By
Franklyne Ogbunwezeh
culled from
http://www.globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1474&cid=8&sid=55
December 13, 2005
In 13th century Venice of Shakespeare’s imagination, a famous phrase escaped the
lips of a notorious man. This phrase went out to the entire world, attending
discussion circles and debating salons. It irrigated many ideological universes.
We owe this Shakespearean creature an indebtedness we can never retire. In fact,
with due apologies to Winston Churchill, I crave to say that never in the field
of literary thought, was so much, owed by so many to so single a phrase.
“A Daniel Come to Judgement” was famous not for its truth, but for its
notoriety. It escaped the lips of a vengeance-ravaged landowner bent on securing
a pound of flesh from his grand enemy, tormentor and nemesis. Shylock was a man
on a mission. Shylock nursed a grudge. He was being eaten alive by the fires of
vendetta.
Circumstance gave him opportunity. It pushed Antonio, like a sitting duck into
his crosshairs. Seduced by the love for his friend, Antonio gambled and lost. He
placed a bet on fate; using his most precious commodity. He advanced his life as
collateral to secure a loan to fund his friend’s enterprise. When tempest
wrecked the ships at sea, it sealed his fate. Shylock’s pound of flesh fell due.
Justice in its majesty panders neither to the whims of vengeance nor aids the
cause of revenge. But it respects the deed of contract. Shylock must have his
pound of flesh.
In justice, Shylock reserves the right to a pound of Antonio’s flesh. The
contract gave him rights to it. The law respects that. Equity should not aid a
man who gambled away his life. His course of action was stupid. And Equity must
not underwrite the costs of stupidity. When it does, stupidity proliferates.
Save for vengeance, which blinded Shylock from factoring pints of blood into the
equation, Antonio would have paid with his life, and rightly so. Justice never
panders to vengeance. Among its symbols is the measuring scale, which balances
the deed against the recompense. Justice abhors vengeance because in vendetta,
the aggrieved becomes the judge, the jury and the executioner of the recompense.
This perverts the cause of justice. Law giving, interpretation and execution
should never inhere in one man. It creates a tyrant out of him; no matter how
good willed he feigns to be.
That Shylock acclaimed the appearance of justice is indicative of one thing.
Justice is so august, that even a wicked man recognizes and acknowledges it once
he encounters it. When the judge granted him the right to execute his deed and
obtain his pound of flesh. He had cause to acclaim justice. Once the common law
obliged him, the court must grant it. Shylock was granted his deed. That was
justice. But for the moderations of Equity, which appealed to his heart to no
avail, before letting him fry in the unforeseen oils of his lust for vengeance,
Antonio would have yielded a pound of his flesh to the fiery furnace of
Shylock’s vengeance.
“A Daniel comes to judgement” re-echoes across time in praise of justice. This
supports the legal wisdom that justice must not only be done, but must be seen
to have been done. Justice must be done even for the wicked. Because even a
wicked man recognizes justice, whenever it appears, just like Shylock did
recognize him.
It is imperative for judges to do justice even at the supreme cost to their good
pleasures. They are well provided for by Equity in limiting the influence of
their private pleasures in the course of their duty. This is why it is a ethical
as well as a demand of equity, that a judge should never sit in on a case, where
he has the least semblance of an interest. A judge, like Caesar’s wife should be
above. This is because according to Pubilius Cyrus “when guilt rejoices, it
indicts the judge.”
Tafa Balogun knows in his conscience if he has any, (which is seriously in
question: Attributing this man with a conscience is like accusing evil of
goodwill) that he did not get justice, though he escaped the recompense for his
crimes. In the case of “The State v. Tafa Balogun,” justice was dressed down in
public and mocked with supreme derision. This man, who committed a crime
equivalent to an incestuous rape of one’s daughter, was instead of receiving the
stiffest rebuke reserved for such misdeeds, granted a government sponsored
sabbatical, to replenish his lewd appetites and “bounce back” for more
opportunities to go back to his specialty. After all a dog will always go back
to its vomits, while no amount of bath, will prevent a pig from obeying the
gravitational pull of its genetic blueprints, in going back to the mire.
