THE ARROGANCE OF IMPUNITY By Sir Temple Ogueri Onyeukwu

The Country called Nigeria seems to be a big joke. Some call it a fraud while some classify it as  British Enterprises Limited. A limited liability company in which the United Kingdom is the majority shareholder. A critical look at some of the aberrations in this country explains what I call arrogance of impunity which can only happen in a fake country like Nigeria. Some of these aberrations are:

A professor at the head of the electoral commission. The law says for you to be declared a winner in the presidential election, you must have scored 25% in 2/3 of the states and Abuja. The candidate of the APC did not score 25% in Abuja and the professor declared him as elected. Thank God for the intervention of the Judiciary whose decision will make us understand whether the professor is right or wrong and whether the declaration by the professor amounts to Arrogance of Impunity, conspiracy and suspected compromise or not.

The Miyeti Allah cattle breeders attack villagers, displace original owners, kill as many as they please and occupy the village. The military knows that the occupants of the particular village are invaders and the original indigenes are in displaced camps. Nothing is done to displaced the invaders and return the displaced villagers to their ancestral land. Rather NEMA sends mattresses and food stuffs to the displaced villagers to live in IDP camps while the invaders are taking the time settling in the village of those in IDP camps. Arrogance of impunity, conspiracy of the C in C the military hierarchy, and comprise. What stops the military from flushing out the invaders so the villagers return to their ancestral land?

The country sponsors a terrorist group to Kenya to kidnap and abduct Nnamdi Kanu to Nigeria for legitimately asking for referendum for the Ibo nation to decide whether to remain in Nigeria or not. He is abducted and renditioned to Nigeria. The courts of the land set him free. The government refuses to obey the orders of the court. Arrogance of Impunity

Some citizens of Nigeria especially the Ibos in Lagos were intimated, and some alleged killed for expressing a different political opinion from the Yoruba. They were asked to leave Lagos unless they supported the APC. The C in C kept mute. The IGP kept mute. The commissioner of police allegedly supervised the carnage, intimidation, harassment of citizens of Ibo extraction or any person that looks like Ibo. Ensured they were either prevented from voting for candidates of their choice or prevented to vote totally. All those who orchestrated the profiling and led the onslaught against fellow citizens are rewarded with juicy government appointments. The Arrogance of Impunity and Conspiracy.

The supporters of a particular political party who are in-charge of parks and markets allegedly set ablaze markets where Ibo traders are dominant. The government keeps mute. Arrogance of impunity.

The president of a country threatens a nation within the country. They are like a dot in the circle. This time around they cannot escape. We have agreed with the youth of the Niger Delta not to allow them access to the sea. He was referring to the Ibos who escaped the Biafra genocide through the sea. Arrogance of Impunity.

Herdsmen from all over West Africa are invited into the country. They come in heavily armed to the teeth. They destroy farm lands, invade communities especially in  Benue, Plateau, Enugu, Ebonyi and other states. They kill children, women and men who are not armed. The rest of the community flees. The government establishes IDP camps for them in their country while their ancestral homes are forcefully occupied by these terrorist herdsmen. The information is in the public domain, the federal government does nothing. The state governments keep feeding their citizens who are forcefully displaced from their homes. The President Commander in Chief does not order the armed forces to flush out the illegal occupants of those communities. The armed forces does nothing. Citizens remain in IDP camps for years while terrorist herdsmen occupy their ancestral homes. Is this a country destined to survive? Arrogance of Impunity.

People emigrate or relocate to where resources especially collective resources have been and are being deployed to create opportunities for better life. If National resources are evenly deployed to develop all parts of the country, movements or relocations to every part of the country will also be even. This is the bane of the Ibo nation located in Nigeria. When the civil war ended, one of the unwritten policies of the victors was to deliberately underdeveloped the Ibo nation and its environs. No critical infrastructure was cited in the then Biafra territory. Imo state indigenes had to contribute money to build a cargo Airport. Industries were by deliberate successive government policies encouraged to locate in Lagos as the then Federal capital. The mass exodus of Ndi Igbo from Igbo land to other parts of the country is in a quest to eke out a living. This accounts for the reason why in every state of the country. Nigeria, apart from the indigenous people Ndigbo make the next highest population industrializing other parts of the country to the neglect and detriment of Alaigbo. Yet like in Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and other states, they are always reminded to leave and go back to their state. Arrogance of Impunity.

This deliberate discrimination in industrial development also transcended to political offices. For example from 1999 to 2023, almost all the states in Alaigbo  was governed by the PDP. When it was time to zone the presidential candidate to Alaigbo, the powers that be allegedly led by Wike and Atiku refused. This led to the emergence of Obi through the Labour Party. Even then Ndigbo were largely disenfranchised especially in Lagos and Rivers states where violence, intimidations with the tacit support of law enforcement agents were employed to prevent Ndigbo and any other person that looks like an Igbo man or woman from voting. The Arrogance of Impunity taken too far.

The unity of Nigeria is not negotiable. The colonial British configured Nigeria in such a way as to ensure the success of its businesses. Diverse nations were forcefully merged.

