EKWEREMADU: A SHAME TO UK AND NIGERIA

Victor C. Ariole argues treatment meted to Ike Ekweremadu is unfortunate  

We don’t need to get over a bar of excellence we didn’t create. Instead we have to create our own lane and our own version of success, our own version of good… SLAY IN YOUR LANE (the black girl bible).

The British own ‘respective’ version of good, in their colonial conquest, was indirect rule. The French own, was bar of excellence to get over to aspire to be like French, via cultural assimilation policy as a colonial strategy, as well as direct rule. Adherence to those rules are what the two most colonial empires had seen overwhelming to them, as their African equivalence of oppressors find themselves among them.

For French, before you could bring a black man to the French justice, he must have been seen as already assimilated, otherwise treat him as an indigene – like they treated the Haitians and allow them to be on their own as from 1st Jan, 1804 after trying in vain to assimilate them by force from 21st August, 1791; distinct from how other colonial masters have treated them including the British.

For the British, behave as you like as instructed by your local laws as long as you are not hurting the Monarchy and you are paying tribute to the Monarchy. So, the overwhelming material value (over 400,000 pounds and houses earned within six months) seen by the judge as belonging to Ekweremadu did not serve as attenuating circumstance to disculpate him, like they do for their Lords, albeit covertly. In their clime, such material value would have attracted great tax in the service of the Monarchy to warrant some attenuating considerations.

For British, privileges are allowed; for French, no privilege is allowed, just be assimilated.

I align myself with the French who completely detest privileges that go with title holders but I find it difficult to agree with the British people who accord title holders some privileges, exempting them from the common law, like it is accorded to the Lords who, until 2009 when UK had no supreme court, were collectively the opaque supreme court justices of UK, hence remained sacrosanct and who, as of today are under the jurisdiction of Lord Mayor of the City of London, distinct from the common Mayor of London; notwithstanding his over 30 Boroughs, against just one of the Lord Major, who is elected by Alderman, a peculiar legal jurisdiction; and on Saturday, 6th May when Charles III was enthroned, one of the statements read for him to affirm is that, he must respect the different laws of the people of the Kingdom, including those in either the Carribeans or the Pacifics in which he serve – and not served – as head of state. Great contradiction as per what the British expects the French people to be ashamed of aka, their coat of arms, “honni soit qui mal y pense” (let shame be unto him, who therein thinks evil). That is Monarchy, privileges and parliaments could sound evil to the French.

Like I have witnessed in Germany and USA, Senators are allowed to board plane before any other passengers. They are never seen giving a handle of Senatorship or Lordship to their names, like Nigerians and the British do.

In effect, a Senator in Nigeria is operating a UK legal process that allows the law of the other peoples of the Commonwealth to be obeyed by the UK Monarch, as affirmed by the King; and so, some respects is required among Commonwealth people.

The truth is that unfortunately money or wealth seems to blind the legal process in Nigeria, otherwise, people like Ekweremadu, and others could go to jail like the former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had been sentenced for peddling influence; and collaterally involving a judge and a lawyer who are all inculpated. He is also as well sentenced for overspending or obtaining campaign funds from illegal sources.

Nigeria is not so and it is expected that Britain that ruled Nigeria and upon whose precedence Nigeria operates know that the local laws of Nigeria sees a Senator as a Lord; and I am yet to hear that a Lord in Britain has ever been arraigned in a common law court. It means that what it takes to get to that level is greatly viewed from good character, impeccable service to the Monarchy and great dose of integrity as seen in the former commons like Margaret Thatcher or her successor, John Major or the current Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Baroness, Rt Hon. Patricia Scotland, a Carribean, elected as Alderman in 2014 even as a member of the House of Lords since 1997. Most of Nigeria’s Senators are mere production of electoral abracadabra hence the reason why a place like Britain that ought to be the first to respect Nigeria’s local laws and the “local giants” such law processes produced, tries to rubbish them.

Today, it is a Nigerian senator, and a former speaker of ECOWAS parliament who is carrying a Diplomatic passport. Diplomatic passport that obliges Commonwealth respects. Tomorrow, let it not be a Nigerian President in the dock. Then it will be a greater shame to Nigeria, Britain and Commonwealth.

If a Nigerian and ECOWAS Senator could be handled that way, Nigeria, as a whole is greatly in danger and it vindicates what prejudicially the former Prime Minister of UK, Cameron, mentioned as a ‘fantastically corrupt country’. Unfortunately, it was corroborated by Nigerian’s President who made a pronouncement in Britain, indicting Nigerian youths.

I am not in support of any evil committed by anyone not to talk of Ekweremadu, but here is a senator, the Ambassador of Nigeria being treated the way a “local law court” in Britain has treated him, and it makes an ordinary Nigerian in Britain a suspect.

And, not being a lawyer, I have always heard that Britain is where judicial sentence is pronounced after placing both law and equity on a balance and making sure that one of them is not drawing down the judicial process balance, hence some extenuating circumstances are brought to bear to mediate against excessive punishment.

How can one justify the presence of equity on a judicial scale that inflicts punishment on three people for the same court case? Indeed, who is a Nigerian doctor or a wife, if a Nigerian senator is treated that way?

The question is; will the case have taken the same shape if the Medical Doctor that advised on the process of saving a kidney patient had been non-Nigerian? When you read Dora Akunyuli’s book on how Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which she served as Executive Secretary of one of the regions, used British Medical doctors to siphon PTF money, from the bills of medical tourism of PTF workers, the question I asked could be appreciated.

Ariole is a Professor of French and Francophone Studies,

University of Lagos