Tafa Balogun was a man well endowed; but unfortunately, with an inert
conscience. That was why this bloated halfwit was psyching himself of his
“bounce- back”. The 2nd thief at Golgotha crucified alongside The Christ pulled
off a more intelligent job. He knew that justice was done him. He was in receipt
of the recompense for his crimes, although the man crucified amidst them was
innocence himself. He never asked for justice because he knew that that was what
got him martyred at Golgotha. He never boasted of a bounce-back. He had some
conscience. Instead, he asked for mercy. And because he asked for mercy,
paradise was granted him. This guy was so intelligent that he stole a free-ride
at the head of the angelic convoy, which escorted Christ triumphantly into
paradise. If Tafa had asked for mercy of Nigerians, we would have found it in
our hearts to forgive his criminal indiscretions. But he was unremorseful and
full of boasts. He could attain this level of moral inertia, simply because he
is a hardened, irredeemable crook, who has doused himself in the inerasable dyes
of roguery.
Justice could only be tempered with mercy, when the offender shows sufficient
remorse for his actions. But it did not obtain in this case. This crook was
glorying in his crimes. He equally never pleaded the defence of innocence,
because he was as guilty as guilt. This means that given the opportunity, he
would repeat his impunity without qualms of conscience.
It was such a pity that our learned Justice was supremely ignorant of the fact
that Justice and mercy are not mutually exclusive, as to let Tafa Balogun off
the hook, slapping his wrists only. Granted that the thief at Golgatha got
paradise, it never prevented justice from being served. The Christ still had to
pay his debts. The Christ did not get down from the cross, or walk away from
paying the price for the crimes of people like the thief, who was granted
paradise. Even in the hallowed halls of mercy, that Golgatha represented;
justice was still served and served to the fullest extent possible. Christ’s
spread of his hands was a message addressed to his Father, which read: May your
justice be appeased forever o! Lord”-Because: I have paid for it in full with my
life’s blood-Your justice is served, Lord, So let your mercy flow like the
waters of heaven”. It was equally a sacrament; a sign; a symbol of the fact that
justice must be done, not minding whose ox is gored in the process. Since God in
his infinite mercy and wisdom did spare his son from the arrows of justice, why
must we spare crooks from justice. It is not mercy, when our justice system
grants thieves the leeway to profit from their crimes. It is false mercy, which
destroys justice and makes the society a friend of crooks; thereby rewarding
crime and banishing goodness and social felicity from its firmament. This is one
of the major reasons why corruption has pitched a tent in Nigeria; transforming
our land into a paradise swindlers and gangsters.
Equally as justice goes, King David, as the Conquering Sovereign of the Jews,
had a lewd cause to allow power seduce him into usurping the wife of his
soldier. He did not stop there. He needed so many other crimes, like getting a
soldier drunk, and forcing him to be out of his duty post at the time his
country needed him most; and finally setting up his murder; to cover the one
crime of adultery he committed. But even in his guilt he never sought to
obstruct the cause of justice. When the weight of his crimes was unveiled before
him in parables, he sought justice for the man who committed this dastard act,
without knowing that he needed only to look in the mirror to see that man.
Nathan spared him that embarrassment. He showed him the man that was David, as
the criminal par excellence in this case. Immediately he realised that his game
has woken the wraths of heaven, he grovelled for mercy. He never boasted of a
bounce-back. He knew that in justice he deserves not to live. The 51st Psalm; a
masterpiece in contrition, was written with Davidic tears, which flowed freely,
when he realised that mercy saved his ass for that day. He asked for mercy. He
was granted that. But justice had to be appeased. The son conceived of that
adultery had to die in appeasement to justice. No one should be allowed to
profit from his crimes. Not even David. That will canonize crime and make it
lucrative.
But in Tafa Balogun’s case, the Nigerian judiciary against all canons of natural
justice, equity and good conscience, allowed a brazen thief, not only to profit
from his crimes, but offered him a pulpit, upon which he stood and told
Nigerians, with the certainty and fearlessness, which only a lifetime of crime
can guarantee, that he will bounce back.
