BACKLASH: I Announce My Appearance For Saraki

MY name is Abraham Ogbodo, a reporter and by the special Grace of God, Senior Adviser for Nigerians (SAN). Please take judicial notice of the big difference. Mine is not what is very popular. I am not a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, which also translates to the sobriquet, SAN. I am not learned and I don’t want to get into trouble with any learned person or group of learned persons. I am only a senior adviser and so, remember to underscore the difference while addressing me.

I also want to add that I don’t charge one billion naira or more, like other SANs, to render my services to those in need of them. In fact, I offer my advice, which some good people have described as invaluable free of charge to anybody that is in big trouble and needs good counsel to get out of it. Today, the man in big trouble is called Dr. (medical doctor) Bukola Saraki, President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He is evidently a very big man, which is why the size of the trouble he has landed himself is also very big.

The man is at the verge of going down Nigeria’s political history as the first sitting Senate President to be arraigned, tried, and God forbid bad thing, jailed. As a Senior Adviser to all Nigerians, big or small, rich or poor, I will never allow this evil to befall the number three citizen of this country! I step forth to advise him.

First, I have observed, quite surprisingly, that Bukola is going about seeking a way out of the trouble with only Senior Advocates without Senior Advisers. This is most strange. He himself has said the battle is not conventional, which means it cannot be solely prosecuted and won using conventional battle plans and weapons. I am saying, highfaluting legal arguments by learned SANs may not go the whole hug in creating an escape route. You don’t fight fire with fire. In addition to learned men therefore, Senate President Bukola Saraki may need wise men to give wise counsel. I am saying if a man brings to your doorstep a political war plan wrapped in judicial garb, it is for you to do the correct interpretation and go on a political counter-offensive.

Even so, I can still give one or two suggestions on how to fix the judicial end of the war. On those 13-count charges, the learned SANs do not need to indulge in the legal sophistry of ‘jurisdiction’ or ‘no jurisdiction.’ They should stick to the simple argument that Bukola Saraki is wealthy enough to own everything declared in his name. They should tell his lordship that it is not sound jurisprudence to accuse a billionaire, probably in dollars, of stealing a few hundred million naira notes.

If push comes to shove and the legal team is required to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Bukola is wealthy enough to own all the things put on the Code of Conduct Tribunal charge sheet, the learned men should not panic. They should say that Bukola is the first and only son of Oloye Olusola Saraki, who lived between May 17 1933 and November 14, 2012. And that the man owned so much, almost including the whole of Kwara State, and that the inheritance law in most African societies, including where the Sarakis come from in Kwara State, entitles the first son to all the wealth of his father.

They should stress that about 36 years ago in 1979, and at a time when the ownership of private jet had not become a common fad among politicians, the late Oloye had two as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In fact, records say the Oloye was the only politician in the Second Republic that had a private jet. Why should the only son of such a man be poor?

Besides, Bukola wasn’t a spoilt brat. He painstakingly went through all the stages and proudly became a London trained medical doctor at age 25 in 1987. The learned men should tell his lordship that some people have more acumen than they have ‘honesty’ and ‘integrity’ and if given an opportunity to be head of state at 42, they will own far beyond N30 million, two or so inherited mud houses and some 250 heads of cattle at 72. In fact, they will own the whole world.

If for any reason all of these fail to sway the tide, the legal team should simply submit the clincher: Nothing is stolen if nothing is missing. I mean, if a large chunk of the resources of the Kwara State government has not been announced stolen, the search for a thief of Kwara resources is most curious. It is perhaps, the reason the phrasal, ‘witch-hunting’- as if government in Nigeria is populated by witches and wizards – keeps dropping any time Bukola opens his mouth to comment on his travails.

Let me quickly add that this was one of the strong arguments of Chief James Ibori while standing trial in a London court. He couldn’t have stolen so much from a Delta State government that had not declared anything missing. Ibori was just unfortunate to have been taken to the court of an obstinate judge who went beyond the given circumstances to invent a piece of jurisprudence called ‘reasonable suspicion.’

It meant if at time ‘X’, the accused was so poor as to lift items in a London shop and then became stupendously rich as to buy close to a whole street in London at point ‘Y’, the onus was still on him to prove the lucrative mega deals that he had cut, outside being the governor of Delta State, in the intervening years, between time ‘X’ and ‘Y’, that created the big turnaround in his fortunes. The rest is now history, as they say.

Regarding Bukola, the well paid SANs should know how to present this point of ‘no loss, no stealing’ to make it look and sound different from what happened in London. Nothing more is required on my part.

If per adventure all the legal gymnastics fail to add up to solution, Bukola should then sideline his legal team and deploy his Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD). He should rally the National Assembly to begin a different type of war to be called ‘War For Democracy.’ A legislative joint committee should be instituted to look into the activities of the executive since May 29, not for anything as such, but just to be sure that, in the all-consuming euphoria to enforce change, none of the cherished tenets of democracy has been wittingly breached.

There must have been breaches anyhow. President Buhari’s refusal to appoint a cabinet is one. Also, some of his non cabinet appointments are in breach of the Constitution, which recommends legislative approval before such can come into effect. The President has garnered more flight hours globetrotting since May 29 than the busiest British Airways pilot; meaning he has been mainly absent from his duty post at Aso Rock. He has also been spending big, bailing out distressed state governments outside appropriation.

These allegations and other possible moves of the legislators, such as proposing to amend the laws establishing the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal, shall in the main, touch off a loud noise about impeachment of the President. That will automatically introduce new excitement in the ongoing political narrative. Something like ‘War For Democracy’ may evolve to break the monotony of the refrain of ‘War Against Corruption.’ It is good for democracy.

And if Bukola is by any means moved by the spirit to pay the usual one billion naira for this expert counsel, he should pay same to the bail-out account to help pay salaries of civil servants in Kwara, Osun and other states. I rest my case!