Toro: A Gangster!
By
Wada Nas
Right from day one, I never for once entertained any illusion about the nature of justice the so-called Abacha associates would get under this administration. I was sure that it was going to be a political trial far beyond what we could even imagine. It was a trial of a people and not just of the people. Very long time I go, I had concluded that it was a trial for vengeance and not a judicial one.
Events have since proved me right that the trial of those I call the "Northern Seven,” appearing in various courts in Lagos, was going to end up a political game chess devoid of the equity of justice.
On the day of their first appearance in court, the first trial judge, a highly placed judicial officer, who knows better, never hesitated to describe them “criminals,” with all the contempt at his command. He passed judgement even before the court clerk, or whoever, read their offences. For all he cared, being who they are and represent, they do not deserve the due judicial process, before ruling that they were guilty. It was judgement before hearing a case and was intended to be so. The crowd of editors, judicial activists and others kept mute in the face of such a criminal judicial pronouncement. Why? Because it was in line with the goal and the objective, which is that they must be found guilty at all costs, no matter their innocence.
Before then, the hostile Lagos crowd, with its rabid tendencies, was massed up to give judgement of their own through hostile abuses and insults each time they were brought to the court.
Then the media. They were brought in to write all manners of lies against them. One wrote that a former minister had, on behalf of El-Mustapha, completed plans to get Libyan commandos to invade Kirikiri Prison to rescue the former Chief Security Officer to General Abacha, may his soul rest in peace. A photograph which the former minister took with CSA during an official visit to that country was used to back up the story. Ask yourself, how did they get the photograph? Sure it was given them as part of the grand plot to find them guilty at all costs. Who gave them? This does not need any asking. It must have been removed from an official file by those who want them to be found guilty at all cost and Nigerians know who they are.
Come another media claiming to have interviewed El-Mustapha while in prison, which he, Mustapha, denied before Oputa. The media never told us who granted them permission to interview him while in detention. In all Mustapha’s “responses” he implicated himself. And this exposed the fallacy of the report as one concocted, on instruction, to make the public believe that Mustapha was indeed wrong. The concoction confirmed in several ways as part of the general grand plot and agenda.
There was yet another: supposed transcript of Al-Mustapha’s during interrogation. If true, who gave them? Certainly those who interrogated him. Why did give to the paper? Again as part of the grand plot.
It should be noted, here, that the papers involved in this grand conspiracy are all from one section of the country. No other papers besides them were given such information. This, therefore, makes it clear that there were conspiracies, at the highest level, of government and security, to ensure that whatever happens the “Northern Seven” must be found guilty. Further more, the involvement of only a select group of papers and magazines to carry out this plot, exposes the tribal agenda behind the trial. If not so, why were other papers in other parts of the country not given? Even some media houses in the same location with those given were never thought qualified to get such information. There was, therefore, more trust in tribal connection in the whole drama and this exposes further the tribal undertones of the trial. Some other papers belonging to the tribal gang were consistent in saying that security people have uncovered plot for Bamaiyi to run to England if given bail, that he has already secured British residence visa. Again, the same select papers were those given this falsehood in order to establish the guilt of the suspect.
If we take into account that the bosses of the two institutions who interrogated Mustapha share the same tribal affinity with these papers the ethnic agenda in the trial is quite clear. The interrogators, who obviously have been passing on misinformation to a select media, to the trial judges and others, all belonging to a tribal gang, leave no room for any doubt in the tribal agenda of the political trial of the “Northern Seven.” Their interrogators, trial judge, prosecutors, the minister of justice, the president and the media involved is more than sufficient evidence.
Meanwhile, the vengeance aspect is when a Swiss magistrate was smuggled in to the country to try Mohammed Abacha In Prison Under Swiss Laws in Nigeria, a thing unheard of in our judicial history. Nothing could be a worse shame to our sovereignty, and a court said this much. That the Nigeria government could go to the extent of allowing a foreign judge to try a citizen in prison using foreign laws shows not only a demonstration of vengeance but a clear judicial indecency in the handling of the trial of the “Northern Seven.”
Bamaiyi’s lawyer, Mr. Okoye has told the world, when Aikhomu was stopped from going abroad that he too had been screened each time he traveled out “because,” as he once put it, “I am Bamaiyi lawyer.”
Still on the vengeance aspect. Is it not to our knowledge that when others surrendered sums demanded of them by government, they were left scot-free? Why isn’t the same applying to the Abachas, including his younger brother? Why is it that the cronies of the administration have been focusing attention on only the Abacha family and painfully cannot even tell Nigerians how much they have recovered from them so far. Millions have gone in to the recovery efforts without any one telling us how much has been recovered so far. There was a time a supplementary budget of about N400 was approved for that purpose. Yet nobody, since Abdulsalam, has bothered to tell Nigerians how much has been recovered. What happened to the amount budgeted?
For more than the two years this trial has lasted, it is difficult to say if any of the prayers of the defence team has been granted by the trial judges, while almost all of those of the prosecution team have been upheld. This tells us a lot about the character and orientation of the trial. At each stage, the trial judges have been frustrating the defence team, insulting them at will.
Judge Alabi did just that when he called Emmanuel Toro (SAN) a gangster and he did so without remorse, but with such satisfaction as to betray his attitude towards the suspects. Mustapha rightly felt that had Toro been a Yoruba, the judge would never haul such insults at him. He called Toro (SAN) a gangster only because he was making a valid judicial point as if it has become a crime for a lawyer to make such a point in defence of his client. By calling Emmanuel Toro a gangster, for following the due process of the law, what the judge is telling Nigerians is that he has no respect for the judicial views of the defence lawyers, or that the trial had already been sealed and delivered.
The recent draws in the court between the judge and the defence lawyers, where he disallowed them from making even a statement, is a further portrayal of the character of this trial.
But as I pointed out recently, this is being done on purpose. Obasanjo set up a commission to reconcile Nigerians, while he is not ready to reconcile with others let alone forgive them. He wants Nigerians to forgive and forget actions committed against them in the past but he is unwilling to do same in respect of the Northern Seven and the Abacha family. This speaks volume about the insincerity behind setting up the Oputa commission which others have justifiable reason to suspect that it was to achieve a particular agenda.
Back to the insults heaped on Toro. While the Nigerian Bar Association found a lot of fault with Mustapha’s verbal assaults on the trial judge, to a measure for some good reason, the association didn't see anything wrong in describing a SAN as a gangster. Toro perhaps might have committed some judicial misdeanamor here and there but certainly this wasn’t enough reason to call him a gangster, which amounts to saying that he is a rogue. It is painful that a judge would describe a senior member of the Bar in that language.
Toro should take solace in the fact that he is not fighting just a legal battle but a political war supported by judicial tribal power. This alone is enough reason for him to be resolute in wishing to cleanse the judiciary of tribal mongering and vendetta agenda.
Meanwhile, I read in a recent edition of the Nigerian Tribune that 78 principals of unity schools may soon be deployed for alleged involvement in the admission scandal that rocked the colleges.
I have cause, few months ago, to issue a statement alerting the nation of a plot to populate the colleges towards certain orientation. The so-called admission scandal is a mere smokescreen to cover up this plot.
It would appear that the current minister of education is out to fulfil some certain agenda as recently documented by Albashir, for which some believe that he was arrested and detained. His plot to destabilize ABU has been adequately documented in the booklet written by him. Non university teachers are up in arms against him while he is now geared towards causing confusion in the unity schools.
Let us be reminded that if we have so soon forgotten the past, because of today, there is always tomorrow.