Nigeria remains a cesspool of corruption much thanks to thieves like Tafa
Balogun. He belongs to a class of social vampires, who are monumental
personifications of avarice. These men have been pall-bearers and undertakers of
our progress. Tafa is a thief of mean-spirited mendacity. He is so sleazily
ambitious; more gluttonous than sensible. Tafa is so disgustingly corrupt that
he broke new grounds in the configurations and differential calculus of corrupt
practices. He represents a botched-up hybrid between elementary buffoonery and
galloping avarice. He overreached himself in posting a world-class display of
kleptomania. Balogun so much debased himself that from henceforth, all
generations of Nigerians will call him a thief. The name Tafa Balogun will from
henceforth be equivalent to that of Judas Iscariot. No woman from henceforth
will ever allow her child to bear this inglorious name.
Tafa Balogun, a former Inspector General of the Nigerian Police Force, was
charged to court on a 92 count charge of corrupt enrichment, stealing and
embezzlement of public funds, which amounts to brazenly defrauding Nigeria to
the tune of over 10billion naira. His exposure and arrest were liberally
garnished with theatrics. He consulted all the tricks in the book to stall his
trial. When at last he got to trial, the trial judge was given a rope to hang
himself in shame at his corruptibility. Being found guilty of the crimes;
instead of the full weight of the law taking its course to appease justice,
justice was terribly mangled in deference to some mercenary considerations, by
Justice Binta Nyako.
A brazen thief got 6 months for stealing 103 million dollars, while the Anajemba
conglomerate of fraudsters who defrauded a Brazilian bank of 242million Dollars
got 37 years imprisonment. So Justice Binta Nyako has by this miscarriage of
justice told every Nigeria who had the means to steal as much as he can; that
the more you steal and the more impunity you consult in doing so, the lesser the
sentence due you. Against the backdrop of the crime committed and the sentence
delivered by Justice Binta Nyako, one wonders why she did not go ahead to
canonized Tafa Balogun a saint. Two things force themselves upon our
consideration, as we encounter this gross miscarriage of justice. It is either
that Binta Nyako did not write this judgement herself; that is to say, some
principalities and wicked powers in high places wrote that script for her, or
that she is a monumental nincompoop, who auctions justice to the highest bidder
for a fee. And when that suffices as the case, then she has ended up committing
the worse crime of allowing a criminal to rejoice over millions of other law
abiding citizens. And to that end, had really bludgeoned justice.
Let’s see why her crime is so dastard!
Justice is mangled when crimes go unpunished. The heavens weep whenever crime
profits from its indiscretions. Crime is made lucrative whenever the criminal is
allowed to enjoy his loot in peace and quiet, while his victims are made to look
like fools. Whenever crimes are praised, or wherever criminal behaviour is
dressed in the cloaks of euphemism, or hidden under legal technicalities to
exonerate a crook, the bar of justice is bended.
When injustice is appeased, ethical chaos is enabled. It may not be immediately
perceptible. But the dykes and levees guarding social conduct have been
dangerously eroded, breached, and compromised. This as the passage of time would
show, is to the extent that any storm or wave of opportunity, will sweep away
social morality in tsunamic overkill. The Third Estate of the Realm exercises
functional oversight as the watchdog of justice, in every commonweal. When it
fails in this duty, the society loses confidence in this last resort of the
common man. And a social jungle is enabled. “Homo homini-lupus”- becomes not
only a distant possibility, but a frightening actuality, as men transform
themselves into wolves to their fellow men. The strong are then licensed to
decapitate and feed upon the weak, and like Thomas Hobbess frighteningly and
picturesquely painted it, the hope of advancement in the sciences, arts or
humanities disappears. Development flies with the winds. Fear rules. And the
lives of men become nasty, brutish and short. This is the kind of social
circumstance, which Binta Nyako and her likes have shamelessly allowed
themselves to be used in creating, in Nigeria.
Binta Nyako has set a very dangerous precedent. She has rewarded crime. And any
country that rewards thieves has canonized thievery as a norm of social conduct,
and has lost every moral right to legislate against thievery or to punish petty
thieves. When Robber barons are feted, petty thieves should not be punished.
That is justice. What is good for the goose should never be converted into gravy
unaffordable to the gander. When young men deprived of hope by the social
structure created by thieves like Tafa Balogun, in order to stave off hunger and
social irrelevance, steal some few hundreds of naira, they are clamped into
maximum security prisons as crooks. But if a heavy-weight embezzles billions of
naira, his community rewards him with a chieftaincy title. Cheerleaders sprout
out of every rotten social fissure to sing his praises. The law is bended to
accommodate his farts, which are socially toxic. Legislations are even enacted
to legitimize his caprices. The society becomes depraved so much so that the
powerless now aspire to become crookedly powerful, and the innocent aspire to a
life of crime, to underwrite the irrelevance their lives have become as well as
grant them a ladder to life of unearned privilege, abundantly rendered
attractive by the opulent display of obscene wealth.
