The emergence of Acting Inspector
General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Kpokum Idris may have unveiled a new dogari
policing for Nigeria. That is to say that the primitive Hausa-Fulani
policing methods specializing in collection of taxes, guarding Emir
palaces and arresting and jailing tax defaulters and others considered by Emirs
as Emirate enemies, all according to whims and caprices of the Emirs,
may have been brought to the fore by the Acting IGP, with two major instances
being the reckless abandon with which the Acting IGP has ordered his personnel
to flood Nigerian roads and retire at every evening with bagfuls of officially
robbed naira notes; and the rush and speed with which he set up a five-man
criminal probe panel to selectively and illegally investigate the House
Speaker, Yakubu Dogara over a clearly non-criminal conduct correctly called
“Padding of the 2016 Budget Bill”; leaving behind other partakers, aiders
and abetters. The action of the Acting IGP is a height of trial
by ordeal and selective application of justice.
By the summary
account of the Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th
Edition (2009), trial by ordeal is
a judgment of man passed on his fellow man without recourse to written law and
principles of the rule of law including fair hearing. This is substantially, if
not totally derived from hearsay, unsubstantiated and unverified accusation(s).
By the plain language of Section 36 (8) of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999 under right to fair hearing, no
person shall be held to be guilty of a criminal offence on account of any act
or omission that did not at the time it took place, constitute an offence, and
no penalty shall be imposed for any criminal offence heavier than the penalty
in force at the time the offence was committed. Also by the plain
language of Section 36 (11) of the same Constitution, subject
as otherwise provided by this Constitution, a person shall not be convicted of
any criminal offence unless that offence is defined and penalty therefore is
prescribed in a written law, such as an Act of the National Assembly or a Law
of a State.
Further, for a
crime to be committed in Nigeria, it must be composed of guilty act
(actus reus) and guilty mind (mens rea); with exceptions being strict
and statutory liability offences (i.e. sanitary, utility bills and
traffic offences). A crime mandatorily requiring police investigative and
prosecutorial involvement is not a crime unless it is mandatorily composed of seven
elements of crime; namely: actus reus, mens rea, legality, harm,
causation, concurrence and punishment. Conditional Defences
to Crime, particularly crimes against persons, property and
collective security crimes; are duress, underage,
insanity, entrapment, self defense and necessity. A conduct can be unethical,
yet it does not make it a crime unless it is criminalized as a code-crime with
prescribed penalty; usually under mala prohibita (a conduct
defined as a crime by a given society or political territory, or part of it) or
mala inse (codified crime bearing universal application).
It is therefore
the observation of the leadership of International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) that selective justice
has risen to an apogee in Nigeria and trial by ordeal justice system fully
returned. Recourse to rule of law and due process is already nailed and
crucified. Fundamental issues of extreme public and national importance
dominant in criminal justice, economy, security and political sectors are
recklessly and brazenly brushed aside for issues of acutely infinitesimal
relevance which now dominate the national and daily discourse. The latter
include Aisha Buhari’s trip to USA, Ekweremadu
must go and Senate Rule 25 forgery campaign, Budget Padding and Dogara must go
campaign, Okezie Ikpeazu ousting campaign, to mention but a few.
Sadly, as much
as 140 unarmed and defenceless youths of the Igbo-Nigeria extraction were
massacred in Onitsha, Nkpor and Asaba on 30th of May 2016 by
soldiers of the Onitsha Military Cantonment under the 82 Division of the
Nigerian Army and joined by personnel of the Nigerian Navel and Nigeria Police
Force. As if that was not enough, over 120 of them were abominably and
violently buried in secret mass graves located inside Onitsha Military
Cantonment and within Airport area in Asaba on 2nd
and 21st June 2016, respectively; yet no State controlled or
independent television outfit in Nigeria has empanelled any discussion forum on
same till date. As we speak, no single perpetrator has been arrested and
put on trial by the Nigeria Police Force led by Acting IGP, Ibrahim Idris.
As much as 809
unarmed and celebrant members of Shiite Muslim movement were either massacred
or made to disappear till date in Zaria by the Nigerian Army on 12th
and 14th of December 2015. In all these, all the frontline media,
activist lawyers and social advocacy institutions including the National Human
Rights Commission have gone chronically deaf and dumb; with exception being a
conscientious fraction such as the likes of Barristers Ebun Olu Adegboruwa and
Femi Fani-Kayode; Governor Peter Fayose of Ekiti State, the authorities of the
Galaxy TV and leading Nigerian Online Media mostly of Southeast and South-south
domination.
Though our advocacy attention is too busy to be occupied
by national irrelevancies such as the so called Budget
Padding, but we feel deeply pained watching the country’s social institutions and values being bastardized,
corrupted and destroyed on daily basis and with reckless abandon by those who
ought to be the custodians of the country’s public morality, decency and
uprightness, especially when some of them go by the hallowed titles of their
excellencies, their lordships, senior learned counsels, senior comrades, etc.
Legally and
criminologically speaking, we are not in the know of any criminal law in
Nigeria where act of Padding of a Budget Bill is
unambiguously defined as a criminal offence with prescribed penalty or
penalties; yet the Acting Inspector General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Kpokum
Idris has rushed and hurriedly set up a five-man criminal investigative
panel, headed by AIG Amodu Ali to selectively and illegally investigate
the House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara and about four others. The Presidency has
consistently targeted the House Speaker, the Senate President and the Deputy
Senate President for removal at all costs following their independent and
popular emergence in June 2015 as principal leaders of the 8th
National Assembly of Nigeria; upon which
the Presidency has labeled them forgers of Senate (National Assembly)
Rule 25 of 2015. The Senate President and the Deputy Senate President
are presently being prosecuted by the Presidency for “forgery”.
