STORY BEHIND
NIGERIA’S BAIL CONDITIONS FOR IPOB LEADER NNAMDI KALU
It is the popular opinion that the bail conditions given to
Nnamdi Kalu were an overkill in the sense that the conditions represented
an attempt to catch a tiny fish with a massive net. Nigeria failed to look
beyond a myopic, tunnel vision to see a larger picture that could have been
exploited to unite the nation and pull us out of a conundrum.
A conundrum refers to a riddle whose answer is a pun or a
paradox, or to any problem whose answer is uncertain. Some conclusions to be
drawn from an analysis of the bail conditions can be seen at the end of this
essay. This leads us to our earlier conviction: Igbos are gods.
Nnamdi Kalu was released from Kuje Prison on Friday, April 28,
following the bail conditions granted by Justice Binta Nyako of the
Federal High Court in Abuja last Tuesday, April 25. He spent one year and six
months in detention after he was arrested by operatives of the Department of
State Securities in Lagos upon his return from the United Kingdom on October
14, 2015.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the bail conditions
Justice Nyako, sitting at Abuja Court, stipulated her fellow Nigerian citizen
Mr. Kalu must agree to before the later could be released from prison to
prepare for his defense. There are some important conclusions to be drawn
from the Kanu-Nyako episode. Read to the end of this essay to examine the
conclusions.
Maintaining that the only reason she granted bail to Kanu was
because of Kanu’s ill health, Justice Nyako of Nigeria marshaled out
about thirteen (13) conditions that must be met prior to (not subsequent to)
Nnamdi Kalu’s release from detention. The conditions now follow below.
Mr. Kalu must not hold rallies. He must not grant interviews. He
must not be in a crowd of more than 10 people.
Mr. Kanu must provide three sureties in the sum of N100 million
each. Obne of the sureties must be a senior highly placed person of Igbo
extraction such as a senator. The second surety must be a highly respected
Jewish leader since Mr. Kanu said his religion is Judaism. The third surety
must be a highly respected person who owns landed property and is resident in
Abuja.
The IPOB leader must deposit his Nigerian passport. He must also
deposit his British passport with the court. The order for him to deposit his
Nigerian and British passports is meant to ensure Mr. Kalu the IPOB leader
cannot travel out of the country to avoid prosecution.
He must provide the court with reports on the progress of his
health and treatment on a monthly basis.
Justice Nyako however refused bail to the three other defendants
standing trial with Kanu, namely Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and
David Nwawuisi. All three prisoners were seen wearing handcuffs in court.
The following are observations this writer is making in reaction to the
incidence of the stiff bail conditions offered to IPOB leader Nnamdi Kalu by
the Nigerian government through Justice Nyako.
ILL HEALTH: The ill health of an accused is a tenable, reasonable,
justifiable, defensible, rational, plausible reason to grant temporary or
permanent relief from prosecution. For this reason, we commend the
learned judge, Justice Nyako and heap accolades on her for tempering justice
with mercy. Judicial mercy is clemency, compassion, and understanding.
NIGERIA’S OVERKILL: Justice Nyako did overkill justice in the
rush to demonize the prisoner. To demonize is to portray an individual or group
of individuals as an evil, demonic, or a dangerous criminal; to make the IPOB
leader look worse and more reprehensible or terrible/terrifying than he
actually is.
Nyako does what she does perhaps to score a point, or perhaps to
deal with pressure from President Buhari and the Buharians who are bent
on seeking a revenge consisting of “Shakespearen pound of flesh,” in
order to steady a rocky, rocking boat. Nigeria is a ship, and at the helm
is the Queen of Great Britain, wearing a crown. Therefore, treasonable phelony
is a crime against the Crown, though the offense may take place thousands of
miles off the shores of Great Britain. Sometimes, the Queen orders an
overkill to protect her Empire.
To overkill is to protect self through a revenge or to take
punishment to such a comical level as to cause easy laughter or glee. An overkill
can be seen in a soldier who shoots the victim down and continues to pour
bullets into a lifeless corpse. An overkill is an overload, overstatement,
heavy handedness, too much of a good thing.
We must respect the learned Judge Nyako, for she is learning the
rope and she is not the boss in a bureaucratic nation where judicial
independence is a fairy tale, and judges are hauled away to prison without due
process, for failing to serve as gramophone that repeats “his master’s voice.”
As extensions or appendages of the power that be, judges can act
without restraints. Restraint is the opposite of overkill, and Nigerians have
an inverted notion of justice that lacks restraint in personal or public life
as seen in the embezzlement of huge sums of money with uncountable zeros
belonging to the people.
