10022018 - 2019 : How we'll stop Buhari - Opposition parties

20—SATURDAY Vanguard, FEBRUARY 10, 2018
lisa Metuh is, ordinarily, a man
Oof swagger. May affliction not
befall us. He came into the court a few
days ago strapped to stretcher, draped
in hospital white. And tongues started
wagging. I wish him a speedy recovery.
Some tongues threw curses into the air
for anyone who would compel such a
sick man to come to court in an
ambulance. Others read it differently.
They saw deception and mischief. And
they took to laceration and ridicule.
They told of remarkable acting ability
and a potential Oscar award. The
pictures, from every angle,were
sensational, scandalous. The
multiplicity of what they evoked
revealed a society riven by ethnic,
religious and partisan allegiances and
stuck in pervasive corruption and
emotionality.
I have surveyed a diversity of
reactions. A friend, a senior lawyer,
perhaps possessed by ethnic fervour,
threw a sentimental poser at me. He
wanted to know if the sick man were
an Ibrahim Mohammed if he would
have been so badly dehumanized? I
reminded him that Justice Abang is a
meticulous judge. He is not a
descendant of Othman Danfodio.
Fulani herdsmen didn’t hound the sick
man to court. He threw his chin up in
derision. He seemed fed up with what
he considered as my insufferable
naivety. He said Metuh was treated like
a second class citizen.
A former classmate, a gynecologist,
wondered why Justice Abang rejected
a valid medical report and ordered
Metuh to be brought to court. He was
insistent Abang should have deferred
to Metuh’s doctors in matters of a
patient’s fitness to attend court. He said
the judge could have set up a medical
panel to ascertain Metuh’s true health
status if the medical report lacked
reliability. I understood his reasons and
his professional sentiments. But he
didn’t channel his anger properly.
Nigerian doctors sell medical reports.
Nigerian politicians feign illnesses to
fool judges and avoid trials. Medical
panels are costly and cumbersome.
Judges can’t therefore be blamed for
being vigilant. They can’t curb
corruption if they remained aloof to
these contexts realities.
Judges usually defer to the medical
opinions of medical doctors. But
medical reports are by law not
sacrosanct. Every big man charged with
offenses bordering on corruption takes
The 48th annual World Economic
Forum, WEF in Davos-Klosters, the
mountainous Alpine resort of
Graubünden Canton, eastern
Switzerland took place from January 23
to 26,2018. Leaders from all walks of
life come together at the beginning of
the year to rededicate themselves to
improving the state of the world. This
year’s programme was on “Creating a
Shared Future in a Fractured World.”
Many of the participants identified the
fractures and were concerned about
making the difference.
One wondered whether it was
possible to have a shared future in a
growing world of inequality with the
global wealth concentrated in the hands
of less than one percent elite of the
over 7 billion world population. And
typical in mortal combat, it may not
matter too many of the world most
powerful, the extravagant and almost
tasteless display of wealth as witnessed
in the recent WEF. The richest in glitzy,
glamorous and status symbols shows,
were airlifted in over one thousand
private jets causing heavy traffic in the
Swiss skies in the week-long meeting.
There are now genuine fears that the
global commons who cannot protect
itself would become intolerant and
cause global instability. The social
contract between states and their
citizens continues to erode with
perceptions of leaders’ inaction. Forum
organisers believe participation by
world leaders epitomizes the collegial
Spirit of Davos to change the
geostrategic narratives on multiple
fronts. Out of the 14 system initiatives,
shaping the future of energy and the
future of environment and natural
resource security dominated discourses
this year.
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra
Modi’s speech, which apparently
Olisa Metuh and the predicament
of the crayf
yfish
ill. They all take ill, and routinely seek
leave of court for medical treatment
abroad. Once that leave is granted,
the big man who is already on bail,
elopes. I have sympathy for Olisa
Metuh, because he appears to be
truly very ill. It doesn’t matter that
some have said that they saw him
everywhere during Ekwueme’s
funeral a few days ago, looking
legitimately, hale and hearty. People
can fall ill even after marathon
partying.
But who can then blame the judge?
The bad eggs in medical practice can
truncate nearly all corruption
prosecutions by issuing dodgy
reports. These medical reports and
death certificates are sold for small
fees. The problem is that the court’s
insistence to see Metuh perhaps
didn’t ultimately yield anything. Any
politician who cannot play a little
Nollywood role before a judge to stall
his corruption trial is not from
Nigeria. But I believe Metuh is ill.
Every big man charged with
offenses bordering on
corruption takes ill. They all
take ill, and routinely seek
leave of court for medical
treatment abroad. Once that
leave is granted, the big
man who is already on bail,
elopes
A man exasperated with the anticorruption
agenda of this
government asked a good question.
He wanted to know why Metuh
was even being prosecuted. Metuh
was given money to run some
errands by his boss. His boss has
not lodged any complaints with the
police. His boss is alive, well,
ubiquitous and noisy. The money
given poor Olisa Metuh by his boss
was the sort of money his boss was
expected to own. Yes, in Nigeria.
That boss got many billions during
his presidential campaigns’
fundraiser. The EFCC, however,
insists that the money given Metuh
was stolen from the public purse.
But it couldn’t conceivably have
been in Metuh’s contemplation
that the boss stole from the public
to fund his elections. Poor Metuh
was not expected to have asked
his boss about the source of the
money before running the errand.