Census was doctored to give the North advantage over the south. Some parts of the south were regarded as difficult to suppress and submit to the British rule and as such must not be trusted with power at the centre. Subsequently events after independence has ensured that the North dominate governance at the federal level. When Lagos was the Federal capital of Nigeria, resources especially oil revenue from the south has used to develop it with the attendant advantages over and above other states. When Abuja became the federal capital, the same oil resources from the south has been and is being deployed to developed it over and above other state capitals. The fraudulent federalism in practice in Nigeria has ensured that the resources from the south including the south East is shared at the end of every month to all the states of the federation. However more often than not, one hears that the Unity of Nigeria is not negotiable even in the absence of justice, equity and fair play. The unity of America is negotiable, the unity of UK is negotiable, the unity of Russia is negotiable why is the unity of Nigeria in the presence of the subjugation and oppression of certain ethnic groups not negotiable? Must the Ibo nation be subjected to slavery, discrimination, oppression, marginalization, exploitation perpetually? The Yoruba nation has also kick started its quest for self-determination. Must this genuine quest be silenced violently employing state actors? Freedom of Association is universally guaranteed. This is another arrogance of impunity. Not minding the fact that those who make peaceful changes impossible make violent changes inevitable. There is nothing on earth that is not negotiable including the unity of Nigeria. Arrogance of Impunity.

The leadership of Nigeria since 1970 has continuously exploited the vulnerability of the greed of a few professional sycophants in the South East and South South to exploit and appropriate the resources of the area, emasculate the area of any economic benefits from their resources, and keep the area perpetually subservient and subjugated, migrating from areas with heavy economic resources that remain underdeveloped by the Nigeria state to areas with least economic resources that have been transformed with the endowment of the South South and South East to their utter exclusion. Arrogance of Impunity.

The executive arm headed by the president, commander in chief, Muhammed Buhari reputed for its serial disobedience to court orders throughout his regime of 8 years also took this disregard for the rule of law further by violating the CBN of Nigeria Act.  The Acts restricts the government borrowing from the CBN through the ways and means to 5% of the revenue of the government for the immediate past year. However without recourse to the National Assembly he continued borrowing from the CBN till he exceeded about 80% from 5%. The Act requires that all monies borrowed from the CBN through this ways and mean must be repaid within the same financial year. This was also violated. The president had no plans to repay. He rather told the nation, the money was used for infrastructure. The same rail infrastructure that stretches from Katsina/Kano to Niger Republic – “for the benefit of the cousins of the president”. The Rubber Stamp senate convened an emergency session on Saturday 27th May 2023 two days to the expiration of the administration to retroactively amend the CBN Act to confer legitimacy on the illegality of the executive. The president had borrowed over N22 trillion illegally from the CBN. The National Assembly has conferred legitimacy on this violent violation of all known laws of the land by Mr. Muhammed Buhari. This amounts to criminal conspiracy. The Arrogance of Impunity.

Esther Elisha was murdered in 2016 in Kubwa, Abuja for engaging in Evangelism early in the morning. Agbahemeah Bridget, Abdulahi Umaru were murdered by religious extenmists. Nobody has been arrested or prosecuted for their murder. Disturbingly in a college of Education, a supposed citadel of learning with supposedly enlightened minds, Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto, Deborah Samuel a student was murdered by her colleagues for alleged blasphemy in May 2022. There is no offence like blasphemy in the criminal code /or in the constitution. Till date nobody has been prosecuted for the act. This is the arrogance of impunity that pervades the Nigeria State where some animals are more equal than others.

The constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria provides for 3 arms of government viz, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. It also provides for the procedure to choose or elect the leaders of the various arms. The legislature which comprises the House of Representatives and the Senate is expected to elect its leadership from the members elect at the inauguration. Since the return to democratic rule, the executive especially the presidents have usurped the functions of the 109 members of the senate and the 360 members of the House of Representatives by single handedly dictating and choosing who among the members will be the president of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the present dispensation, under the guise of party supremacy, the president has chosen whom he wants to be the senate president, his deputy, the speaker of the House of Representatives and his deputy. Unfortunately majority of the members are not questioning this brazen disregard to the rule of law. How does a NASS whose leadership is in the pockets of the president carry out its constitutional mandate of over sight function on the executive. The Arrogance of Impunity that can lead to the collapse of the democratic system.

I was pleasantly reminded of my junior Secondary School days when our school organized an excursion to the Airport. For many of us that was the first time of seeing what an Aero plane looks like. This is the scene that played out on Friday 26th May, 2023, the Friday preceding the handover of power from General Buhari to Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The minister of Aviation had allegedly rented an Ethiopian Airline, inscribed Nigeria Air on it, painted it in Green and White, brought it from Ethiopia to Nnamadi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja and invited Nigerians to come and see what an Aircraft looks like. The Nigeria Air project is as old as the 8 years of the Buhari Administration yet Nigerians were subjected to this level of ridicule. The statement the immediate past aviation minister seems to have made is: to call all of us fools. He may have directed us to go to court if we are displeased with how the procedure processes and funds earmarked for the Nigeria Air project had gone. Arrogance of impunity. Unprecedented. Up, until Nigerians say no to Kakistocracy we shall continue to move in circles.