My Lord, I hope you do not mistake the two accused persons to be one and the same. This one here is Abdulraheem and the other person you refer to is Johnny. As Abdulraheem’s legal counsel I need to clarify this so that you’ll be clear-minded after I must have made my final submission in this case of money laundering and aggravated stealing of pension funds. The only connection there may be between my client and the other fellow is that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission alleged that my client helped to catch pension fund looters, but he helped himself to just a few billions of naira in the process. Other than this, my client belongs to one tribe and religion, while Johnny belongs to another.
Kindly take note of that point, my Lord, as you prepare your verdict in this appeal suit before this apex court; you’re my client’s last hope. Pay no attention to those who say only Abdulraheem and his tribe see billions in government treasury and loot. In this loot-I-loot business, every tribe is represented. Mind you, my Lord, I should inform you about Johnny’s case otherwise double jeopardy stares my client in the face. Double in the sense that your verdict might punish him for his own offence and the offence some spitefully attribute to his tribe.
In Nigeria, there’s nothing like each person faces justice for their own offence, one can be guilty of collective tribal offence. Ha, my Lord stares at me like he never heard that kind of offence before. See, you can be automatically guilty just because you belong to a particular tribe or religion. When Nigerians say your tribe is guilty, you pay the price wherever you show up. My Lord, you must have heard people hiss and say, “These Yoruba people have come;” “These Igbo people and their wahalla;” “These Fulani people sef.” Your tribal affiliation, your religion can ensure you’re denied a job which you’re qualified for. That’s judgment, my Lord, guilty verdict you earn for belonging to a particular tribe.
All right, I shouldn’t digress because the matter before this honourable court is weighty. As I was saying, my client faces the risk of—Ha, by the way, my Lord, I hope you’re not like them; I mean you aren’t prejudiced yourself. I have to be sure because many are in high places who harbour poison in their hearts for people of other tribes. They use their positions to block anything good that should go to members of other tribes. Even I, a lawyer, experience it. But you don’t need the details. The risk that my client stands in case you’re prejudiced yourself is my main concern. And it can happen, my Lord, especially in a polarised nation such as ours where the other tribe is ever the looter, no member of our own tribe loots. This kind of sentiment may influence your verdict where my client is concerned and I need to guard against it.
Now, if it were under a different situation and I stood before you on behalf of my client, I would have freely admitted that Abdulraheem and Johnny are one and the same, citizens of one country. I would because I believe in one Nigeria. I believe all Nigerians are united in one nation. But the situation is dire and I can’t afford to put the life of my client in jeopardy by risking a verdict from your desk that’s based on guilt by association. I mean a verdict predicated on the sentiment that Abdulraheem comes from a particular tribe. So, each accused person has to bear his mother’s name which is the reason I shall now proceed to clearly state the difference between these two fellows.
My Lord, the facts are as follows. Johnny was once a former Assistant Director in the Police Pension Office. In 2013, he was prosecuted by the EFCC for fraud involving N22.9 billion from the Police Pension Fund. He was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment with an option of a fine of N750, 000. The EFCC appealed and the appellate court set aside the judgment. The Court said the accused admitted to the conversion of public funds to his personal use, he was, therefore, sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to return the stolen N22.9 billion. With a bold face, imagine, my Lord, with a bold face the accused approached the Supreme Court where he said Their Lordships should set aside his conviction and the order to refund N22.9 billion. His reason was that the Court of Appeal judgment was a miscarriage of justice. That’s the thing about looters, my Lord, they show no remorse since they’ve lost every sense of decency, the very reason they loot so much that when one hears it one feels disgusted.
Of course, Their Lordships in this same Supreme Court showed this one that he had lost all sense of decency. They upheld the decision of the appellate court and added that his appeal to set aside the six years jail term against him was frivolous, vexatious and devoid of merit. They further stated that victims of this convicted fellow deserved restitution, which could only be achieved through justice. This was how justice was done to a man who had lost every sense of what was decent; one of those Nigerians who always assert their own perfection and that of their tribes, deceivers who use name basically as a religious identity as though name automatically means piety and religion.
Perhaps, my Lord would permit me to use this opportunity to address an issue that has always bothered my mind. How do people claim religion and yet say the things they say, emitting hatred for fellow human beings? I’m baffled, people laying claim to a Supreme Being even as they talk about fellow humans as though the same Supreme Being didn’t create them too. How do they? I mean do they listen to themselves, listen to what they’re saying? Does anyone ever tell them they sound contradictory, claiming to have a religion yet saying they don’t want members of other tribes around, demonising them? It’s also here that you find many who carry on as though laying claim to a religion automatically confers some superiority on them and their tribe over other tribes. To them, their religion is synonymous with their tribe, exclusively theirs, a means of claiming “persecution.”
In any case, where does that high sense of owning a Supreme Being come from when they too do the things the Supreme Being they lay claim to abhors. The looting some of their members also engage in, the N22.8 billion meant for helpless pensionable Nigerians, for instance, is one in a long list. One would imagine those who cast others as the only problem Nigeria has won’t have one of their own named among looters. Yet some from other parts of the country lovingly rub their heads for them, saying they’re doing fine even when they emit so much hatred for the other tribe that their religion teaches them to win over. My Lord, that a people complain when they come off worse in a sometimes tense communal relationship isn’t what I’m against. That some take this high moral ground on issues that trouble this nation, in which they too cannot be exonerated, and they use strained communal relationships as basis to emit so much hatred for another tribe, is what I have issues with.
The communal challenges mostly have local causes, and some have resolved them locally as seen in Jigawa, Gombe as well as in Nigeria’s South-West. But some harbour so much hatred that they, through their utterances, even destroy relationships with state political authorities who can assist in resolving the crises. Instead, they go abroad to invite foreigners to resolve local issues that other Nigerians have wisely handled locally. This matter is inexhaustive, my Lord, so I rest my case on that front for now. As for my client, I plead for a fairer verdict. I’m sure you’ll deliver one. More so as I’ve proved beyond doubt that, unlike some claim, my client and his tribe aren’t singularly guilty among Nigerians who help themselves to the content of our treasury. Lest we forget.
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