Sir: Prof. Itse Sagay did not even bother to be discreet about the fact that the Presidency wanted Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen out when he announced in the fullness of all glees that “no one is above the law.”
This Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on some anti-corruption-themed set-piece screamer was not troubled in the least by the backlash that greeted the attempt to arraign Justice Onnoghen on some rap about gaps found in his asset-declaration procedures, which Walter has now clarified to the media. The media space was inundated by commentaries expressing surprise that a pro-Buhari-policy Justice of the Supreme Court, who incidentally doubles as the head honcho there, would be subjected to humiliating media trial and public ridicule (this ridicule cynicism line of reporting was the way only the Daily Trust newspaper presented this “salacious” story to its readers, who absorbed it in full gullibility whilst arguing themselves hoarse at the Minna’s central vendor stall that “a choice of appointment not approved by Baba Buhari, like Saraki as the President of the Senate, is bound to end in disaster.” On this Sunday at that vendor’s stall, tempers almost boiled over as certain ones stood their grounds in defence of Justice Onnoghen).
What can be surmised here is that Buhari does not really care about the Southeast-South-South region of Nigeria, what with INEC brandishing fanciful numbers of “eligible” voters for the Northwest region and Amina Zakari staying put at that key position of the presidential-election collation centre at INEC.
It is interesting here to note that a region that touts millions of out-of-school illiterate children has millions of obviously literate voters primed for election, really “literate” in the sense that they could read and write if they each have a permanent voter’s card. Or how does one decipher the card’s details if one cannot read? Whatever the broth Amina is preparing next month and if she gets away with it in the long run after a predictably raucous Atiku’s litigation, then what is happening to Walter right now would be the lot of Godswill Akpabio, Orji Uzo Kalu, Adams Oshiomhole, Rotimi Amaechi and other “strong men” from the South-east, South-south region so as to strengthen the position of Prof. Sagay and also to “silence” PDP and the CUPP forum once and for all that,“the fight against corruption is not one-sided.”
After all, at the present time, iron-clad cases ready for prosecution have been built against Akpabio, Kalu, Oshiomhole and that leaked audio tape would be Amaechi’s undoing. The truth is that the so-called fight against “corruption” is truly “one-sided” if one thoroughly analyses the patterns of EFCC’s indictments and convictions, ones that are skewed to tarnish Southern Christians and some Northern Christians. This is the world of Muhammadu Buhari for you.
Sunday Adole Jonah wrote from Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.
