Sheikh Gumi’s advocacy and the notion of justice

Global events continue to reveal where we are as a nation and ultimately where we should aspire to be. Incidentally too, these events force us to re-evaluate the concept of justice under different climes. A nation’s progress is measured by its commitment to the pursuance of the concept of justice while its duty to seeking justice determines its level of development.

In Nigeria, after nine years of prosecution, Farouk Mohammed Lawan, a member of the House of Representatives finally got his seven-year slap on the wrist. Lawan was videoed turning every opening of his garment into a vault for stuffing wads of dollars. He had demanded $3 million bribe from Zenon oil mogul, Femi Otedola whose company was fingered in a $6.8 billion oil scam. Lawan approached Otedola for a bribe to remove his company’s name from the sleaze report.

A smart Otedola contacted the State Security Service, SSS, who asked him to play along with the fraudster. They installed close circuit cameras in his house and when Lawan showed up to pick up the first tranche of an agreed sum, the bubble burst on him. Before then, the soft-talking Lawan had led a group in the House called, the Integrity Group. That group worked for the removal of former House speaker, Patricia Etteh for awarding renovation contracts that were eventually not executed. It is an irony of life that most of those who add integrity to their values hardly have any to boast of themselves.

That it took this long to finally put this case to rest shows the disparity between justice for the poor and for their privileged counterparts in our society. For instance, Lawan was never paraded on ‘Crime Fighters’. He was never brought before a sanctimonious media acting as judges over mere allegations. Trial by media remains a blotch on our standard of justice. Law agrees with Benjamin Franklin that it is better for a thousand criminals to go scot free than for one innocent person to suffer for a crime that he did not commit. In Lawan’s case, he simply used his privilege and enormous resources to truncate the process.

In other climes, the world reacted with frenzy over a year ago when videos of Derek Chauvin emerged with his pernicious knee on the neck of an innocent George Floyd. Floyd’s pleas did not sway Chauvin and his crew as they used the privilege of their uniforms to commit a brazen act of murder. Global reverberations from the Floyd protest tsunami is still being felt today across the so-called developed world.

Last week, Chauvin earned a 22.5-year jail term for his wickedness barely a year after the act. Experts say he is likely to remain in jail for the next 15 years. Chauvin’s embrace of freedom lasted only for as long as it took the courts to indict him. He had been attending most of his trials dressed in ubiquitous orange prison jumpsuit. Lawan appeared in resplendent robes. The hard lesson for chauvinists is that hatred and superiority complex would always incur the wrath of the law in the 21st century. In Nigeria, if you are powerful, you could either delay or escape justice.

Floyd’s death led to humanity asking to verify history, as we knew it. The effigies of hitherto revered personalities have been toppled, burnt, tossed in the river and lately removed from their pride of place either to the museum or next to their graveyards. Two weeks ago, John A. Macdonald, Canada’s pioneer prime minister had his statue removed from the centre of Kingston, his hometown to his graveyard. Macdonald wrote the Green Book for Canada’s infamous residential schools. Hundreds of the skeletons of children murdered under that system by both his regime and the Catholic Church is causing reverberations for the present government in Canada.

Back home in Nigeria, Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, a revered Muslim cleric and a diehard critic of President Muhammadu Buhari has invoked another reason to investigate the notion of justice. Of late, Gumi has moved from being an intermediary between murderous armed groups to being their solicitor and advocate hopefully pro bono.

It is disheartening to see this outcome. The sheikh stands in a great stead to be a peacemaker. He left the army as a captain. He worked at the army medical corps, some say as a medical doctor. Compassion is at the base of each of the sheikh’s past and present calling. Sadly, it is the only virtue that is lacking in bandits. The operations of these outlaws have closed schools in an area in need of more schools. Innocent children, women and teachers have been made victims. Entire communities have been sacked while hitherto independent people are now displaced beggars. Bandits milk the last juices from their victims and their relatives.

When Gumi began to make his foray into the den of killers, the expectation was that he would convince these wicked souls to repent and embrace peace. It looks like this cleric returned from the den of marauders regretting that he is not one of them. He has been advocating for cash payments for laying down arms. Lately, the learned cleric rode into a political storm by drawing a parallel between the bloodhounds largely stultifying the progress of the North and their counterparts doing same in other parts of the country.

Sheikh Gumi’s analogy that northern bandits are better than the bloodhounds burning, looting and killing in other parts of the country is a comparison without rhyme, reason, logic or common sense. It should not come from an ex-soldier once sworn to protect the integrity of the land, even if that ex-soldier is a disgruntled one or a deserter. Such reasoning should not come from a medical doctor sworn to the preservation of life, because banditry wastes life. To cap it all, it should not come from a cleric whose job is to reconcile sinful man with an impartial God.

Their victims deserve justice and justice is perverted when society rewards criminality. The brigands operating in different parts of Nigeria today deserve only one thing – delivery into the strong arms of justice or swift dispatch to meet their creator. While their trial and convictions would not bring back their dead victims, it would return society to the paths of peace and tranquility, virtues and values required for development. Society cannot progress paying brigands when it has not discharged its duties to patriots. Fleecing the nation of its resources to feed those who want to break it up is not the best way to show one’s disdain for the leader of the nation and his government, even if that government happens to be a misanthropic one.