Can anyone see overkill in the murder a Christian woman whose
corpse was paraded in the open market as if she were a trophy, simply because
she happened to dance to a different drummer, to believe in a different onye
nwe anyi (our Lord) than the terrorists’ Allah?
PUNISHMENT VERSUS REHABILITATION: While the rest of the free
world subscribes to the humane rehabilitation which changes conditions that
breed lawlessness and that attack constituted authority (such as the Nigerian
government, for example), Justice Nyako and the government she represents
uphold cruel punishment and excessive force to control the expression of human
liberty.
Cruel punishment is the use of sentencing, penalty,
chastisement, castigation, reprimand, retribution, or death in its most
extremely outrageous form to muzzle and silence citizens. Punishment is a form
of cruelty. Cruelty is meanness, nastiness, brutality, malice, spite,
spitefulness, vindictiveness.
Rehabilitation, on the other hand, as contradictory to
punishment, is the readiness to correct a behavior through the use of
treatment, therapy, healing, cure, analysis, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy,
religion, or love.
BOTTOM LINE? Bottom line is WHO WINS THE CONTEST? We say
all these things to say that we need a WIN-WIN situation and that Nigeria
ought to win her citizens over. Mr. Nnamdi kalu could have been won over
to Buhari’s side through rehabilitation, love, compassion, and concern rather
than through hate, armamentarium, or intimidation.
Armamentarium is the effective equipment of a warship (Nigeria
is always a ship at war), including the war planes, fortifications, guns,
rifles, armory, My country Nigeria is arming or being armed for war. Most
of our so-called military might are purchased from white men with expensive
price tags. where is the money left over to build roads and provide our
electricity?
What could a mere 40-year-old Igbo young man, filled with
youthful energy, and drunk with an inflated sense of self- importance do
to harm a nation of 180,000,000 people, a nation with fully functioning armed
forces? Nigeria and her legal system overreacted with explosive force.
Nnamdi Kalu has no weapons other than onu, onu, ntaghari onu
(mouth, mouth, and talking mouth). A talking mouth demonstrates that
democracy is well and alive in Nigeria.
This writer would rather have talking mouths without a
government than a government without talking mouths. We ought to show the world
that we are a democracy, the “indepanda.” Nigerians are not caged animals
who have no voices.
DOES THE GLOVE FIT THE HAND?: Readers need to be reminded that
we are concerned with whether the drastic, heavy-handed bail conditions stacked
up against a 40-year-old impressionable young man were fair, and whether Nnamdi
Kalu’ s justice was delayed and his freedom snatched away.
Justice delayed is justice denied. A denial of justice occurred
when young Nnamdi Kalu sought fame (even if the fame
lasts for a fleeting second), and the Nigerian legal system responded with
actions which were hampering, daunting, or fettering. The three verbs mean
hindering of free speech.
Stiff bail conditions did not fit the alleged offense described
as treasonable felony. That is the same mystery charge that landed Chief
Obafemi Awolowo in jail and sent Chief Abiola to early grave.
CROWD OF 10 PERSONS: Restricting Kanu to a crowd no more than 10
persons means the man cannot go to church or visit his family members and he
would avoid attending funerals of his deceased umu nna (kindreds).
THREE HUNDRED MILLION NAIRA SURETIES: Justice Nyako got it wrong
when she attempts to force Nigerians into the pigeon-hole thought process where
one is compelled to develop a tunnel vision of Nigerian justice.
Tunnel vision is the tendency to focus exclusively on a single
or limited goal or point of view. It is an all-or-none solution to a complex
issue. Tunnel vision is the one-size-fits-all market, where one buys a size 12
dress for a skinny, scrawny, skeletal, malnourished Fulani female (subsisting
on fermented cow milk), and attempts to force the skimpy dress on the body of a
fat, obose, rotunda Igbo akpu (cassava) eater.
A huge misgiving in the Nigerian society is the tendency to
measure everything in life in terms of sums of money. My people have such a
misguided notion of money when they talk obsessively of material possessions.
It is terrible!
We can sleep peacefully when you mention N100 (one hundred naira),
N1,000 (one thousand Naira), or even N100,000 (one hundred thousand naira). Few
people can sleep well without experiencing nightmares when Nyako talks about
N100,000,000 (one hundred million Naira), and N300, 000,000 (three hundred
million Naira). Many people are led to steal or resort to witch doctors who may
demand human sacrifices. Love of money opens doors to many evils.
