Our judges are far from ‘fine’
Shoppers entering a Wal-Mart Super Centre in Alabama USA (like Nigeria’s Park n’ Shop) were warned not to try anything funny. Two shoplifters stood outside the mall with signs saying “I am a thief. I stole from WalMart”. The punishment was sanctioned by Attalla City Judge, Kenneth Robertson Jr. somewhere in Alabama.
The idea originated from Judge Kevin Fine. In Wertheimer, Houston, a man who stole compensation money was ordered to stand on a busy street with a sign saying he is a thief every weekend for six years. In large capital letters, his sign reads: ‘I am a thief. I stole $250,000 from the Harris County crime victim’s fund. Daniel Mireles.’
Judge Kevin Fine ordered it as Mireles’s sentence. His wife Eloise Mireles also served the same punishment. Eloise was jailed for six months but endured the same humiliation upon her release. Eloise will wear their signs on Sundays, he, on Saturdays. Eloise was a former employee of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, where investigators discovered that she stole more than 400 cheques intended for victims. Her husband deposited the cheques into their account and the pair spent as if money was going out of fashion. The charges could have carried long jail terms but Judge Kevin Fine - a Texan judge, well known for his unorthodox sentences saw this option as not only most punitive but deterrent. Authorities also seized three vehicles and the couple’s home and displayed a sign in front of the home that reads: ‘ The occupants of this residence are convicted thieves. They stole R $250,000. obertson Jr. didn’t own WalMart but he looked at those shoplifting there and said enough is enough! Fine wasn’t a beneficiary of the victims’ compensation fund but he didn’t tolerate nonsense. But Nigeria’s judges allow crooks to party like it is 1999. Instead of a judicious ruling, what we often see is a crime, a suit and a plea bargain in favour of the thief. It is as easy as NSCDC dot, that’s all! My oga at the top!
They allow criminals to walk away happy that they have successfully defrauded the people. Because the criminals are usually members of the elite class, like politicians and their friends, their wives and their children or top civil servants and military brass very seldom are crimes punished with anything more than a slap on the wrist. Looking down history lane, we now see a litany of big men’s sons stealing. The scions of Ahmadu Ali, Abdulaziz Arisekola, Bamanga Tukur; and Femi Otedola, who is also former governor Otedola’s son, were all cited in the fuel subsidy scam that almost forced Nigeria to its knees. F They are all free. ast-forward to the “pension thieves”. Six top civil servants, including Abubakar Kigo, Isias Dangabar, John Yusuf, Ahmed Inuwa Wada and Sani Habila Zira, were alleged to have dipped their hands into pension funds. Some of the retired civil servants for whom the funds were meant even slumped and died while waiting for a payment that never came. The six top functionaries allegedly shared three hundred million naira among themselves every morning between 2009 and 2011. Kigo, the Permanent Secretary at the time, was said to have hid over N2bn in a safe in his house while Veronica Onyegbula (because women are always involved) who ran to the banks each morning to cash the cheques was found with N800m in her account. But in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them, Justice Abubakar Talba of the FCT High Court, Gudu let Yusuf walk with a fine of N750.000, which is much less than his daily pocketchange. The cases of Dr Sani Teidi Shehu who is alleged to have defrauded pensioners of N12bn and the alleged diversion of N40bn by Ngozi Attang, have all become headin-the-hand matters for Nigerian R judges. oll back to 2008. Former governor of Edo state, Lucky Igbinedion pleaded guilty to fleecing his state of N2.9bn. He also paid N3.5m which he carelessly brought out of the junk in his trunk. Others who defrauded the country of billions are still moving about unhindered. For example, Delta State Governor James Ibori ran in and out of the presidential Villa Abuja freely until the British justice system caught up with him and if not for the patriotism of Justice Joseph Olubunmi Oyewole of the Lagos High Court, Bode George would never have served time in Kirikiri prison. Even then, compared to his crime, he got away easy.
Nigerian criminals usually enjoy happy endings in court. All cases involving monumental looting of our treasury, regardless of the overwhelming evidence of graft, go almost unpunished. But the same judicial system is quick to convict the peasant. In Nigeria, the law is not the last hope of the common man, but the biggest joke of the millennium.
It is as if our judges are not also affected by the looting and the consequent insecurity of lives and property that results, not to talk of the poverty in the land. They have allowed, even encouraged, the looting of the treasury by the elite, to look good in the public eye. Society itself has become vulnerable. It scoffs at those who steal little, while those who pilfer billions are adored, sang for and envied. But, peasants have their hands amputated for stealing a sachet N of milk. igerian judges only look fine from far in their silky clothes but their ingenuity is far from Fine’s. I noticed when the pension thieves were herded to court as they covered their faces with newspapers. Believe it or not, if they were sentenced to walking around the Wuse market every Monday for a year alone, with a sign that says thief and the amount they stole, corruption in Nigeria will hit a low.