I have just read a most sensational story about the EFCC saying it is still looking for Bello with a view to arraigning him next Thursday. This afterthought step is most unprofessional for God’s sake.
I want to believe that the EFCC’s Executive Chairman, Mr Olanipekun Olukoyede, a brilliant lawyer and regulatory compliance consultant, who has been a secretary to the Commission and also chief of staff to former chairman, Mr Ibrahim Magu, was not aware of this great solecism. It is everywhere on the internet, traditional and social media, how the former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, accompanied by his successor, Governor Usman Ododo, voluntarily and physically submitted himself to the EFCC headquarters, and waited for over three hours to be interviewed.
Pictures show that he even physically met with the Chief of Staff to the Chairman, Mr Michael Nzekwe (a senior lawyer and experienced investigator), but was told to go home, only for the same EFCC to lay siege much later to the Kogi State government lodge in Abuja, allegedly seeking to arrest the same Bello who had earlier in the day voluntarily submitted himself for interrogation. It just does not add up.
And it just does not make sense to me at all. Is it that the EFCC was gravely taken aback by the sudden and unexpected appearance in its offices of Bello, who it had been looking for since April this year? Or is it that the Commission felt shortchanged and belittled by not having the last laugh, pleasure, self-satiation and glorification of physically arresting, chaining and embarrassing Bello, so as to later gloat over this in the public domain?
I do not and cannot understand this curious twist, which appears more like a drama piece from Baba Sala’s Alawada Kerikeri histrionic stable. Why this sensational media trial, a needless, warped investigative stratagem devoid of hallowed professionalism, which I have condemned over the years?
I advise the Chairman, Olukoyede, to immediately investigate his officers over this faux pas and bring them to book for embarrassing the EFCC and subjecting Nigeria’s image to the mud before global circles. Yahaya Bello should go to court and defend himself of the allegations against him, whether malicious, false or well founded. That is the way to go.
But the EFCC should also allow Bello to have his day in court like other Nigerian citizens under a conducive atmosphere devoid of media trial, harassment and intimidation, so as to ensure a fair trial. Afterall, the Nigerian criminal justice system remains the accusatorial Anglo-Saxon model (where a citizen’s innocence is presumed), as against the Inquisitorial French model (where his guilty is presumed). This presumption of innocence has been entrenched in section 36 of the 1999 Constitution.
A media trial such as we have witnessed since April this year violently detracts and derogates from fair trial, as it tars an otherwise innocent accused person with an already guilty paintbrush of shame, odium, obloquy, derision and dehumanisation, even before he has been arraigned, tried and found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. It should NEVER BE.
Mike Ozekhome is a senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
