Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D lists conditions for indicted politicians in Nigeria

The NATIONAL WAR AGAINST CORRUPTION: ACCUSED POLITICIANS IN NIGERIA INDICTED FOR CORRUPTION & THIEVERY SHOULD HAVE NO RIGHT, LEGAL OR MORAL, TO DICTATE THE TERMS OF THEIR PROSECUTION.
Fellows, look, when you fight Mr. or Mrs. Corruption, Corruption fights back – even more furiously and viciously!
  In recent times, with the ascendancy of Muhammad Buhari and the phenomenal but unprecedented prosecution of the war against public corruption in the society, the outcry has been heard again and again from various sources, particularly the old political guards of the PDP political machine, and their mouth pieces and co-beneficiaries from the massive national treasury looting, all in coordinated complaint against the new anti-corruption actions and the policy. Let me make clear that, for long now, I had resolved momentarily to withhold my commentary or reaction (for which I have too many of) on any matters concerning the somewhat legendary issue of endemic political corruption in the modern Nigerian environment. However, I feel impelled to address, if only briefly at this point, certain somewhat disturbing trends and sentiments that I find increasingly prevalent in public discourse among Nigerians on the issue. .
A most recent one, which is somewhat illustrative and representative of the points I wish to make, is the comment made by Mr. Daniel Elombah of Elombah.com, a lawyer and journalist who writes from London. Mr. Elombah’s commentary was his personal reaction to the arrest of several chieftains of the PDP in connection with the now-infamous $2.1 billion probe by Nigeria’s FCC into the diversion of the money that had been designed for arms purchase under the Jonathan government. And frankly, upon my completing the reading of his comments, my immediate reaction was plainly one of confusion and bafflement, wondering what it is EXACTLY that he (and many Nigerians of similar frame of mind) want done about public corruption and the perpetrators of it in Nigeria, and where EXACTLY they stand about fighting Nigerian corruption? If I can put it quite simply, his position, which unfortunately is not unlike much of what one reads nowadays about the thinking among a great deal of Nigerians concerning the issue of the Buhari anti-corruption war since its becoming a recent reality, seems in the end rather schizophrenic, operationally conflicting and conflicted, and too personalistic and somewhat partisan.  Often, the argument, as ludicrous and insane as it might be, seems to be that nothing will satisfy the complaining debunkers of Buhari’s prosecutorial choices or methods other than for the present government of the day and his Department of Justice, to surrender the prosecutorial discretion wholesale to the persons accused or suspected of criminal acts, themselves, and simply to appease and dance to their every wish and demand as to how they are to be prosecuted, when they should be prosecuted, or even whether at all they should be prosecuted or be subject to one for a criminal violation!
Mr. Elombah, for example, admits that “In point of fact, the nation should be grateful that it has come to know more of the details of massive diversion of funds and outright looting that went on under the Jonathan administration.” However, at the same time, he claims that “It is a different matter however, whether these revelations, shocking as they are, will in the end produce a less corrupt country in the absence of fundamental reforms.”
Well, maybe so. However, since when has it become the human norm in life that “Rome was built in one day.”? Since when has it become the norm in any human endeavor that just ONE action or one approach or measure alone, in and of itself, TOTALLY resolves the serious or long-standing problem at hand? To my knowledge neither Buhari nor anyone in his administration has ever said or taken the position that any ONE anti-corruption policy, tool or measure they’ve conceived or are taking, or set of them, alone, will be SUFFICIENT panacea-like magical cure that will end the endemic Nigerian public corruption cancer overnight!  However, as America’s revered late President Kennedy has well put it, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step”! To coin a legal phrase used by prosecutors in describing the quantum of evidence amassed for a case, at best, these tools and measures that the Buhari prosecutors are employing, may simply be described as akin to a set of  “necessary but not sufficient” measures in completely eradicating the present endemic Nigerian corruption condition! And the Buhari operatives are fully aware of this fact very well.
 Continuing, Mr. Elombah further assets that “There is a sense in which the long running expose of who took money, and from whom, is becoming something of an opera with entertainment value rather than an instructional or edifying drama. There is also the point about whether the culpability or guilt of those involved can be determined on the pages of newspapers in a classic case of trial by media.”
Well, my question to him (and many other Nigerians, politicians and otherwise who often voice this sort of view) is to whom, EXACTLY, is he addressing the above charges – is it to the Buhari government and the prosecutors? Or to the Nigerian politicians who they charge with one corrupt enrichment act or the other? I would suggest that Mr. Elombah and others who take that position address that accusation, NOT necessarily to the Buhari government actors, but primarily to the proper culprits on that front – the actors within the Nigerian political class who have suddenly found themselves increasingly being investigated and sorted out, and audaciously hauled to court for one corrupt criminal act or the other in recent times, and their cronies, the political parties and mouth pieces, and paid but disguised defenders and agents, some of which are even members of the Nigerian press and media, lawyers, bloggers, etc.!
Mr. Elombah then obligatorily recites the usual conspiratorial accusations, counter-accusations, and brickbats, mostly bandied around by PDP operatives PDP, about some purported “plot to check or maroon the party” hatched by the Buhari government, or the conspiratorial tale that Buhari was dictating to the EFCC to selectively target top PDP officials, and other such unsubstantiated similar wild conspiratorial accusations along that line. But, frankly, as a legal expert, my primary reaction to that line of accusations and complaints, is: WHAT’S THE REAL EVIDENCE OF THAT? Secondly, even if that were so (and, I must again emphasize that there’s to date no scintilla of evidence of that), my next reaction would be: So what?