The metaphysic underlying this fact is so obvious. Injustice is the superlative
atrocity. This corrosive indiscretion destroys virtue and casts the good in the
mould of felons. It evaporates the waters of social felicity, leaving behind the
crystals of vice as coagulated sediments of social disease. Not only that, it
whitewashes the sepulchral rottenness of viciousness in an attempt to canonize
it; every miscarriage of justice inflicts innocence a grievous blow, and blurs
the line between virtue and vice, with a chameleonic nebulousness that nullifies
the platforms of both; mixing them to brew a monstrous hybrid of ethical
uncertainty, which enables evil to flourish at the detriment of goodness.
The stench of injustice is so malodorous that no deodorant can abide its
potency, or dream of ameliorating it. This is why the robes of all the good
judges who ever lived, according to Henry Ward Beecher, would not be large
enough to cover the iniquity of one corrupt judge. No man can judge unjustly
without injuring eternity. And no perverse judgement can ever escape history’s
wrath and opprobrium. This is why the Sun of justice apportioned woes as the
inheritance of those who would betray justice. Injustice will be the recompense
of those who trade in it. It will not only be their heritage, but will also
metamorphose into a legacy for their posterity. I hope that Binta Nyako has got
some children. Dele Giwa is forever right. The evil or injustice done by man to
his fellows, for whatever reasons, be they pecuniary, timorous, pusillanimous,
or mercenary considerations; will never go unpunished; If not now, certainly
later; if not to the subject directly, certainly to his predicates in posterity;
if not avenged by man, certainly by God. Evil is its own nemesis. Injustice is a
boomerang. It certainly comes back to its origin. Since Binta Nyako has released
a piece of monstrously cruel thief off his rightful recompense, then she should
be ready to bear it herself. One wonders how proud this judge would be to be a
Nigerian under conditions of social torpsy turvydom, which judgements such as
hers` amply breeds.
In a state where injustice reigns in the affairs of men or their institutions, a
cognitive dissonance is enabled, that will essay to install an ethical
confusion, which disposes the society to commence feeding off itself and its
offspring unto self-destruction. In a social structure where a thief who steals
a piece of yam to forestall gastronomic emergency goes to the gallows for
obeying self preservation-the most primeval instinct and most ancient of
laws-trying to arrest the extinction of his personal history, which un-assuaged
hunger abundantly represents; while a man who stole billions of dollars and
pillaged the commonweal- in allegiance to his greed- receives a judicial slap on
the wrist; a pathological social imbalance is created.
With Tafa Balogun walking off the wrath of his greed, justice was thrown to the
dogs. The Nigerian judiciary has raped justice. Crime and criminal impunity has
now been licensed. Nigerians are now told that if you want to be a monkey, you
better be a gorilla, because at the superlative level of impunity, instead of
being condemned, you are revered and feted, with feathers added to your cap.
With Tafa’s charade, judicial impunity reached an all time high.
With this judgement the judge, who masks as learned, by the name of Justice
Binta Nyako, proved herself not to be an outstandingly bright personality, but
an irritating compromised of justice, subsisting as a diseased indictment on the
high office of the Bench. That Mr. Tafa Balogun was not locked up and the keys
thrown away, is an indictment on the character of Justice Binta Nyako. This
judge must therefore tell Nigerians how much she was paid to betray justice with
a kiss of false considerations. She must tell us how much she received to mis-carry
justice. Men and women who committed lesser crimes of passion have languished in
Nigerian maximum security prisons for ages. But this monumental thief, who
ruined the reputation of an institution and salted away millions of Dollars kept
in his charge, barely got his sleeves slapped.
