Date: 2016-04-07

Nigerian prisons are filled beyond the capacities their facilities can accommodate. This is premised on numerous awaiting trial cases often caused by inadequate evidence or undue influence on prosecutors and judges, often by power brokers when interested in a particular case or neglect of the suspects due to lack of resources to facilitate their speedy trial, which amount to an abuse of our judicial system.

Every accused person is assumed innocent until pronounced guilty by a competent court of jurisdiction even if there are weighty proofs and sufficient evidences against the accused. How often have we witnessed criminals arrested with ammunitions in connection to brutal attacks that claimed lives being released over claims of inadequate laws to prosecute cultists, or how do we explain State pardons of convicted criminals after pronouncement of guilty on them even by the Supreme Court.

The above analysis is to bring us to tandem with the inadequacies of our legal system in Nigeria and ponder over the inequalities on the trials of commoners and the affluent in our society. A situation where bail is granted to alleged looters of our common wealth expending their ill-gotten wealth to evade serious trials under this same administration where the Senate President is facing trial over allegations of dubious declaration of assets at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and another possible trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission through a leading case involving his beloved wife.

A brief check on the profile of the Senate President places him among the reigning political and power brokers well connected to the high and mighty in the society. For him to be under this serious prosecution in a country where people on same pedestal sit in the comfort of their homes enjoying their loots truly explains reasons for the cry of political persecution by his teeming supporters.

The Senate President is assumed innocent until proven guilty is the premise of solidarity by his teeming loyalists among the Senators and Honourable Members of the Federal House of Representatives. They hold it as a solemn trust to protect the Senate President whom they believe is suffering persecution due to manner he acquired the seat of the senate president against the wish of some leaders of the ruling party led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Tinubu is seen majorly by the allies and teeming supporters of Saraki as the promoter of his (Saraki) travails not considering other factors or other interested parties’ that wanted the downfall of the Senate President. I begin to wonder if details available to the prosecutors were acquired within the short period of crisis between Tinubu and Saraki or some personalities were in possession of detailed evidences against Saraki as in the case of Asiwaju at the time of his trial by the same tribunal years ago.

As at July 2015 when the CCT mentioned this case against the Senate President, Mr President was yet to appoint an Attorney General of the Federation, the ruling party just took the mantle of leadership and suddenly the EFCC and CCT started reeling out offences against Dr Bukola Saraki from charge sheets that showed detailed investigations that couldn’t have been concluded within a month of crisis between him and APC Leadership.

The CCT and EFCC must have been trailing Dr Bukola Saraki prior to this moment and definitely seek the means of the crisis to achieve image laundering for their agencies taking advantage of political situations and the comical events that has trailed the trial speaks volume of a man not ready to fall from the exalted seat of the Senate President.

I respect the right of Dr Bukola Saraki to engage all means in conformity with legal provisions to quash the case against him and prove to the whole world the inadequacies of our legal system to convict men of extraordinary means in possession of political powers and expose the incompetence of the people seeking his downfall, but if his case will serve as a yardstick to measure the prosecutions of those culprits involved in the looting of treasury responsible for our current economic woes, I should just assume this trial as a joke taken too far.

Each time I dissect the pictures unfolding from the travails of the Senate President, I hold a thought that if majority of our Leaders can be subjected to the same situations as this, where the Senate President has been restless in the last Eight Months to save his exalted seat, then our political office holders will hence be very careful to run against the law and act positively when necessary.

If the table can turn against a Senate President under this same administration he contributed immensely to the emergence, I am confused in reasoning on the impact whatever outcome of his trial will have on restoration of sanity to arbitration of justice and conduct of public office holders. But one beautiful truth from the travails of the Senate President that gladdens my heart is the early revelations of incapable hands for the fight against corruption by this administration.

Mr Senate President challenged the propriety of the Code of Conduct Tribunal on quorum to commence trial with only two judges out of three, even though overruled. What does it cost the Attorney General to get the attention of Mr President to fill the vacancies at the tribunal? Do we call this naivety of the Minister of Justice or what? Mr Senate President alleged political persecution as responsible for his travails and the people he alleged are silent in affirmation or what, should we assume that the anti-corruption crusade will indeed be selective.

If Saraki is not on a collision course with team Tinubu in his bid for Senate President as alleged, does that mean that he would have enjoyed his peace absolutely without all these revelations against his personality? How many other leaders of the ruling party deserves the same treatment as the Senate President but enjoying their peace due to loyalty to Mr President.

This is not a time to apportion blame but a time of sober reflection that most of our leaders settle political scores just to expand their reach and control at the expense of entrenching moral values among the political class. While public institutions must be used by government to deepen good governance in the best interest of all citizens and not to clampdown on people unnecessarily.

When Mr President was advised to appoint a forthright right activist who is one of the most experienced legal luminaries in Nigeria as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation to lead the Federal Government's anti-corruption crusade, he chose affinity over competence and the setbacks in the crusade is very obvious and except there is a rethink by Mr President to engage the service of a more competent Attorney General, the fight against corruption is as good as a charade.

To be continued……..

Comrade AbdulRahman Agboola, is National Coordinator, Mass Action for Good Governance and Grassroots Development in Nigeria