Guilty As Not Charged

By Kenneth Okonkwo

Godwin Emefiele may go down in history as one of the worst, if not the worst, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor. He was appointed in the twilight of President Goodluck Jonathan’s regime, but managed to endear himself to the Buhari’s regime, who retained him until after eight years of his disastrous regime, which Bola Tinubu has described as a rotten financial system. To be sure, this description is not far from the truth. A Governor who met a single exchange rate regime at N190 to a dollar and left a dual exchange rate regime of about N490 to a dollar at the official rate and about N740 to a dollar at the parallel/black market. Rice rose from N8,000 to N46,000, bread from N300 to N1,000, chicken from N2,500 to N10,000, flight from N13,000 to N110,000.

A Governor who spent about N22 trillion unappropriated money for nebulous ways and means and later on railroaded both the Executive and the Legislature to approve the illegality. A Governor who became the Father Christmas that involved himself in the sharing of Federal Government money for agriculture and other businesses not captured by the laws establishing the Central Bank. A Governor who decided he wanted to redesign the naira and subjected Nigerians to the most excruciating pain that threatened their survival, but when the time came to produce the new currency, which is even of lower quality than the older one, produced none that ever reached the common masses. Till date, I didn’t officially collect new notes from any official quarters till the same party, APC, that introduced the policy, killed it. A Governor who decided to contest the office of the President of Nigeria, while still being the Governor of CBN, and even went to court to compel every opposing force to accept his wish of contesting as their command is certainly a Governor that will go down in history as one of the worst.

However, there’s no point stated above that one can lay a hand that Emefiele engaged in which did not get the approval of the President of his regime and even, unfortunately, the Legislature, whether directly or indirectly, whether legally or illegally, whether before engaging in the act or after engaging in the act. Indeed, he is the first CBN Governor that was re-appointed in office since 1999. There’s no doubt that the present APC Leader didn’t like the temerity of the CBN Governor to dare contest the post of the President with him, just like he didn’t like the National Chairman of APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu to choose Senator Ahmad Lawan as a consensus presidential candidate of APC over him, just like he didn’t like Prof Yemi Osinbajo, to contest the ticket with him and dubbed him a betrayer. All of them who contested against him one way or the other, got his punishment, either verbally or by action. Senator Adamu is receiving his disgrace now for opposing him. I don’t know whether he is still the National Chairman of APC or not, but I know that he has been rendered irrelevant from the scheme of things as he publicly confessed not being carried along during the choice of the leadership of the National Assembly and its principal officers. Ahmad Lawan was openly told to go and nurse his wounds which he is humbly doing now by sitting humbly on the floor of the Senate as a floor member, under the leadership of another Senator, after being the Senate President of that hallowed chamber.

This seems to be the fate of Godwin Emefiele as it is now. We don’t have any incentive to defend Emefiele, but every Nigerian has a duty to defend the fundamental human rights of Nigerians. Personally, I have not met him at all. When he was arrested, we expected him to be taken to court before 24 hours after arrest, in line with the provisions of the Constitution and the extant laws of Nigeria. We must note that in Nigeria, every person who is charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty. (Please see Section 36(5) of the 1999 Constitution). An arrest pending investigation is unconstitutional. The position of the law presupposes that while the police have a duty to infract a citizen’s right based on allegation of crime, it must first investigate such allegation and establish a prima facie evidence that will tantamount to either the commission of same or reasonable suspicion of the commission of crime, which is the universally accepted practice among policemen. This universal stance of the law is emphasised in order to obviate cases where mendacious, vindictive and vengeful persons raise spurious and malicious petitions.