We ought to de-emphasize money and emphasize non-monetary
values. We ought to refuse to tell our Nigerian sons and daughters “Baby,
everything you see is about money, money, and more money”. There is more
to life than just money, and the best thing a Nigerian mother and father ought
to give a Nigerian child is not money. The best gifts to give our children are
positive values, not millions of Naira.
The best thing in life is life itself, followed by respect and
love for the nation and being of assistance to others. The most valuable
things in life are invaluable. To be considered invaluable, the thing must be
precious, priceless, very useful, helpful, or important.
If Justice Nyako had been schooled in non-monetary values,
she would agree with the proposition that invaluable items include but are not
limited to life, health, freedom, love, altruism, and kindness. Service
rendered to others is an invaluable gift that only Heaven can repay. Then, we
can boldly say to our son or daughter: “Baby, money is not that important
because the best possession your mother and I have is not money. It is the gift
of you. Tell me this: now much is your life worth?”
ON JEWISH SURETY: One cannot fail to detect traces of poisonous
colonial mentality in Justice Nyako bail conditions. Must Nigerians often run
to foreigners to ask for favors? Is a Jewish rabbi a better surety than a
Fulani herdsman who owns a million heads of cows, or a Calabar
merchant who deals in ahia iwu (merchant who deals in banned goods
shipped from Fernando Po)? What about a Nigerian pastor who owns churches in
every nation and a fleet of sleek jets?
THE ABCD OF NIGERIAN JUSTICE. A stands for Allaharization;
B stands for the Buharization of Nigerian politics; C stands for Cannonization;
and D is Demonization. Allaharization is the habit of categorizing any offense
or situation as a case involving Allah. Buharization is the messing up of the
body politic whereby any disagreement or demonstration is seen as a decamp from
Buhari’s Aso Rock.
Canonization is the declaration that a person who kills others
or uses extralegal means to cause the death of someone opposed to Buhari’s
views, is to be granted special dispensation, indulgence, allowance, special
consideration, privilege, relaxation of rules, or exemption. Demonization is
the habit of reducing persons opposed to Buhari’s government to the position of
a demon, imp, evil spirit, Satan, or dangerous criminal.
CONCLUSIONS: The Buhari government and Justice Nyako ought to
learn from the Nnamdi Kalu episode as they retrace steps to move Nigeria on the
path to true democracy
Mr. Nnamdi Kalu is a tiny fish that ought to have been caught
with a tiny leafy bait woven with compassion, not a massive steel net.
Kalu should have been marginalized, rendered a more potent
contributor to governance if we can lure him into becoming a team player on the
side the Federal Government and in the service of his fellow citizens.
Let us listen as Kanu expounds his youthful ideas on how to
govern 180,000,000 diverse persons; he would be able to explain if given the
opportunity, and would find it difficult to remain silent. We must encourage
Kanu to talk and not remain silent. So long as the Kanus are silent or silenced
Nigerian will ever “be developing” but never “developed.”
Therefore, we abjure/reject silence of the dead night. We want
the robust speech; we want loquacity, communicativeness, talkativeness,
garrulity, chattering, babbling, gabbling, volubility, and the effusiveness of
one hundred million Nnamdi Kalus. We want freedom which silence cannot
guarantee. The Kanus must be allowed to speak without being disturbed.
Kanu ought to be trained, equipped, encouraged to carry out
nation-building assignments on behalf of his nation to his constitueThe federal Government cannot claim to have all the
answers .There are millions of Nnamdi Kanus in a population of 180
million who may have better ideas on what the problems are and what solutions
can serve our needs. Let’s ask for and explore their suggestions rather
than ostracize them. To exclude a significant portion of
Nigerian population from the political process is not only bad
government, it is impudence, effrontery, audacity,ncy, particularly to
the Igbo youth who feel marginalized , disenfranchised, and alienated from the
Hausa-Fulani-Muslim administration.
Nnamdi Kalu and followers who share his views ought to be
involved in efforts to galvanize, fire up, and electrify, communication that
would stimulate community efforts to solve Nigerian myriad problems of bad
roads, inadequate electricity supply, gnawing hunger, unemployment, violence,
and corruption.
Why aren’t the Nigerian youth involved in developing new
inventions (gargets)? It is because nobody encourages them or provides
incentives, and they are not allowed to speak.
The federal
Government cannot claim to have all the answers .There are millions of
Nnamdi Kanus in a population of 180 million who may have better ideas on
what the problems are and what solutions can serve our needs. Let’s ask
for and explore their suggestions rather than ostracize them. To
exclude a significant portion of Nigerian population from the political
process is not only bad government, it is impudence, effrontery, audacity,