That men, who pilfer to stave off gastronomic emergencies, are locked away for
what seems like forever, while hardcore thieves like Tafa Balogun are just given
some 6 months holiday; an infinitesimal sentence, for a prodigious crime,
signals that something is gravely wrong with a legal system that abides this
depth of injustice. It is convulsive. A crook was granted a podium, upon which
to spite at the stupidity of Nigerians. He took the opportunity, looked ordinary
Nigerians in the face, stuck up his middle finger, and in the “fuck you”
fashion, told Nigerians that he will bounce back. Believe me; this thief will
one day join the presidential race in Nigeria. He will serve less than 6 months
in jail. Lie low for the next government to come into power; then purchase a
state pardon for himself with the state funds he stole. After all, another high
level and hardcore crook, who forged and lied his way to the top seat of
Nigeria’s lower house of legislation, on a certificate he neither acquired nor
worked for, in a university which he never attended, by the name of Salisu
Buhari, who should be doing some serious hard time in prison for forgery and
perjury has been pardoned and heads a board appointed by the Federal government
of Obasanjo, most ironically on matters relating to education. This is
rottenness in excelsis. A man, who dishonoured and raped the honours of
education and achievement, was appointed to head an education committee. It is
like handing a paedophile the custody of the child he abused. What about Chris
Ubah? This was a thug, who raped democracy with his congenital fraudulence;
kidnapping a sitting governor, rigging elections and falsifying results of same
in such an audacious and brazen manner. Yet, he is granted a seat a trustee of
the ruling party. That is justice and honour Nigerian style.
Why Tafa Balogun should spend the rest of his terrible life in jail, is obvious
to even a blind Nigerian. It is not rocket science. Lets take a closer look at
this rotund buffoon, who is avarice personified. I don’t give a hoot about
niceties here. I owe no one apologies here. I am going to dish out my anger as
raw as it is in print. I am going to give no quarters and I expect none. These
guys sacrificing Nigeria’s future to their avarice are so mean. The can do
anything to protect members of their gang. This is why Chris Ubah is not in jail
for raping democracy. Obasanjo still touts him as a defender of democracy. This
is why the Killers of Bola Ige are still apparitions. The list is inexhaustible.
Justice Binta Nyako has proved herself a mentally challenged nincompoop. The
idiots that are our political leaders in Nigeria have nothing more to offer us.
They have proved how rotten they are. What kind of insult have these fools not
heaped on ordinary suffering Nigerians, with the stench of their impunity? For
this stupid justice or whatever she chooses to call herself has shown us how
spineless she could be, in letting an extraordinary crook to get off the hook.
Tafa Balogun was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment for stealing 103 million
Dollars. Many Nigerians are dying of hunger and lack of drugs to treat their
illness, and one man cornered and salted away over 10billion naira, and all he
got in the bargain is 6 months in jail. When we allow this to stand, she we not
go and apologize to those who have been executed all over Nigeria for stealing,
because none of them have ever stolen to the degree that this man did, with the
kind of impunity and plunder which he consulted.
As a public officer, Tafa Balogun is a particularly nasty piece of work. This
guy was not only an eminent thief, he was an audacious scoundrel. This bloated
buffoon, who endowed with phenomenal avarice, stole himself into disrepute. He
stole not only 10.3 billion naira ($103 million Dollars), from the police funds,
which he managed as a trustee; he stole futures, eviscerated dreams,
disembowelled aspirations, sabotaged plans and embezzled the welfare of the
officers and men of the Nigerian police force. His shamefaced and brazen
thievery ransacks every expectation. He was a thief armed with impunity. With
103 million Dollars, to pilfer, he was unmasked for the fraud he is. His greed
is unparalleled. He worships greed. And since greed is a bottomless pit that can
never be filled, all her worshippers are condemned to drink the waters of
insatiability. Tafa Balogun drank this water. And for his punishment, he is
eternally condemned to insatiability. Crimes inspired by avarice are lewd ones.
Let’s see why it is lewd.
