by Femi Adesina

Did our futurologists miss it in their crystal balls? Or were they as blind as bats in the daytime? How come they never told us that a Lagos Boy would pass through Kirikiri prison this year? Yes, perhaps the greatest ripple in the political waters this year so far is Monday’s conviction of former naval officer and top gun of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George.

For 15 months, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had prosecuted George and five other members of the board he chaired, which ran the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) from 2001 to 2003.

They had been accused of abuse of office, contracts inflation, disobedience to constituted authority, contracts splitting, conspiracy to commit crime, among others. And on Monday, Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Lagos High Court handed them a jail term of 28 years each, but they would only spend two-and-a-half years each in prison, as the convictions are to run concurrently.

The nation, and indeed the world, had waited rather impatiently for what is generally called a ‘high profile’ conviction from the EFCC, particularly since Mrs Farida Waziri took over as chairman in June last year. Former Edo State governor, Chief Lucky Igbinedion had been convicted for corruption, with a fine option that was described as not more than a massage (not even a slap) on the wrist. Thirteen Filipinos were also convicted for economic crime in a landmark case, the Vaswani Brothers had got themselves deported once again for economic crimes, billions of naira had been recovered from convicted fraudsters, yet what Hilary Clinton told us in her recent visit here was that the EFCC had “fallen off” in the last two years.

Now that the EFCC has prosecuted Bode George and others to a logical conclusion, I like that kind of falling off. If this is what it means for an anti-crime agency to fall off, I surely like it, and want more of such. Let the EFCC “fall off,” but let it get more big shots to answer for their crimes, and I don’t care what Hilary Clinton and other cynics say. Or do you?

The grip on Bode George’s jugular brings up a number of issues. One is that sacred cows too can eventually fall to the knackers. They can be led like sheep to the slaughter, dumb before the shearers. All we need is a dispassionate commitment to what is right, no matter whose ox is gored.

I remember how it all began. Chief Bode George was the Deputy National Chairman (South) of the rampaging PDP. If anybody had a sense of invincibility, it was George. Was he not one of the henchmen of the emperor, Olusegun Obasanjo? Was he not the one who led the tsunami that saw the PDP overrunning the entire South-West, except Lagos? They ran the country like a fiefdom, a personal estate, and their word was law. Under the Obasanjo regime, chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, had personally investigated the contract bazaar at the NPA. His report indicted Bode George, but Obasanjo threw the report back in Ribadu’s face. The then EFCC boss kept quiet. His mandate was to hound enemies of the regime, not allies, and once he was told to shut up on Bode George, he played the obedient servant to the hilt.

In August last year, just two months after assuming office, Mrs Waziri pulled George in. I remember the man had been abroad, and rumours were rife that his arrest was imminent. When he landed at the airport, Bode George was all puff and bluster, telling the media that he had nothing to fear. Now, just 15 months later, he has every reason to fear. The wind has blown, and we have seen the chicken’s rump.

Ribadu has hailed George’s conviction, saying the law was at last catching up with the bad guys. From his Oxford University, United Kingdom base, he said it was “a measure of the shamelessness of our elites and the institutions that fuel their values that Chief George would be awarded national honour in our country, and that he could later sue some newspapers for libel on account of the damming indictment report I prepared against him. Chief George’s subsequent prosecution is evidence that ultimately, the law catches up with the bad guys.”

Very well said. Like I always maintain, Nuhu Ribadu did his level best in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. But his term was by no means perfect. He is not the paragon that some people try to make of him. Just like every one of us, he had weaknesses. He indicted George in a report in 2005. What then happened? Why didn’t the case go to court till Farida Waziri exhumed it in August, 2008? And Ribadu was in office till December 2007. Obasanjo left office in May of that year, yet he never revisited the indictment he gave in 2005. The truth is that under Ribadu, Bode George would never have seen the door of a courtroom, not to talk of standing inside the dock. He was a sacred cow, he was Obasanjo’s man, and it was outside Ribadu’s brief to touch the untouchables under Obasanjo.

I have written before that I have more confidence in the integrity of the cases filed before the courts by Farida Waziri. She seems more sedate, painstaking and thorough than Ribadu, who preferred the swashbuckling, headline-grabbing approach. Yet, this woman and the agency she leads have been the object of virulent campaign of calumny round the world, championed by Ribadu and his loyalists who thought the EFCC chairmanship was a traditional title that lasts for life. Never think nobody else can do a job you have done appreciably like Ribadu did at EFCC. Never like Elijah, think you are the only true prophet of God left, because there are many thousands others, who have never bowed their knees to Baal.

Bode George’s conviction is glaring evidence once again that nothing lasts forever. And what goes round comes round. You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. The only thing permanent in this world is change. Bode George in Kirikiri? It’s like a bad dream, nay, nightmare. It could never have happened when Obasanjo and Ribadu held sway. But a Pharaoh would always come, who does not know Joseph. More than anything else, this conviction has reinforced the rule of law mantra of the Umaru Yar’Adua administration. It is no mere platitude. Remember that Bode George coordinated Yar’Adua’s campaign, yet the law is the law. The president could have intervened, and the man would never have been arrested in the first place, not to talk of ever standing trial and getting convicted. At least, this is something good from a leader we have called a chronic foot dragger, a slowcoach, and many other names. Yes, he is all that and more, but he has at least respected the law and its processes.

