This definitely is one of the most trying times for Nigerian Judiciary! That was the statement that popped into my mind when the news filtered in last Sunday that the immediate past president of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Mr. Oke Wali SAN had been kidnapped by some unknown gunmen.
This worrisome development which came on the heels of the shameful judge-beating scandal in Ekiti State has the prognosis of introducing terror into the judicial circle. Everybody knows that a cowed Judiciary is an ineffectual one. When the judicial atmosphere is pervaded by fear of insecurity and lawyers and judges don’t feel safe in the society as they got about performing their legitimate business, one of the major pillars that sustain the edifice called the society would become shaky, waiting to totter to the ground! And you and I know that if that happens, it would take the society with it into that destination in the pit of hell.
As of the time of writing this column, the whereabouts of NBA boss is unknown. The mind-numbing experiences of the former legal heavyweights who have suffered the same fate came haunting the soul. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and human rights activist, Chief Mike Ozekhome, was kidnapped on 23rd August 2013 while travelling along Ehor stretch of Benin- Auchi road on his way to Etsako, Edo State. His driver was kidnapped along with him. It was further reported that four policemen who attempted to rescue him, were ambushed and killed by the gunmen The kidnappers later called to demand a sum of N150 million as ransom. He was freed after 20 days in captivity amidst unconfirmed reports that some ransom had been paid.
Not to be forgotten is also the kidnapping of the wife and daughter of a Supreme Court Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour on 10th May 2013.
They were held captive for more than three weeks by the armed bandits who later demanded a ransom sum of $500,000 before they could be released. This trend has certainly introduced a dangerous dimension into the hitherto intractable security challenge of the country.
It constitutes a symbolic representation of the infernal depth to which law and order has sunk. As one unfortunate incident follows another in seemingly perpetual succession of woes, it has become imperative for the governments at all levels to synergistically rise to rescue the nation from the brink of utter failure.
After all, the safety of lives and properties is the preponderant duty of a government. Imagine the height of national embarrassment that is spawned when a man of Okey Wali’s status is being blackmailed to offer ransom to some faceless and lawless elements as an inexorable barter for his life! It is tantamount to laying the icon of law and order prostrate; it is a symbolic stripping of our justice institution of its aura and inviolability.
Now that the monster called kidnapping is fast becoming more and more indiscriminate in its choice of victims, nobody is feeling safe. There was a time in this country when headlines-making kidnappings were only cases of foreign oil-workers. It was after this that the scope of the criminal enterprise was expanded and “democratised” to include the rich and not-so-rich indigenes. Kidnapping is now essentially a commercial project for all comers who could lay hand on guns and who are crazy enough to trade other people’s lives for filthy lucre.
Every lazy bone now sees abduction as a shortcut to instant wealth; it has become magical money spinners for the ne’er do well.
Now a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the immediate past President of largest lawyers’ body in Africa could just be taken away at will by hoodlums! With the latest development, it could be said that the already fragile Nigerian institutional structure is about to suffer a further seismographic shock
Unfortunately the Nigerian Security system, in all its ramifications has, more often than not, played the second best to the kidnappers. Goaded on by impunity, the kidnappers had been having a field day, ravaging the land recklessly, claiming victims among the lowly and the mighty and picking up easy dough almost for the asking.
With this fear of insecurity and uncertainty everywhere in the land, the now famous “America’s prophecy” that putatively hinted at Nigeria’s implosion and disintegration in 2015, which has attracted heavy criticisms and denunciation from the Nigerian establishment, is becoming a probable theory.
Every day, it seems as if some unseen forces are tinkering with the destiny of the nation in a manipulative game that nobody knows how it would end. Every day, numerous forces are at work to subvert law and order in the country. We cannot continue to accept the status quo where just about anybody can be whisked away by kidnappers. There must be an end to this chaos.
The current rulers of Nigeria therefore, need to do all within their power to re-orientate and rescue the nation from the fatalistic fulfilment of unwanted, but seemingly ineluctable destiny.
KAYODE KETEFE