Greed is insatiable. All who worship her will always consume themselves in the
heat of their own unwisdom. When the orchestra of greed plays, it plays a
symphony of galloping selfishness. Greed is a lewd worship of the self: It is
eminent idolatry. It is the crude deification of the self above every other
reality. A greedy man is forever an infant fixated at the Freudian oral/anal
phase of psychosexual development. This is the stage of primal selfishness,
where only the ego and its desires exist. Psychological development decrees the
transcending of this stage, as imperative for an integral existence. But the
greedy man is fossilized at this level; existing in the singular Black hole of
his solipsism and egomania. To this end, he subconsciously assumes that he is
the centre of the universe, and that everything must bow and bend the knee at
his desires. Greed is a thirst which no amount of holding can assuage. It is
like the legendary Caspian Sea: the more you drink from it, the thirstier you
become. This is why Oliver Twist will always ask for more. The greedy blinds
himself to the fact that once a given desire is assuaged, others pop up in its
place to harass his avaricious existence. An avaricious man had sold himself
short to the manipulative finger of unbridled acquisitive tendency. Everything
must become his. Against this backdrop, anyone in whom the desire to acquire
ranks higher than the desire to create, according to Bertrand Russell, is a
metaphor of misery; a prisoner in the miry pits of destructive desires. The
irony of it all is that the excessive impulse to grab all in sight leads to
wretchedness and endless pain. The greedy can never realise the wisdom inherent
in the solomonic words: “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity! or the truth in Job’s
categorical lamentation: “Naked did I come into the world, and naked will I
leave it!
Greedy men are miserable creatures. They are condemned to lust after
non-essentials to fill the abyss of their emptiness. They are tragic characters
primed to self-destruct. The tragedy of it revolves around their inability to
realise that greed is insatiable. It is their failure to recognize the fact that
greed is an unfathomable pit, which no amount of acquisition can stifle. This is
because greed represents vaulting acquisitive tendency, which in turn betrays an
inferiority complex and a very deep neurotic imbalance. This complex ceaselessly
haunts the subconscious of avaricious men. It is a dysfunctional baggage to
carry. To this end, avaricious men are condemned to eternally crave to have more
to fill the gaping and yawning abyss of their wretchedness and insecurities;
instead of being more or creating more.
Greed’s playground is the ephemeral and the transitory. Greed contained in
itself the seeds of its own destruction. That is why it is evil. Tafa Balogun
knew this. But yet, he consented and elected to succumb to it. This man’s crime
is a dastard one. He is a dog who ate the bones consigned to his custody for
safety. He was an officer of the law, who have sent his men after many a greedy
man, to apprehend and prosecute their avarice. His men have hunted down
criminals who steered foul of the law. This was an enforcer of the law who
instructed his men to shoot and kill robbers on sight, in a primitive
advertisement of crude might. Little did we know that his crookedness and
roguery defies all logic and reason; little did we know that our chief law
officer is a decorated crook. This was the thief that was selected to occupy the
podium with men of achievement and distinction like Chinua Achebe, when the
Obasanjo government organized, like all things related to that government, a
charade of a national merit award. But most fortunately for merit, Achebe
declined to dignify a charade with his august presence. That Tafa Balogun was
not only nominated for a national merit award, but went ahead to scale the
hurdles to be short-listed for that award is an indictment of due process in
Nigeria. Due process has acquitted itself terribly in Nigeria. How can we trust
a merit award or any other recognition issued by the Nigerian government, when
even a thief could steal his way to that. How could we ever trust the democratic
pretences of Obasasnjo’s government and his PDP gangsters, when thieves,
embezzlers, and baronial kidnappers like Chris Ubah, Tony Anenih and other
accidents and apparitions like Ahmadu Ali (Ali must go) are on the board of
trustees of this ideologically-anaemic contraption that pretends to be a
political party? How could we ever trust Obasanjo pretences to be fighting
corruption, when men guilty of corruption are crowned with government-sponsored
sabbaticals?
Nigeria is a dangerously funny place. Crooks have exchanged prison cells that
should be their abode and playgrounds for high-government offices. Nigeria is
now a democratization of thievery. Every politician and his cronies are now
cannibalizing the state as much as they can. This is why Tafa Balogun could have
protectors in high places, who croon for his release.
Corruption is king in Nigeria because we have elected through an indefinable
alchemy, to bend the knees in worship of the golden calf of impunity. This is
why we murder a petty deviant who stole a piece of bread to ward off hunger;
make a human barbecue off the pickpocket caught in the act, sending him on a
painful journey to heaven or to hell, with a necklace of burning tyres round his
neck , simply for the crime of trying to survive in a superlatively inclement,
man-constructed environment; remain ever ready to rain a flood of stones that
dwarfs the Noachian deluge, in intensity at the hapless adulteress or harlot,
who services our collective sexual insecurities for a fee. This is also why we
entertain no patience or understanding for the plight of a man, who scavenges
for food or begs to eke out an existence. And the buffoonery and diseased irony
of it all, is that these same Nigerians whose hypocrisy is so just as to
discountenance petty thievery, are the very same people who throng the arena and
amphitheatres of celebration, with sickening pomp and criminal pageantry, to
crown a robber-baron with chieftaincy titles and unearned doctorate degrees;
thereby blessing their crimes and baptising their indiscretions. This is why
Chris Ubah, Alamesiegha and other Nigerian thieves have thousands of supporters,
or more appropriately hangers-on.
