Big thieves, small thieves

When we fail to understand the quirky ways of the law, we say the law is an ass. I am not sure the ass would feel flattered if it knew we thought the law was an ass. The intelligence of the ass has never been rated above stupid. If you equate the law with the intelligence of an ass, there should be no prize for guessing the meaning of the metaphor. The law is stupid. That is heavy for the only profession in the world whose practitioners have the grace to call themselves learned.

I do not think the law is stupid. It is more correct to say the law acts stupidly some of the time. This brick drops on your head when you go to the temple of justice seeking justice. The law does not deliver on justice. It delivers on who wins an argument among the learned men and women distinguished by their dog collars. The judge acts as the referee.

The intent of the law, the spirit of the law and the letters of the law are turned into mere points of puerile arguments by lawyers. The law and the judge are on the side of the lawyer who puts up a more convincing argument, even if that argument stands the facts of a case on its head and patently denies one party what it seeks in the temple of justice: justice. 

This is where it gets complicated. Does the law respect persons? It does. It worships the rich, the powerful and the well-heeled in the society. It despises the poor and the wretched of the earth. Perhaps, there is no better evidence of this than that more than 90 per cent of the men and women in our crowded jails are the poor and the wretched of the earth. They steal a pittance but pay the full legal price. The big men steal the whole treasury but pay no price. Different strokes for different men and women.

Take a look at how the law treats thieves in our country. All thieves are not equal. There are big thieves and small thieves. The big thieves are the kings, the princes and the princesses. They break the law with something called impunity. It means the law cannot touch them, let alone soil their immaculate continental suits, babanriga and agbada by sending them to say, Kuje prison, the new temporary abode of the high and the mighty with itchy fingers. Even if they do get sent to jail, no shaking. They retain their elevated status.

It is said that justice delayed is justice denied. It is not true in the case of the rich and the powerful. Their cases drag on in the courts almost forever. And no one thinks that justice is delayed, let alone denied. Justice is tethered to their whims and caprices paid for with their loot.

Here is what happens to the small thieves. Daily Trust reported last week that sometime last month a 20-year old young man, Hassan Badmus, burgled Chibuike Okonkwo’s house in the Badagry area of Lagos State. His daring yielded him a mobile phone valued at N85,000. Unfortunately for Badmus, he did not escape with his loot. Security men arrested him. He was eventually taken to court, tried and convicted on a two-count charge. He was sentenced to two years in jail. As you read this, he is looking at the world through the grille high up in his cell.

It took only a few days for the law to visit its wrath on Badmus. Such a quick dispensation of justice is the lot of poor people. Had the court delayed his case, Badmus, like thousands of other people who broke themselves against the law, would most certainly languish in prison custody for God knows how long. He would probably be forgotten in prison custody. He is a nobody and the son of a nobody. 

Here then is the irony of the alleged big thief and the alleged small thief. Whereas Badmus, the alleged small thief, received his comeuppance in the quick dispensation of justice, the law is remarkably tardy in the case of former state governors and other big men and women alleged by the EFCC to have short changed their states and the national treasury. The Daily Trust of March 16 listed some ten or fifteen of them. Hey, an N85,000 mobile phone handset cannot be greater than the combined N143 billion that the former governors are alleged to have helped themselves to from their state treasuries. The law is used to its slow pace.

You see, the law recognises the need to dispense justice quickly in the case of the alleged small thief but not so in the case of the alleged big thief. This is not the natural order of things. In the right and natural order of things, the big man receives preferential treatment over and above the small man. Why does the law stand this on its head and gives the alleged small thief patently preferential treatment?

 Beats me. There must be some sound logic in this somewhere in the law.  If you cannot fathom the logic in the behaviour of the law, you put it down to the law being an ass. Makes sense, I think.