We must equally commend Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of the Lagos High Court, who got this case concluded in 15 months, and who delivered judgment without fear or favour. He could have allowed frivolous injunctions upon injunctions, which would see the case drag for many years, till everyone loses interest. One hopes other judges handling corruption cases can take a cue.

Again, did you ever see Bode George in manacles while the case lasted? Did you see him dragged on the floor like they did to Tafa Balogun? Did you see him in handcuffs like they did to DSP Alamieyesigha, Abubakar Audu, and some others? There is a difference between playing to the gallery for the sake of temporal applause, for the acclaim of the international community, and doing things decently, in tune with what obtains in the rest of the civilised world. I pray we never return to the era characterised largely by sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Under the Babangida regime, Bode George, then a Navy Captain, was military governor of Ondo State. When he finished his tour of duty, a period not considered outstanding, he was asked what he would be remembered for. Jocularly, he said: “The people would remember that a Lagos Boy once passed through this state.”

George’s lawyers and the PDP have indicated that the verdict of the High Court would be appealed. Fine, it’s their right. Bode George may either get discharged, or the court can affirm the ruling of the lower court. But in the interim, one thing is clear: A Lagos Boy is now passing through Kirikiri prison.

by Pius Adesanmi

I assume that the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign affairs, Ambassador Joe Keshi, read George Orwell’s famous novel, 1984, before authoring the face-saving memo that was reportedly responsible for President Yar’Adua’s volte-face in the Nasir el-Rufai/Nuhu Ribadu passport saga.

Acting on “orders from above”, Ambassador Keshi sent a memo to Nigeria’s diplomatic missions abroad instructing them to deny consular services to Nasir el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu, two “enemies” that President Yar’Adua now imagines he sees “under pillow, inside cooking pot” everyday (apologies to Fela).

After obeying the reckless order, Ambassador Keshi, I guess, remembered that he owes his reputation and impressive profile as one of the most cultured minds in the foreign service in part to the years he has spent working in civilised climes where civil servants are not robots and have sufficient latitude to decline unconstitutional assignments.

For instance, President Obama can expect his orders to be disregarded if he wakes up one day and orders Hillary Clinton to have even a lowly clerk at the State Department circulate a memo to American embassies around the world denying consular services to a neo-conservative loony guilty only of the ‘crime’ of running his mouth against the Obama administration abroad.

You don’t get to order unconstitutional actions against a citizen of the United States even if you are president.

Remembering these things, Ambassador Keshi fired a second memo to the knuckleheads who made him do it in the first place:

“I write to acknowledge receipt of your letter Ref No 28/Vol.13 dated 15 September, 2009 on the above subject and to attach herewith a copy of the action taken in compliance with your letter mentioned above. However, having implemented the content of your letter, under reference, I am directed to raise some concerns of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose advice on the issue would have been useful in the first instance.

“The decision not to renew the former Minister’s passport may unwittingly portray the Federal Government in bad light within the international community as a government that is too sensitive to criticism.

“The decision could engender more sympathy for him, which he could utilise to greater advantage especially if he opts to pursue the matter in court. That sympathy could also, as in the past, lead to some sympathetic country granting him temporary travelling documents, which will in the end defeat our purpose and render our action irrelevant…

“Equally, is the view that the criticism of the Government could increase resulting in an unnecessary distraction that Government could do without at the moment. The best antidote to the Mallam el-Rufai menace is to generally ignore him, monitor his movement and where necessary respond without delay to some of his most stringent comments.

“It is our silence and inability to respond promptly, extensively and effectively to his numerous comments since he left Nigeria that has hurt us most than the things he has said…” There are several red flags in Ambassador Keshi’s memo.

“First, a cultured diplomat advises a civilian government in a supposedly democratic dispensation to “monitor the movement” of a citizen of Nigeria! Who is next? Second, Keshi creates an “us” and “them” binary between his rule-of-law government and free citizens of Nigeria. Imagine the number of possessive adjectives – our this, our that – in the memo!

These people in Abuja sure have a way of thinking that they own Nigeria. Imagine calling a citizen who exercises the right to criticise your government – never mind that he played a tragic role in dumping the Yar’Adua nightmare on Nigeria – a menace! If this is the quality of advice that the Yar’Adua administration is getting from its most cultured minds, we are truly in trouble.

If Ambassador Keshi lifted the Big Brother option from Orwell’s novel, what would less cultured fellaslike James Ibori and Andy Uba have advised? Perhaps, Joe Keshi can be forgiven for the 1984-ish character of his memo.

“He was in service in the military era when the Big Brother thing was woven into our collective psyche and we are yet to rid our ethos completely of it. Enter The Guardian to provide the final act of this saga! In its edition of Sunday October 18, 2009, The Guardian praised Joe Keshi for saving “government from reproach”, conveniently forgetting the fascist undertones of Keshi’s memo.

“If conscience is an open wound, very few Nigerian newspapers are prepared to buy the balm of truth needed to nurture it!