Isn’t the most FUNDAMENTAL issue – shouldn’t the most FUNDAMENTAL issue be – did the man or woman who for whatever reason finds himself (or herself) hauled before a Nigerian court of law for some alleged act of fraud or corruption, ACTUALLY commit the act with which he/she is charged? Or, is the accusation for which he/she is brought to court, simply bogus and having no legal merits or foundation at all? I would go further to ask this: If you, a citizen of Nigeria, are, in fact, guilty of the crime with which you are charged, and you actually did commit the crime charged, then what right, legal or moral or otherwise, do you really have to complaint and to cry wolf if and when a dutiful prosecutor does his/her rightful constitutional duty and legally charges you with the crime? THERE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY NONE WHATSOEVER! ZERO!!
There is a popular English adage which is very applicable here, “There is no honor among thieves”! It’s an adage which even Obasanjo himself (a man who knows a thing or two about the subject since he was himself one of the prime ones in the Nigerian political history!) once uttered in connection with an accusation against another political operative during his presidency! The fundamental point is, how soon we forget that even especially the most corrupt but powerful politicians and political operatives of whatever political party or stripe, in whatever era or times or even country, when confronted with even a VALID accusation (and an irrefutable evidence) of corruption and thievery of public funds, would most likely still put up the most furious denial and most dogged fight against the accusation, often deploying a substantial fraction of that same ill-gotten stolen public money to mount such challenge, while employing all tools and avenues imaginable, both covert and overt, both by hook or crook, to do so. To paraphrase another analyst and keen expert of anti-corruption strategy, “When you fight corruption, and you even grab corruption by the balls and say ‘you are the notorious Mr. or Mrs. Corruption and now finally you are going to be locked up,’ don’t expect Corruption to simply submit to you without a fight, or to automatically admit any wrongdoing. Corruption would always fight back, first. The most furious and combative fight you’d ever probably see.”! 

The well-known Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, makes a similar point. “The fight against corruption in Nigeria is going to be a hard one. …I have used this expression again and again that corruption fights back and the ardent fighters are those who are already within the cesspool of corruption and you can see that in the recent episode which I am not going to talk about [yet].”
The central point I make, is, yes, I accept the argument made by some critics of the Buhari anti-corruption policies or measures. I wholeheartedly agree even that the prosecutorial and other drastic legal actions so far undertaken by the Buhari administration against the accused corrupt politicians in Nigeria, may not ultimately necessarily produce, for sure, a less corrupt country “in the absence of fundamental reforms.” Certainly, the Buhari administration will still need to make a litany of other “reforms” – ranging from the broadening of the pool of the persons who are charged with corruption to include persons in APC and other political parties, to Buhari “making clear his template for fighting corruption beyond Dasukigate, so that it will be difficult to sustain a charge of selective prosecution or persecution against his policies,” and so on. That’s all granted! But Buhari cannot do everything in one day. Even just as important, if NOT more so, Buhari alone cannot, by himself (or his government alone) do everything about effectively fighting and eliminating corruption in the Nigerian body politic. And Buhari necessarily has to start somewhere.
Buhari has now made that pivotal “first step” start! It’s already yielding humongous fruits. We at least now know from that, that various Nigerian high profile politicians and news media of all stripes in high places, etc., had their corrupt hands deeply implanted in the apparent national political pastime of routinely siphoning off the national treasury – as exemplified in the precious, badly needed “Dasukigate” $2.1 billion that was all parceled out into private pockets under the Goodluck Jonathan regime. That’s a revelation coming to light only just from one such exercise uncovered by the Buhari anti-corruption action, among literally thousands and thousands of such exercises that were obviously carried out on a routine basis in the pre-Buhari Nigerian era! And with the collective support, help and encouragement, of the rest of Nigerians behind his back for his continued implementation of the Buhari policy along these lines, Nigeria will see even more and greater “revelations” and benefits in the days and months ahead. Yes, my good friend, Mr. Elombah, you cannot be more right here, that “”the fight against corruption is too serious to be left to the EFCC, or even to the political class, who may be minded to milk it for political advantage. The civil society, the media, and the expert community ought to be involved in shaping the agenda, and ensuring that it does not become overly partisan, drama driven, or episodic.”
The correct but most helpful stance that well-wishing Nigerians should take in respect to the revelations emanating from the Buhari anti-corruption actions, should be something similar to the recent reaction of visceral, unambiguous, unqualified, outright condemnation of corruption and high profile practitioners of Nigerian corruption made by one Nigerian, Oluwakayode Olumide Ogundamisi. Reacting to newspaper reports of the outright admission of the former Nigerian Secretary to the Federal Government, Olu Falae, who had, while admitting to having received N100 million from a former PDP chieftain, Anenih, as his share of the vast DasukiGate arms-purchase-money loot, called it “a legitimate transaction,” Mr. Ogundamisi made no bones about it this way: “It is such ridiculous distribution of public funds meant for public education, security, employment [health, infrastructure, etc.], but diverted to rent-seekers like Falae, that produces those young kidnappers [who had previously kidnapped Falae for ransom] and the many jobless youth across Nigeria.”
Couldn’t be more true, or more accurately stated!
It is my humble submission herein that what Buhari – and Nigeria’s ultimate well-being – need the most right now from all well-meaning Nigerians, abroad and at home, is strong, unflinching and unambiguous but non-conflicted moral support and encouragement. One tinged, of course, with constructive criticism and informed ideas and suggestions as to the ways in which he may fine tune his anti-corruption policies and actions for greater effectiveness and results.
Thank you.
Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D. Jurisprudence (Law).