By Crispin Oduobuk
Considering its anti-corruption posturing, last week should have been a triumphant one for the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Government.
Following a 12-year trial, former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted by the Federal High Court in Lagos over N7.1bn fraud on Thursday, December 5, 2019.
Unfortunately, last week may probably go down in history as the week President Buhari displayed in totality his well known disregard for the Judiciary.
The same day Kalu was convicted, the Department of State Services, DSS, forcibly rearrested Omoyele Sowore, a former presidential candidate, and founder of the online news outlet Sahara Reporters inside a court room.
Sowore, who has already spent over four months in DSS custody for alleged treasonable felony after calling for a protest tagged RevolutionNow, became not just the talk of the country, but a global media embarrassment to the Government after shameful images of his forceful rearrest trended on social media.
This had the unintended consequence of eclipsing the significance of Kalu’s conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction and his immediate imprisonment thereafter.
In order to situate that significance in the proper context, it is important to acknowledge that Kalu is not the first ex-governor to be convicted or jailed. Former governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison with an option of paying a N3.5million fine. Of course, he chose the latter.
Meanwhile, Senator Joshua Dariye, a former governor of Plateau State, and Reverend Jolly Nyame, a former governor of Taraba State, are convicts currently serving time in Kuje, Abuja. Also, James Ibori, former governor of Delta State, was famously tried, convicted, and jailed in Britain on fraud and money laundering charges.
Even with all the foregoing, the truth is that the long arm of the law has yet to catch up with the tens of former governors who looted their various states while in office. Court cases have dragged on for years against the likes of Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Mukhtar Ramalan Yero (Kaduna), Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), and Jonah Jang (Plateau).
Additionally, petitions against several former and serving governors, at least one of them including video footage, have been submitted to anti-corruption agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and yet these fellows are not only walking free, some have even gone on to become Senators or Ministers.
And a favourite tactic employed by these men is to become later day members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, hoping to get the proverbial “soft landing” there.
It is precisely because Kalu tried the APC membership gambit, and all the stalling gimmicks known to our judicial system, such as interlocutory injunctions and other devises of legal roadblocks, and yet he still got convicted and jailed that his case is noteworthy.
The onus is now on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Government to press on with vigorous prosecution of all outstanding cases against former governors and other politically exposed persons.
It is also important that substantiated petitions against such persons should be investigated and charges filed accordingly where appropriate.
For there is no greater deterent to corruption than to demonstrate that Mr Governor today could easily be Mr Convict tomorrow if such an individual loots the public treasury.