So the state must realise that they do not first arrest and detain a person and then start running around to investigate him. You must conclude investigation before arresting someone, so you can bring him to trial within 24 hours stated in the Constitution. This is the internationally accepted standard. In the United States of America where the rule of law prevails, the Department of Justice (DOJ) resisted every temptation to arrest Donald Trump, who is alleged to be the mastermind of the insurrection against the Capitol, intended to obstruct the work of the Legislature in certifying the election victory of President Joe Biden. The insurrection happened on 6th January, 2021, going to three years now, but it is only this week that Donald Trump received a target letter from the Special Counsel informing him that he is a prospective Defendant in the offences of insurrection against the Capitol. Even people who committed capital offences in America are granted their full fundamental human rights while arresting and charging them to court. In such climes, you can only be guilty as charged.

We were told long ago, precisely after Emefiele, ill-advisedly, floated the idea of being interested to contest the 2023 presidential election, that he was a target of arrest by the SSS. Ironically, he was alleged to be sponsoring terrorists. This allegation was to bring his offence within the authority of the SSS. This attitude didn’t go down well with the then President Buhari, who ordered the DSS not to arrest him and went further to be guarding his Governor of the CBN with the military force. Emefiele didn’t also stop there, he went to court to protect his fundamental human right of self dignity and liberty and the court granted his reliefs and restrained the DSS or his privies from arresting and detaining him over the matter. The position of the law is very clear that an order or a judgment of a court should be obeyed, no matter how perverse, unless overturned on appeal.

However, a regime that has no respect for the rule of law has appeared and desecrated what is remaining of our tattered respect for the rule of law. Femi Falana warned that the DSS has no power to try Emefiele, yet this regime allowed the DSS to go after Emefiele. He was arrested without telling the world what his offence was, still clutching on the spurious allegation of sponsoring terrorists. They resorted to the old outdated tactic of going to a court to obtain a holding order to detain someone for a time without trial. For weeks, they still failed to charge him until a court gave them an order to charge him within seven days or release him on bail. Immediately, Emefiele was charged with possession of firearm, a pistol with some cartridges and rounds of ammunition. He has not been released till date on bail, even an order of a court ordering that he be immediately released as his detention is illegal and against an existing order of a court has not dissuaded the DSS, prompting some human right lawyers to bring contempt of court order proceedings against the DSS for summary punishment for disobeying court order. This is unfortunate.

We must rise up as a nation to condemn this unfortunate disregard of the law to punish innocent Nigerians unheard. Because Nigerians kept quiet on the illegal arrest and detention of Emefiele, Bawa, the EFCC Chairman was picked up and being interrogated. Like Emefiele, nobody has told us his offence and he wasn’t charged within 24 hours of his arrest in line with the extant laws in our country. It’s unfortunate that a government who used ex-parte order of a court to stop the Nigerian Labour Congress from embarking on strike based on the reckless withdrawal of oil subsidy and blackmailed the Labour unions to obey it will turn back to start disobeying court orders to get at perceived enemies of the regime. Nigerians must unanimously stand up to reject this affront on the fundamental human rights of the citizens.

Let us state it categorically that nobody is above the law. If Emefiele committed any offence while in office, let the full wrath of the law descend heavily on him. And in pursuing the case against him, all the persons involved in his crime must be brought to justice with him. You cannot charge Emefiele with a crime for which he got the approval to execute it, without charging the people who gave him the approval. You cannot charge the person or people in the executive for giving approval, without charging the members of the National Assembly who criminally and retroactively granted him approval in some of his obvious unlawful conduct of spending money through unappropriated ways and means.

We demand an immediate release of Emefiele, Bawa or anybody detained in our correctional centres for more than 24 hours without trial as democracy finds it irritating to pronounce someone guilty and start punishing the person without trial. Releasing someone on bail doesn’t mean discharging or acquiting him, it simply means a recognition that he’s entitled to his fundamental human rights and no state actor has the power by law to deny him his right. Every person must talk now, so that when it comes to your turn, you will have someone to talk for you. With the entrance of an insensitive government like this one, it can be anybody’s turn, any day, whether the person committed an offence or not, because prevention will always be better than cure.