In Nigeria, observance of the law by the political class, even in clear-cut cases, is tenuous at best. Take for instance the constitutional provision that prevents ex-convicts from contesting for or holding public office for ten years. It has never been observed and no court has been able to enforce it. In 2018, Lawali Dogonkade, a lawmaker representing Kaura-Namoda in Zamfara state was convicted by a Gusau High Court of receiving a bribe of N4.5 million in a contract involving the sum of N31.2 million. He was sentenced to four years in prison with the option of a fine of N120, 000. He not only paid the fine but continued to occupy his seat at the state house of assembly.
Some may think it is because the person involved is from a relatively remote part of the country. But it is a national trend. Joshua Dariye, former governor of Plateau state and Senator representing Plateau Central Senatorial District, was also convicted by an Abuja High Court for diverting public funds and was sentenced to 14 years in prison without the option of a fine. Dariye was promptly arrested and taken to prison. But miraculously, he remained a senator and kept drawing his salary and allowances till his term expired in 2019. The explanation given by the Senate President for continuing to pay him while serving his prison sentence was that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not declare his seat vacant.
When called upon to adjudicate, the Nigerian judiciary ends up complicating the problem. After two criminal convictions in the United Kingdom, James Onanefe Ibori returned to Nigeria and in 1995 was again convicted by an Upper Area Court Bwari, Abuja for stealing building materials. Yet, in 1999 he contested for and won election as Delta state governor, winning reelection again in 2003.
When his traducers approached the courts to demand his disqualification on the grounds of his convictions, even the Supreme Court could not help, stating that although a certain James Onanefe Ibori was convicted by a Bwari Area Court, they could not ascertain whether it was the same James Onanefe Ibori that was the governor of Delta state, even though there was no record of another James Onanefe Ibori existing anywhere else in the world. That was how the Ibori retained his position, completed his tenure as governor, and got within a hairbreadth of becoming Nigeria’s president.
Of course, we now know how Ibori managed Delta state’s resources. Even after the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) finally got round to charging Ibori with a 170-count charge of corruption and mismanagement of public funds in Nigeria, the courts after more than a year of trial, discharged and acquitted Ibori because, as the Judge, Marcel Awokulehin averred, there was “no clear evidence to support the charges.” Yet the same Ibori promptly pled guilty in the UK to avoid a trial and the lengthy prison term that will entail. Also, in the UK, he never disputed his criminal records or convictions.
Since then, the list of senior elected public officials with criminal records has expanded. Nigeria’s Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, was on February 28, 2007, convicted of theft by the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia in the United States. That information was public. But nobody cared or acted upon it and he was elected Speaker.
It has also emerged that current Ogun state governor, Dapo Abiodun, was convicted of credit card fraud and jailed in Miami Dade, Florida, in 1986. On returning to Nigeria to contest election, as they always do, he simply applied for and got his criminal records redacted. The practical implication is that he could lie on his Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) forms that he had no prior criminal records without immediately being caught. But even now that it is known he committed perjury and would be disqualified on that basis from being governor, it is next to impossible to remove him from office through the Nigerian court system. Incidentally, Dapo Abiodun contested for a senatorial seat in 2015 against another wanted drug kingpin in the United States, Buruji Kashamu, whose extradition requests to face drug charges were continuously thwarted by the Nigerian courts until he died two years ago of complications from Covid-19.
Of course, after becoming governor, he soon surrounded himself with his fellow fraudsters. In May 2021, his Senior Special Assistant on Special Duties, Abidemi Rufai, was arrested at the John Kennedy International Airport on suspicion of employment fraud to the tune of $350, 000. His trial was supposed to have been held on August 31, 2021 but his lawyers have now applied for and gotten postponement of his trial twice to May 2022.
Now, one of the frontline presidential contenders in next year’s election has been linked to a Nigerian drug cartel in the United States. Two decades ago, Bola Tinubu was identified as a bagman for two Nigerian drug dealers in Chicago and had to forfeit nearly half a million dollars to the United States Treasury Department in the highly publicized case.
But despite this and many other corruption allegations swirling around him – he has recently decided to settle out of court a case brought against him by a business partner which basically named him as a part-owner of a company providing financial advisory services to the Lagos state government for a hefty fee of more than a quarter of the total revenues generated by the state – none of these is going to come under scrutiny in the period leading up to the election.
For the masses, principal victims of misgovernance, these issues matter less. Once the dog whistle is sounded, issues of identity take over and nothing anyone says about the character, eligibility, or even suitability of a candidate matters anymore.