It was suggested that if Metuh
had returned the money he would
have received instant salvation. But
how could Metuh have returned
money that had been spent. And
why can’t EFCC bring in his boss
to explain why he gave an innocent
poor Metuh stolen money. Metuh
had once looked up to the hills and
cried to the judge to invite his boss.
So that his boss could come and
tell the court the whole truth. The
court listened and summoned his
boss. His boss avoided court
summons. Poor Metuh has been
left to grapple with and languish
in the long arms of the law. His boss
has remained an exuberant hero.
And Metuh has been left crumpled
like crayfish.
Metuh has never been a coward.
But circumstances can force a man
to eat written statements and adopt
timidity. Metuh was a mere
Davos forum 2018 and fossil fuels
opened the summit, identified
climate change as the number one
threat to civilisation and called for
more wealth transfers from rich
countries in order to help poorer
nations adopt appropriate
technologies for reducing climate
emissions. Many knew the angle
Modi was coming from. His
submission was a precursor to
intellectual debates on global
warming and climate change.
Some experts were able to canvass
but not able to foist the widely held
view that burning fossil fuels (coal,
oil and gas) makes the earth a hotter
place. Selling the apparent threat of
climate change became half the
battle as it coincided with the period
when many United States cities
experienced gelid weather of
extreme cold temperatures in
minuses that never occurred since
1884. According to Weather.com,
Flint, in Michigan, set its all-time
record-low temperature for
December of 18, degrees below zero.
Davos also had extreme cold. But an
Australian science writer Joanne
Nova, in a counter, submitted that
extreme cold is just weather but all
heat waves are climate change and
human attribution.
Whether a battle of wits, there
styled was discordant synchrony in
the fossil fuel campaign among
political leaders especially between
America and members of the
Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development,
OECD led by France. Trump was
not under anybody’s thumb, but
some experts believed his slight
comment in Davos was a
retroflection on his America First
mantra to: “America First does not
mean America alone.” But he was
clear that the United States lifted
self-imposed restrictions on energy
production to provide affordable
power to America and to promote
energy security for American allies
globally. Trump had imposed a fouryear
tariff on imported solar cells and
modules.
Trump was clear that America’s
foes Russia should not hold others
hostage as an assumed single
provider of energy. Energy Secretary
Rick Perry earlier said that the
United States shale production will
not be a spoiler of global oil and
natural gas prices in 2018 and was
hopeful that unconventional
production is sustainable in the
long-term. The belief as portrayed
was that America was freeing up
their allies around the world with
energy choices, and letting them
know that there were no strings
attached in buying American gas. It
The bad eggs in medical practice
can truncate nearly all corruption
prosecutions by issuing dodgy
reports. These medical reports
and death certificates are sold
for small fees. The problem is
that the court’s insistence to see
Metuh perhaps didn’t ultimately
yield anything
messenger. But Metuh has been called
names and labeled a traitor because he
wanted his boss to come to court and tell
the truth. They said he had joined
opponents to rubbish his boss and expose
him to ridicule. So what options are left
for Metuh but to fold up and bear the
heat alone.
Nigerians say circumstances must
explain the bent posture of crayfish.
Metuh has stooped to overcome. He is
no coward. Some have insinuated that
Metuh was taking cowardly refuge in
Nollywood and exploiting hospital
games. May God have mercy on
Thomases. May we not have bosses who
have big hats and small balls.
The gynecologist had warned that if
the refusal of the court to recognize the
authority of medical reports gained
currency it could jeopardize the health
of sick accused persons. I understood his
point. Everyone is innocent until found
guilty. But there is a bigger picture. All
should be equal before the law. But we
tend remember the rule of law only when
the offender is rich and powerful.
Politicians will steal big. And will
readily meet any bail conditions. The
poor petty thief steals small and remains
powerless. He never meets his bail
conditions. He is remanded in prison
custody. The prison doctor comes to work
when he likes. The poor inmate on
remand for theft takes ill and cannot
get a referral. Prison doctors sell referrals.
The price of a referral in Kirikiri prison ,
in 2013, was 250,000 naira after
exhaustive haggling. So the poor suspect
stays locked in, sick to his bones. No one
would remember him and his
fundamental human rights. No one
would talk about rule of law.
Perhaps we should learn to bother
more about the poor than the rich. The
rich do not need our cries. They can
always fend for themselves.
Out of the 14 system initiatives,
shaping the future of energy and
the future of environment and
natural resource security
dominated discourses this year
was obvious Trump did not lose focus on
his America First Energy Plan on fossil
fuels that drilling benefits outweigh
environmental worries.
President Emmanuel Macron on the
other hand was more concerned about the
consequences of fossil fuels and believed
the world was losing the battle on climate
change targeted by the Paris agreement.
He promised that France will shut down
all coal-fired power stations by 2021.
President Macron called on the EU to
create a floor price for CO2 in its first
carbon trading market to discourage its
use in 619 coal-powered plants in Europe.
France and India have courted
themselves in the International Solar
Alliance, ISA, and a techno-political
romance to facilitate large-scale
deployment of solar energy in 121
countries in the tropics by aggregating
the demand for funding, technology and
innovation. Developed countries
commitment was to contribute US$100
billion annually from 2020 to mitigate
climate change impacts in developing
countries.
The deliberations were adjudged by
organisers as unmatched, being a global
policy initiative to engage leaders in
peer-to-peer working sessions. The
Forum acts as a catalyst for major bridgebuilding
efforts to further global peace
and reconciliation as well as create
awareness in latest economic and sociopolitical
trends.
C
M
Y
K