TRIALS OF SAMBO DASUKI

The continued detention of the former National Security Adviser despite court orders to the contrary is unfortunate, writes Godwin Etakibuebu

Iam not always so sure about the number of people in corridors of power in Nigeria who are sane. Our country is peculiar in all ramifications. It is very distinct from every other nation on this earth. It is a place where common sense is a scarce commodity. Yet, somebody from old; obviously one of our ancestors, called it “common sense”. The scarcity of it remains most pronounced at the arena where Nigeria is most heard – at the most top, within the corridors of power.

What about sanity? Going “up there”; towards the corridors of power, to look for sane people is actually the beginning of madness in Nigeria. If one wants to meet with those that are driven with hundred per cent sanity; sorry, there is no 100% sanity in any human being because in every one hour of our daily actions, we sometimes display a minute or so of madness; the best place to face is just going “down toward those in the valley”. It is there, within the locals or what l once called the “down-trodden Nigerians” that you can find both sanity and common sense.

The recommended places for discovery of tested sanity and also common sense, are there in the villages and hamlets across the nooks and crannies of this country. Sanity and common sense refused to follow those migrating from the rural areas to the urban cities or they [sanity and common sense] just refused relocation to the metropolitan centres. This must have been the reason why these two most essential commodities are not the property of the city dwellers.

Even then there is distinct categorisation between the successful city dwellers and the “ghetto-type” city dwellers in acquisition of these two commodities – sanity and common sense. The successful city dwellers are the glamorous politicians; both those voted for and voted against. They are those appointed into political offices by those that you and I voted for [sometimes those we thought we voted for actually “cornered or stole” the votes]. They are mostly the public Servants or government appointee. They are those General Ibrahim Babangida called elite Nigerians, whom he accused of “destroying Nigeria”. They are the most insane and totally lacking in common sense.

The other group earlier referred to as “ghetto-type” of city dwellers, are Nigerians citizens also, except that they are not just privileged to be amongst the heavy thieves that are crown princesses and princesses in stealing billions and trillions of naira. They are not those that are privileged to deploy the instrumentality of defection from one political party to another with impunity. They are not those that deploy instrument of state to garner stupendous wealth that only death can “put asunder what kleptomania has brought together”.

They are not those that have power of life and death over every other citizen, or so they thought. They are not even those that speak a plain language to those they employed, telling them “go ye to steal and multiply” or interpreting the rule of the game to them that “though shall not be caught”.

In all, the difference between these two groups basically is that while one was totally insane and lacking in common sense the other has common sense and replicated sanity. Let us look at an issue in today’s contemporary Nigeria to understand and be able to differentiate those that are mad and lacking in common sense from those that are in the opposite camp.

How on earth a Judge would order bail for Sambo Dasuki, saying that the former National Security Adviser should be released from illegal detection and go to the comfort of his house after just about “only” three years in detention? Is this Judge “sane”? Or is he not afraid of his own life? Ordering the release of General Muhammadu Buhari’s captive? Is the Judge not aware of the “more than 100, 000 Nigerians that Dasuki killed”?

His Lordship Justice Ijeoma L. Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who gave the order was told that Dasuki “is being kept by the Buhari State; because this cannot be the Nigerian State obviously, in the interest of the larger public good because government is about the people and not only for an individual”. Simply put, a Dasuki has no right to life in a Nigeria where Buhari presides.

This is the submission of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice for Buhari’s Nigeria, in defending why the government would never obey a court’s order, releasing Sambo Dasuki on bail. Yet there is no charge of murder against Dasuki in any court of law in Nigeria except in the mind of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria acting as defender of Nigerian citizens. The irony of the Sambo Dasuki case is the fact that this court’s order for his freedom is the sixth along the line of such orders from different courts of competent jurisdiction.

Yet, Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General, says no way for his principal in obeying any court order. In other words Malami’s principal, Buhari, choses which court order he obeys and which one he throws into the dustbin.

I call this the evaporation of common sense. However, justice, natural justice, shall reign and prevail at the end of this dark tunnel.