The overkill at the tribunals
Elizabeth Ohene
When a man has been sentenced to over 300 years in jail, what does it matter if his sentence is reduced by five years especially if the man is given yet another 21-year term the day after?Alhaji Bakin Zuwo the former Governor of Kano state was reported to have been quite subdued at his latest appearance at the Kaduna zone special military tribunal.
I suppose the man would be less than human if he had not lost some of his spirit by now. One has lost count of the number of times he has appeared before the Tribunal and the number of times he has been sentenced to various 21 year jail terms.
The fact that Major-General Mohammadu Buhari, the Nigerian Head of State recently made some reduction in the sentences along with some other jailed politicians, is wholly irrelevant.
In his present circumstances such 'reductions' in sentences are like, as they say, rubbing pepper in the man's wounds. When a man has been sentenced to over 300 years in jail, what does it matter if his sentence is reduced by five years. To start with, almost as soon as the reductions were announced, Alhaji Bakin Zuwo was back before the Tribunal being handed down yet another 21 year sentence.
Right from the beginning, it was quite clear that Maj-Gen Buhari was asking very much of his countrymen when he insisted on proceeding on the assumption that he should be trusted to do what is best for the country without being asked any questions or having to give any explanations for whatever he does.
When the decree setting out the penalties to be given out by the Tribunals was promulgated, the general feeling was that either the General was joking or else he was quite mad. Doubtless when Gen Buhari prescribed a minimum of 21 years in jail for the politicians who would be found guilty at the Tribunals, he had hoped that the severity of the sentences would impress everybody and go to show the revulsion of people towards the crimes of the politicians.
Without going into the matter of legitimacy or the need for the accused person to accept his guilt, there is some such thing as overkill. While a ten-year jail sentence would impress everybody and possibly shock the accused into submission, sentences of multiples of 21 years only sound ridiculous and detract from the seriousness that should be attached to a Tribunal or court. The line between the sombre and the farcical is most times so thin as to be indiscernible.
One had thought that it was because Maj-Gen Buhari had finally recognised this danger that he decided to reduce the sentences to levels which would be understood by the ordinary citizen.
Like the trials and the sentences, the sentence reduction exercise has also been equally bizarre. No method can be deduced from the madness.
Who, for example, qualifies for sentence reduction? What kind of offence qualifies for sentence reduction? Has it been an amnesty, in which case, the question will necessarily have to be asked, how come some people have had their sentences reduced and some others have not been touched? How come that there has been no uniformity in the reduction? Why have some sentences been reduced to five years, others to two and others to ten? How does one qualify to be granted the maximum reduction?
COMIC INTERLUDE
What is the point in the reductions if, as in the case of Bakin Zuwo, it is only to be given more 21 year sentences? Or could it be that the idea is to give regular opportunities for Gen-Buhari to demonstrate his magnanimity? Thus when Bakin Zuwo gets a 21 year sentence this week, there will be an official statement reducing the sentence to five years in the next week and ten days later he would receive another one and then a mitigation...Even as an exercise in comic interlude, it can be overdone and become decidedly unfunny. And anyway nobody can accuse Maj-Gen Buhari of having a sense of humour. He has gone to great lengths to convince everybody that he takes his self-imposed duties very seriously. We can therefore discount the comic relief theory.
So what exactly is one to make out of the entire saga of detentions, trials, releases, sentence reductions? Nobody is questioning Maj-Gen Buhari's good intentions, and it is possibly all very clear to him the wisdom of his ways but does he not care that not every- body is as fast on the take as he is?
Why are some people being tried many times over and others are still to be brought before the Tribunals? What point, is it hoped, will be proved by the multiple trials of people like Jim Nwobodo, Bakin Zuwo and Abubakar Rimi? Surely if the idea is to convince the Nigerian populace of how 'corrupt' such people were in office, that point has been made most forcibly already?
Not many people in Nigeria can aspire to the biblical life expectancy of three score and ten and unless Gen Buhari is intending to keep the dead bodies of some of the former politicians to serve out the sentences, then there is no question but that the continuing trials constitute an exercise in futility.
It might be of interest for the Federal Military Government (FMG) to tell the public how much the administration of these Tribunals are costing the nation.
After somebody like Bakin Zuwo has been ordered to pay fines that amount to more than any wealth that he might have, what can be the point in further fines? Are his sins going to be visited upon his future descendants? The situation will soon arise, if it has not done so already, where the Tribunals will be spending public money to impose fines that everybody knows cannot be collected.
To those outside the various prisons where the politicians are being held, the funny side of the 'trials' can possibly be seen but to those inside the prison, it must all be very worrying. It is no wonder therefore that even Bakin Zuwo the most irrepressible of them all appeared subdued at his latest appearance. It is enough to convince anybody that there is a deliberate aim to get him.
What other conclusion can some- body like former Governor Bola Ige come to? He extricated himself from one charge on which he had been convicted by Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon before he ever appeared before a Tribunal, only to be slapped with another charge. When the Tribune wrote that the atmosphere was like a graveyard when Bola Ige was being sentenced, the inference should be quite clear. Why should the people whose money Bola Ige is said to have stolen feel so sad that he is being punished for his crimes?
It is more difficult to see whose interest is being served by these trials.
