Lewis
Obi
The oddities, even
barbarities, of Nigeria ’s
daily life can sometimes be truly overwhelming. Some of them occur so
frequently that they compel Nigerians to think they are normal. An
example is the “big” protest in Abuja
last week over the Shi’ite cleric Ibraheem El-Zakzaky. He has been
detained without charge for one year. So you sigh in relief, and say, oh,
some freedom-loving patriots want the old man tried or freed. He has
suffered like the Biblical Job.
On the contrary, the protest was for the exact opposite. In
the new era of ‘fake news’ I try to be choosy but I just could not resist
trying to know why “thousands of Nigerians are currently protesting against the
ruling of a court that incarcerated leader of the Shi’ite Islamic Movement in Nigeria,
Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, be released unconditionally.”
The protesters were said to have taken over the Federal High Court
Abuja and had arrived under the high-sounding banner “Coalition on Good
Governance and Change Initiative (CGGCI).” That automatically suggests a
charitable non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to issues of good
government and positive change in society. You would also imagine that a
‘coalition on good governance’ would be dead set against the detention of a
Nigerian citizen for more than 48 hours without charge. That’s what the
Constitution demands. A constitutional democracy ought to faithfully
follow the rule of law and due process to realize good governance. But
the CGGCI was clearly against the rule of law and due process and was, indeed,
advocating what amounted to tyranny.
The CGGCI protesters attacked Justice Gabriel Kolawole saying the
judge seems oblivious of the “dangerous precedence (sic)” his ruling will have
on “law enforcement, security, anti-terror fight, terrorism, and extremism and
secessionist movements in Nigeria .”
Remember that the Department of State Security (DSS), which seems to be the
grandfather of this coalition, (Esau’s hand and Jacob’s voice) once told the
public that the Sheikh was being imprisoned for his own safety. At trial
the judge apparently asked for proof and got none. This was why the judge
made references to crimes “not known to law” of which the government was
accusing the Sheikh by innuendo.
The chairman of the CGGCI is a man named Comrade Okpokwu
Ogenyi. When Nigeria
was a country, a comrade was considered a people person, a friend of the
masses, a man who would understand basic things about the oppressed, and an NGO
like CGGCI was expected to stand with you to fight for fundamental human
rights. Now we are in the Orwellian 1984. So, it was Comrade
Ogenyi’s view that by ordering the release of a man who has been incarcerated
for 12 months without charge, “the judiciary has dealt a fresh blow to the
future of Nigeria
by legalizing terrorism while leaving the rest of the people at risk of losing
our lives (sic).”