It has been ‘all hail the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed
Abubakar’ for a couple of days now. With exceptional promptitude, the
Lagos State Police Command on the orders of the IGP dismissed an
extortionist police sergeant, Chris Omeleze, who was caught on video
camera demanding a bribe from an unnamed motorist. Greedy Omeleze with
Force Number 192954 and 21 years on the job reportedly refused to accept
N2,000 for an alleged traffic offence committed by the motorist, but
salivated for N25,000 from his victim. He ended up squandering his 21
years in police service on the temple of bribe; and dragging his
family’s name in the mud. There are, however, countless Chris Omelezes
still in the Nigeria Police Force that may never be caught. But the
quick intervention of the police high command by subjecting the cop to
immediate orderly room trial and sack could deter some of his colleagues
or slacken the long hands of others for whom bribe-taking and ‘long
throat’ have become a way of life just for some time. This, however, is
on an aside note.
The critical point worth elaborating on is that Omeleze has joined
scores of ‘small thieves’ whose hands were ‘chopped off’ for
‘inconsequential stealing’, while the big time marauders in and out of
government walk tall on the nation’s streets with the dangerous grimace
of ravenous wolves, looking for what next to steal or bribe to take. One
agrees to a great extent with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s last
week ‘yabis’, when he said: “It is sad that after 53 years of
independence, we have no leader we can commend. Then we are jinxed and
cursed…”. This is because had public officers who have decreed the
cumulative shame of treasury looting, fraud and bribe taking on the
nation been earning the Omeleze treatment, the country would probably
not have come this far in leadership impropriety and moral decadence.
Still jostling for power even presently are leaders in and out of
government indicted for corrupt practices; that deserve condemnation to
death or life imprisonment for the misery their itchy fingers on the
nation’s treasury, frauds, bribery and kick-back syndrome have plunged
Nigeria and Nigerians into. Where is that nation, if it is not cursed,
that will generously tolerate such infractions of the system, refuse to
allocate commensurate punishment to the perpetrators, and even grant
‘state pardon’ to convicted and wanted criminals? Can the harsh
judgement of the police leadership on Omeleze serve as enough a lesson
to a nation that parades largely condemnable leaders; leaders who bend,
twist and undermine the law such that grave crimes even against the
state go unpunished?
As we speak, for instance, no head or tail has been made of many past
governors docked for corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC). In the National Assembly, lawmakers indulge in
self-preservation and cover-up of their self-inflicted odious
reputation. So far, as yet another example, the nation is still being
regaled with fairy tales about the prosecution of House of
Representatives member, Farouk Lawan, docked for a $3 million oil
subsidy bribe scandal involving oil magnate, Mr. Femi Otedola, last
year. The same goes for the trial of two of Lawan’s colleagues, Herman
Hembe and Azubuogu Ifeanyi, arraigned for alleged diversion of public
funds in the popular Capital Market scam of last year. Instead of
showing remorse, rebuking and possibly punishing their members for their
dishonourable conduct, the federal legislature had busied itself with
plots to stifle life out of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
whose Director-General, Arunma Oteh, stirred the Capital Market
scandal.
Compare the trend with the treatment James Anthony Traficant, Jr., a
former Democratic Party (DP) politician and member of the United States’
House of Representatives from Ohio, got on being convicted of taking
bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, etc. On April 12, 2002,
after a two-month federal trial, Traficant was found guilty of bribery
and other charges and sentenced to a seven-year jail term by a federal
jury. He served out the prison term before regaining his freedom. On
July 24, the lawmakers voted 420 to 1 to expel him. The only vote
against Traficant’s expulsion was cast by Rep. Gary Condit, who himself
was battling with a scandal.
Michael Joseph “Ozzie” Myers, also a Democrat US House of
Representatives’ member, had been expelled earlier in 1980 in connection
with the ‘Abscam scandal’. Myers was videotaped accepting a bribe of
$50,000 from undercover FBI agents on August 22, 1979. He was expelled
from the House of Representatives on October 2, 1980, by a vote of 376
to 30. Down here, on the contrary, the executive arm of government is
reputed for unconscionable looting; while the legislature revels in
protecting its members who have refused to leave bribe-taking alone,
despite their fat and outof- this-world remunerations. Now corrupted by
the first two, the judiciary was also desperately competing to outdo its
sister arms of government in the despicable act until the ongoing
efforts by the relevant authorities to save the bench. When a country’s
leadership fights shy of the resolute application of the law to stem
grievous harm to its soul, injustices as well as the control of immoral
behaviour in public life, what remains of that nation? Nothing! Such a
country, if not already doomed, has a very grim and unpredictable
future.
Source: nationalmirror
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