NIGERIA AND THE RULE OF LAW

The trial of El-Rufai is a lesson to today’s men of power, contends NNAEMEKA MADUAGWU 

For over 35 days, former governor of Kaduna State and minister of FCT Mallam Nasir El Rufai was in detention without being charged to court. It is particularly worrisome that he voluntarily submitted himself to EFCC and the other security agencies who proceeded to clamp him on a long detention.

That a person of his stature and one of the major persons that helped birth this administration can be so treated shows the level to which the rule of law has descended in Nigeria. 

Nasir el-Rufai was supposed to be one of Nigeria’s untouchables. That he is being so treated today is a big lesson to today’s men of power and influence.

Chapter 4 of the Nigerian Constitution provides for fundamental human rights with section 35 providing for right to personal liberty and protection from unlawful detention. 

Section 36 also provides for right to fair hearing within reasonable time. These are no ordinary laws but constitutional provisions and expression of the grundnorm of the country. They are the country’s basic laws which is an expression of the basic agreements constituting the fundamental principles of our nationhood. 

Courts are enjoined to enforce them without fear or favour. 

But what do we have today? A corrupt, timid and compromised judiciary. Which is one of the greatest shames of this blessed but disfunctional country.

“How are the mighty fallen, publish it not in the streets of ashkellon”, so lamented king David upon hearing of the death of Saul and his son Jonathan. The once proud Nigerian judiciary of the likes of Adetokunbo Ademola who in the landmark case of Lakunmi vs Attorney General of Western Nigeria in 1971 held that military decrees cannot completely remove judicial powers or override the 1963 Constitution, has totally fallen and it’s shame is on all the streets of Nigeria. 

To imagine that we once had such a fearless supreme Court at the height of military rule immediately after the civil War. The Once revered Nigerian judiciary that exported judges to most African countries including their chief justices. The Nigerian judiciary of the Oputas, Kayode Esos, Orojos, Mohammed Bellos, Taslim Elias’, Pats Acholonus and Darnley Alexanders, etc. Judges that confronted power even in military governments to protect citizens in many landmark cases is now a judiciary of technicalities. It’s now a judiciary that seems to hold that all known legal principles in administrative law made in pursuance of an election cause is not enforceable even if such leads to justice.

Today it’s El- Rufai, yesterday it was Dasuki, tomorrow it could be any person and we continue to descend into the destruction of the rule of law and anarchy. 

The irony is that Mallam El- Rufai was one of the architects of the APC party and as stated earlier, this administration. 

The APC is a party that has flaunted it’s susupposed “progressive ” credentials with Tinubu a president that claims to be a democrat but who has been anything but progressive and democratic. 

As bad as Nigerians felt about PDP, it was by far a better assembly for nation- building. 

Comparing PDP with APC is like comparing light and darkness. PDP made visible attempts to contain our faultlines, they governed inclusively, they introduced zoning to encourage inclusive participation. But APC from the Buhari days widened the gulf between us. Nepotism became a policy of state, ‘We vs Them’ is the consciousness of the APC party. Buhari did it, Tinubu amplified it.

On the issue of corruption APC made PDP look clean. Buhari, the supposed anti corruption czar who said “we must destroy corruption before it destroys us” presided over possibly the most corrupt Nigerian government.

But the worst and most frightening part is the assault by the APC governments on the rule of law and citizens rights. While PDP allowed opposition to organize and operate – the current president was famous for opposition activities and he enjoyed unfettered freedom. Today, his APC doesn’t tolerate it, look at how they massacred youths during the ‘End Sars’ protest. See all the efforts at decimating opposition political parties with the active connivance of the captured courts. Now they have taken it to opposition figures with the current case of El Rufai, a man who volunteered himself.

If this trend continues unchecked it would mark the end of our pretences to democratic culture and of course, move us steeper into the journey to self destruction. 

Maduagwu, a lawyer, writes from Owerri, Imo State