Ekweremadu and the frontiers of parliamentary notoriety
Were it not for the fear of thrombosis, I should be heading to the Nigerian legislature. It’s the waste bin of mostly spent elements - used governors, non-recyclable ministers, and failed professionals. They all end up in the parliament that breaks all the rules.
The parliament pays loads of cash, much more than what hardworking executives of global conglomerates earn. The allowances ridicule even the average maximum wage. Members get to chair a committee, meaning that they are in charge of its budget. They get to superintend a second committee depending on their pecking order and unqualified status.
They escape assault if they dispense of patronage with minimum greed. If they are perceived to be greedy or meet with misogyny they are assaulted – ask Iyabo Anisulowo or Patricia Ette.
Legislators are the ladder to gainful employment in any ministry or agency of government. They appropriate funds for these agencies, then wait at the receiving end for their own share. Nobody gets hired in Nigeria without a testimonial from his or her legislator.
For all the privileges earned and appropriated, they could be heard at international airports asking ‘do you know who I am?’ These people wear their privileges on their resplendent robes like a general wears his ranks and medals on his ceremonial uniform. They all do these without breaking a sweat. Only the greediest of this class want to be anything more. For instance, why strive to be president with the weight of responsibility on your shoulders if you could stay in relative obscurity with unquestionable access to all of the nation’s wealth?
To be a legislator, you must be ready to break records. Iyiola Omisore, an Osun-based power entered the book of impossibilities when he won a Senate seat from prison. Ado Doguwa a co-legislative aide is contesting the speakership of the 10th Assembly with a murder charge hanging on his neck like a garland. He knows that in Nigeria, the impossible is just an adjective in the dictionary.
As members of the top echelon of their society, lawmakers are offered fully funded foreign trips by the committee they superintend or by foreign agencies. This is a boon for classy boutiques as it offers an opportunity to shop till they drop. The assignment is of secondary or no interest. These people know how to flaunt their wealth and turn our diplomats into errand boys whenever they come calling.
Arunma Oteh, one-time directorgeneral of the Securities and Exchange Commission thought she was spoiling the fame of a legislator when she confessed that a member collected foreign allowance (called estacode here) performing the trip. The chairman of the public hearing did not ask her to ‘off the mike’, they muted under their breath – so what? The man did not return the estacode because Nigerian legislators are like the grave, they only swallow, never vomit.
Presumed legislative privilege goes beyond foreign or local allowances. It applies to the gorgeous ladies working at the National Assembly who are not immune to legislative harassment. Allegation fly around that these women are randomly groped in ways and manners that would make Donald Trump’s confession look like a joke.
Once upon a time, the American government extended its travel privilege to a crop of Nigerian lawmakers. They left with their presumed legislative immunity believing that the hotel cleaners were an extension of their libidinous legislative privilege. When the ladies reported sexual harassment, they did not waste time to fly back home before the law could catch up with them.
From their home base, they professed innocence rather than return to the scene of crime to clear their name and the dented image that could extend to what should be their esteemed office forcing the Americans to declare them persona non grata. That unenviable label could only be broken with executive immunity under the Geneva Convention.
With this background, you will understand why Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, the ECOWAS Parliament and all the principal officers of the 9th Assembly wrote to the Privy Council in London pleading that a criminal, Ike Ekweremadu, should be treated with levity for human organ trafficking. Perhaps the longestserving deputy president of the Senate; Ekweremadu is serving his term in jail having been arrested, tried and convicted along with his wife.
Ekweremadu is an accomplished lawyer who teaches law to postgraduates of a London-based university. He had trafficked a poor boy from the streets of Lagos with the sole aim of harvesting his organs to help his daughter who is suffering from a kidney disease. From available court inquest, the lawbreaker contracted a London-based doctor accomplish, one Obinna Obeta, to recruit a donor for his daughter. Obeta picked 21-year-old David Nwamini, a street hawker with whom he negotiated a N270,000 pay and job in London after the deal.
It is doubtful that Nwamini studied elementary biology because of the situation that Ekweremadu, Obasanjo and the others have foisted on the Nigerian education system. Obeta collected N4.5 million from Ekweremadu and pocketed over N4 million from the deal. He’ll need that money to feed for his 12-year jail term.
The former deputy Senate president did not meet with the donor he first described as his daughter’s cousin. As you probably know by now, it is infra dig for an exalted Nigerian lawmaker to condescend to the level of meeting a member of the lower class, except of course during campaign season when politricians wear the garment of humility and turn the hoi-polloi against each other.
When the ‘donor’ got to London, where the consultant surgeon interrogated him according to the law, he discovered that the ‘donor’ was not a relative and that nobody had read him the legal equivalence of his Miranda rights. In England, the law works, applies to the King as it does to the peasant. He withdrew his power to perform the surgery and despatched the potential victim.
For a few days, Nwamini was stranded on the streets of London where hunger and the merciless winter forced him to turn himself in to the police. The police interviewed him and set up a dragnet for his abductors under a new law prohibiting the extortion of humans for their organs. This is something a law professor ought to know, but like the law, Ekweremadu does not concern himself with trifles. Nevertheless, he and his wife were picked up at the airport while Obeta was arrested in the city.
They have now been tried and sentenced to various prison terms. Ekweremadu might be off circulation for four years (he got eight) his wife for one (she got four) and the doctor five (he got 10). Here, where they naturally protect the oppressor against the oppressed, they appeal to King, Prime Minister and the law to mitigate the sentence thereby dragging the nation’s image in the mud as a lawless one.
When kleptocrats fail to build facilities, they unwittingly become vicarious casualties of its failure. Where they assume privilege, they become victims of the law. This was how it was with Alamieyeseigha, James Ibori and Internet fraudsters. Those who appropriate unqualified honour at home are soon disgraced abroad. It’s the law of karma.