The
constitutional and statutory powers under which the Acting IGP empanelled the
criminal probe team to investigate the alleged Padding of 2016 Budget
Bill, unknown in Nigeria as a criminal offence; are yet to be located
in any law in Nigeria. As the Acting IGP is busy pursuing shadows and engaging
in acts clearly outside the law, his personnel in their thousands deployed on
Nigerian roads, particularly in the Southern part of the country; are busy
robbing motorists and other road users with reckless abandon through extortion
at gunpoint of N50.00 and N100.00 note per motorist and road user. Through the
entrenched culture of returns, the Acting IGP and his operational
sub commanders are again smiling to the bank vicariously on daily basis; which
is why we invited and still invite all Nigerians and members of the
international community to make trips to Nigerian roads across the country so
as to assess the effects of the Buhari administration’s anti corruption on Nigeria and Nigerians.
For the
purpose of setting the records straight, Budget Padding is
technically a practice that some people use in business or government budget
proposal when submitting a budget for executive management or governmental
executive or legislative approval for the purpose of adding, subtracting,
increasing or reducing the projected expenditures or projects. It is commonly
done in government and legislatively, when a budget is yet to be signed into
law by the legislature and the executive. Executive approval of a budget is
sealed when a legislatively approved budget bill is signed into law by the
president or the governor and legislative budget approval is secured when it is
legislatively passed by the National Assembly or a House of Assembly of a State
with required yes voice votes.
Unethically speaking,
legislative and executive arms in Nigeria have been caught in the web of Budget
Padding over the years. This they have consistently done by preparing and
approving over-bloated budgets containing excessive fiscal votes for overheads
and frivolous allowances for themselves including the so called security
votes; with most of their funding sourced from borrowings.
The executive
arm had steadily engaged in spurious spending spree leading to use of
retroactive supplementary budgets for the purpose of legitimizing the spent
funds. The legislative arm had consistently connived with the executive in the
perpetration of the unethical fiscal conduct under reference. The extra
budgetary spending by the executive with retroactive supplementary cementation
as well as incomplete implementation of the approved budgets particularly the
capital budgets is clearly a criminal offence and act of corruption than
padding of a budget bill.
Technically speaking and by
law, budget bill padding process is not a crime, though its intents may constitute
unethical conduct, but not a crime, except codified as crime. But any altering
done in the budget after it has been legislatively and executively passed into
law are expressly a crime and an act of corruption; which is why a
process of supplementary budget was created and conventionalized. The
supplementary budget is created for three reasons: (a) to reduce the originally
projected projects or expenditures on account of decline in revenue targets,
(b) to increase originally projected revenues or projects on account of
increase in projected revenues, and (c) to provide for emergency spending and
situations in the event of eruption of war or natural disasters.
Sadly, these established
credible budgetary processes have consistently been observed in gross breach by
the successive military and civilian governments in Nigeria and their
legislative or pseudo legislative arms since 1997, which was the last time
Nigeria recorded credible budget with over 47Billion surplus under the Abacha
military regime. We have already challenged the authorities of the Nigeria
Police Force, the EFCC, the ICPC and Office of the Attorney General of the
Federation to show prove where in the country’s
written criminal laws it is clearly stated that act of padding a budget
bill (act done before the legislative and executive passage of the budget bill
into law) is a criminal offence punishable under a prescribed penalty
or penalties. The authorities are again called upon to educate all Nigerians
and members of the international community on the criminality or otherwise of
the subject matter.
Where they continue to fail in
this regard, then it will be totally safe to submit that they have cemented our
informed submission that selective justice and trial by ordeal is back
and on rampage in Nigeria. It will further mean that Acting IGP,
Ibrahim Idris acted unconstitutionally, ultra vires and despicably by
ordering the criminal probe outside the law and his constitutional and
statutory powers.
However, if the authorities under reference are able to
prove to all Nigerians and members of the international community that padding
of a budget bill is a crime in Nigeria, then the instant case has
consumed both the executive and legislative arms in the country, not just the
House Speaker and about four others. That is to say that President Muhammadu
Buhari should be investigated, having aided and abetted (i.e. signed the budget
into law when he knew that it was legislatively “padded”). Other executive accomplices are the Minister for Finance,
the Accountant General of the Federation and the Attorney General of the
Federation, while the legislative culprits are the Senate President, the House
Speaker, the Clerk of the National Assembly and the Chairmen of the Senate and
the House Committees on Finance and Appropriation.
Finally, the Executive
Arm of Government in Nigeria led by President Muhammadu Buhari and its open and
secret police (DSS and NPF) are hereby called upon to steer clear of the
National Assembly and its principal leaderships particularly the Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu and the
House Speaker, Yakubu Dogara. That is to say that the leaderships of the
National Assembly of Nigeria must be left alone by the Presidency of Gen Muhammadu
Buhari and be allowed to serve Nigerians legislatively. The Executive Arm must
also respect the hallowed principles of separation of powers, checks and
balances and independence of the legislature and allow the law to take its full
course in the event any of them is found wanting under the laws of the land.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
(Intersociety)
Emeka
Umeagbalasi(Criminologist & Graduate of Security Studies)
Board Chairman
Mobile Line:
+2348174090052
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq.,
(LLB, BL)
Head, Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law Program
Mobile Line:
+2348034186332
Email: igboeliobianuju@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please restrict your comment to the subject matter.