Corruption will forever rule Nigeria inasmuch as ours remain the backyard of
injustice. Corruption will always duck at our hypocrisies in battling it,
inasmuch as we continue to construct injustice across the land. Corruption is an
act which rises as an affront to natural justice and good conscience. Injustice
is the fertilizer for corruption. Obasanjo should first concentrate the
attention of his government in tackling social injustice, which corruption is
but a mere symptom.
That Tafa Balogun escaped justice was not an accident. It was an act of
meticulous design. Tafa at the height of his self-inflicted tribulations
threatened to open his mouth and squeal on his masters and his web of
accomplices, which span across the ruling government and the highest offices in
the land, if his torments were not stayed. He knew that he was not the only high
thief in government. He had it on excellent authority that those casting stones
on him have all their fingers in the same pot where he dipped. They have been
collectively dipping their fingers there, since Obasanjo came to power. Why then
should they construct a scapegoat out of him? Why not retire him together with
his spoil, so that he could resurrect in another political dispensation as a
political godfather or an elder statesman to say the least; since what it takes
to qualify as an elder statesman, is to steal in one political dispensation and
project the power of this stolen wealth into a new one? Like every dangerous
thief, Tafa was sleeping with his eyes open all these while. He had gathered a
few aces up his sleeve. He knew the major players, the holdings and the wealth
they were able to cream off the Nigerian people. He knew, just like J. Edgar
Hoover knew, that this information will come in handy in the days of trouble.
Knowing that if he fails to act, that the Obasanjo`s government will hang him by
the scrotum, just like it hanged out Osuji and Wabara to dry, to prove to the
world that they are fighting corruption. He then played the ace he had up his
sleeve for long. He threatened to sing like a canary, if the mastiffs baying for
his blood were not leashed.
This cabal of unrefined thieves holding Nigeria to a ransom knew that their game
was in danger of being over, if an intimate member of their college rats on
them. They sought ways of shutting him up. Tafa dying in custody would be one
hand too many for this nest of killers accused in some quarters of dispatching
many high-level opponents, like Bola Ige, Marshall Harry and Amino sari Dikkibo.
So, they organized a smokescreen of a judicial trial using the presidential
attack dog EFCC, to give that charade a semblance of legality. They walked Tafa
Balogun through a sham trial and got him virtually off the hook: A six months
government sponsored sabbatical!
Although Tafa Balogun is a despicable human being, he is still a human being. It
would be wonderful for him to live and receive the right recompense for his
crimes. But I am afraid for his life. Wole Soyinka rightly classified the PDP as
a nest of killers. And for Tafa to threaten a nest of killers is an invitation
to commit suicide. Nigerians may wake up one day to the news that Tafa Balogun
died in prison custody. When this happens, I hope that Nigerian will know the
reason why he was whacked as well as those who ordered the hit.
Before then, justice commands a revisiting of the
Tafa Balogun’s case. This man has not received his recompense. He knows it.
Justice will keep on weeping and crying out to heaven, until justice is not only
done, but also seen to have been done. Franklyne Ogbunwezeh was born in Nigeria
and currently lives in Germany. He also attended seminary in Italy for 4 years.
Mr. Ogbunwezeh is currently working on a Ph.D. in Social Ethics and Economics.
His book "The Tragedy of a Tribe: The Grand Conspiracy Against Ndigbo and the
Igbo Quest for Integration in Nigeria" was published in 2004. "Shots at
Immortality: Immortalizing Igbo Excellence" and "The Scandal of Poverty
in Africa: Reinventing a Role for Social Ethics in Confronting the
Socio-economic and Political Challenges of Africa of the Third Millennium"
will be published in 2005. Additionally, Mr. Ogbunwezeh published dozens of
articles in newspapers, magazines, internet sites and trade journals