Comment
Guilty Until Proved Innocent
It is much easier of course to come to a particular conclusion through the evaluation of the available facts, when one is not personally involved in the matter at issue..
Everybody sleeps that much more easily in the knowledge or fervent hope at least that when it comes to the courts, the judiciary ensure that minds are made up and conclusions drawn on the evidence presented.
It is not surprising that some people have been dismayed at the ruling of the Justice Uwaifo panel which investigated the allegations of malpractices made against the former president and his vice president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Alex Ekwueme. It would indeed have been very surprising if some sections had not had the grace to at least express their dismay. Here they had made up their minds that Alhaji Shagari and all who participated in the running of the Second Republic were thieves and rogues. If in those early days, Gen Buhari, the then head of state had ordered Shagari and all the politicians to be executed, the measure would probably have received 'popular' support, or so at least, some eminent commentators would have us believe.
Much as the Buhari regime tried to convince the entire world that the tribunals they instituted could dispense justice, there was no doubt that their credibility was suspect from the beginning. When Gen Babangida assumed power on August 27 last year proclaiming respect for human rights, the review panels were necessary not only to ensure that the injustices of the Buhari regime were corrected but also to lend credibility to Gen Babangida's human rights stance.
The task that faced the judicial panel had to do with sifting the truth from falsehood and establishing reality as opposed to fantasy and that could not have been easy in an atmosphere where the accused persons were presumed guilty until proved innocent.
The first sign that some people misunderstood the work of the panel came when the prosecution counsel tried to make justice Uwaifo alert government to their ruling before making it public. This is reminiscent of the famous treason trial in Ghana involving Tawia Adamafio, Ako Adjei and Henry Crabbe who had been accused of involvement in the bomb incident at Kulugungu aimed at President Kwame Nkrumah. The newspapers and "eminent commentators" had made up their minds that they were guilty and proceeded to even pass "appropriate sentences" on them.
At their trial, however, on the basis of the evidence that was presented, they were found not guilty by the three most senior judges in the country who delivered their judgement accordingly. In the ensuing uproar that greeted the ruling, the then Attorney-General made a particular point of the fact that the three presiding judges had not alerted the President to their ruling before making it public and when the President subsequently sacked the three judges, this factor of not having informed him before announcing their verdict played a significant part in his decision.
But then, as Justice Uwaifo correctly pointed out to the Attorney-General's representative in the Shagari/Ekwueme case, it is not the business of the Panel to do such a thing. Indeed it would be a dangerous precedent for the judiciary and would have undermined the credibility of the Panel.
It is noteworthy that nobody, not even the demonstrating students have actually challenged the Panel to their findings, the complaint seems to be that some people are unhappy about the ruling simply because it does not fit in with their own preconceived ideas. In other words, they do not want to be confused with facts, their minds are already made up!.
It is equally noteworthy that the response of the Federal Military Government to some of the reactions to the ruling has been to the effect that it is the AFRC and the AFRC alone that will decide on these matters. The response indicates that the Panel dealt with legal issues, or, in other words, the Panel dealt with matters of fact and the AFRC will deal with the political issues. The implications seem to be that political considerations might not have very much to do with the facts of the matter.
Devastating though such an admission might be, for the government to make, the detained people can take some comfort from the fact that they are being held not because they have done anything criminal but because of political reasons whatever that might mean.
What is worrisome is that the AFRC appear to have placed themselves in a situation where they can be stampeded into decisions that they have not considered well. We would like to suggest that as much as newspapers arrogate to themselves the authority of speaking on behalf of the people, most of the time, most of them operate from a position of having made up their minds and then finding people and excuses to justify that position.
If the FMG have set up a panel to investigate something and establish the facts they are in honour bound to accept such findings unless of course they have any reason to doubt the integrity or the competence of that Panel.
An administration that professes to operate from a human rights platform has no other choice but to take decisions based on facts and not on some so-called "feelings of the public or even more spurious 'political reasons'. Being sensitive to public opinion does not mean that an administration should allow itself to be swayed by every whim of every vested interest. It is the duty of the government to demonstrate that it will not be swayed from convictions arrived at through facts.
It has been suggested that for the AFRC to accept the ruling of the Uwaifo panel would be an admission that the December 31, 1983 coup itself was unnecessary. We would like to suggest that if the only way of justifying the coup was to allege that Shagari and Ekwueme were thieves and rogues whilst the facts show that they were innocent, then so be it. President Babangida will be an even more respectable man and be more deserving of the people's respect if he should accept that
