should be oppressed. These men of valour transited from civilians before being empowered through uniform; much as the society should value their assignment, they should desist from dehumanizing people on flimsy excuse of insubordination on the road or in other public places. Murders should be investigated to the last clues and leads. Courts should also be further empowered to enforce contempt. Imagine a serving senator who was physically assaulted by an overzealous police officer when a court of law had just granted him bail and that happened at the court premises. Five innocent souls were brutally murdered in Ile-Ife by hirelings of desperate politicians and so far nothing serious has come out of it in terms of arrests. Patriotic youths on call of national duty were butchered in Bauchi, and the police are ill-equipped to carry out forensic analyses like finger prints and other pieces of evidence that can lead to the arrests of the killers.

The issue of rule of law is therefore a very important issue about where we were coming from as a country and if we are politically correct about it, will guide us on where we are and direct us on where we are going. The president should do all within his powers to see that every Nigerian no matter how lowly placed is not allowed to be oppressed and that no Nigerian no matter how highly placed is allowed to get away unpunished for any serious crime.

Olanrewaju Ajiboye is a member, Board of Nigeria Foundation www.nigeriafoundation.org

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