The Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission (HRVIC), otherwise known as the Oputa Panel submitted its reports to the president recently.

Though the report has not been made public yet and a white paper is still to be issued, the government has hastily set up an Implementation Committee to commence the effectuation of the recommendations.

The idea of the Oputa Panel was a great one. It was in sum, to show us how we mismanaged ourselves as a nation and then find a way through all of it to first forgive ourselves before reconciliation. There is no doubt that our nation has been misruled in the past quite the same way as is being done today. So the notion of such a panel well in the fashion of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was overdue. But if people showed cynicism in spite of its timeliness, it was probably because they thought the president had other motives in its establishment. It was believed that the original raison d'etre of the commission was to embarrass a few people. It was also an opportunity for the president, still smarting from his incarceration for high treason by the late Sani Abacha, to continue with the message that he was a victim of high-handedness from the top (apologies to General Diya). Many of the complainants thought it was an avenue to get even with the ancien noblesse. General Oladipo Diya thought for instance that it was an opportunity for him to take his pound of flesh (with blood) from General Abacha, General Bamaiyi and Major Al-Mustapha and also recover some monies allegedly seized from him by Abacha. These are funds he could hardly account for. Brigadier General Sabo (rtd) saw it as a means to appropriate sweet revenge on Generals Abdulsalami and Bamaiyi, his former bosses, even if that breaches security and section 167 of the Evidence Act which forbids anyone from giving evidence on security-sensitive matters. Major Hamza Al-Mustapha also saw an opportunity to smear General Abdulsalami who put him in his present predicament. But to many Nigerians, especially those that can't afford cable or satellite television (for their movie and comedy channels), the Oputa Panel which was telecast live throughout its sittings on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), provided an affordable opportunity to daily watch first-rate true story movies and comedies free of charge.

Initially, the mandate was limited to cover the military regimes from General Buhari's tenure but protests from some quarters made the president extend the scope to cover his own first term as head of state (1976-1979).

The fact that Obasanjo initially excluded his own regime from scrutiny should have warned Nigerians of a not too healthy motive. Even with that and in spite of all the successful court injunctions instituted to restrain the commission, the Oputa Panel and the president, probably working in tandem, made the appearances and the possible culpability of Generals Buhari, Babangida and Abubakar, three former heads of state, the chief assignment of the panel. Even when the three retired generals were appropriately and very ably represented by their lawyers, Justice Oputa and the president insisted on their physical appearance to face questioning. The president desperately wanted them to appear and, to force compliance, he contrived a stage-managed appearance himself. It was obvious that the Oputa show (similar to the Bill Cosby show) would be incomplete if the three generals were not placed before some small boys from Lagos for questioning and ridiculing. The president forgot that under similar circumstances during the sitting of the Justice Irikefe panel that investigated the alleged missing N2.8 billion involving his military regime during the Shagari days, Obasanjo, then a former head of state himself like the trio, was covered by immunity from physical appearance as a former head of state based on the submission of his counsel.

He was represented by his lawyers then and that did not affect the outcome or credibility of the conclusion reached by Justice Irikefe. The logic to this is that section 183 of the Evidence Act grants immunity to first class and second-class Emirs and Chiefs from appearances in courts and before tribunals and provides for their representation by counsel. If even a second-class chief can be granted this immunity, what more of a former head of state who sits in council with the president? But the germane question here should be that if Obasanjo himself refused appearance before the Irikefe panel which derived legitimacy from the same Tribunal and Inquiry Act cap 447 of 1966 and also under a democratic regime like this one and was instead represented by his lawyers, why shouldn't that also be sufficient for Generals Buhari, Babangida and Abdulsalami?

I agree completely with the recommendations of the panel that further investigations be made to unravel the circumstances of the death and possible murder of Dele Giwa, MKO Abiola, Shehu Yar'Adua, Bagauda Kaltho, Sani Abacha etc. Nobody, no matter how highly placed should have the right to take another person's life extra-judicially. But I reject the crude and jungle justice that the president and the commission are already insinuating to the effect that they already have an idea of the culprits in these murder cases even before trial. That is the kind of kangaroo justice that still keeps General Bamaiyi, Major Al-Mustapha, Mohammed Abacha, Colonel Yakassai and others in perpetual detention and their treatment like already convicted murderers even before the completion of trial. By all means, murderers should be apprehended and be made to face the full wrath of the law but no one should be allowed to suffer innocently. It is still possible that after the trial of these people, some of them will be found innocent. About two years ago, while addressing a gathering of medical doctors, the president made an oblique remark - apparently referring to Colonel (Dr.) Ibrahim Yakassai - that doctors should not use their profession and skills to murder people. This he said would be going against the Hippocratic oath which the doctors swore to. Why has the president who is the chief law making officer of the nation (apologies to Senator Jonathan Zwingina) turned Nigeria into a nation of legal travesties by declaring an accused person guilty even before trial? It is on record that since Colonel Yakassai was arrested, he has not even been asked to write a statement. It will be important to know whether somebody like Ibrahim Yakassai is serving a jail term for the murder of Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, as the president and his principal officers will want us believe, or is just simply still in detention awaiting the determination of his case? What kind of lawless country is this? Where are the human rights activists? Where is NADECO? Are we really a democracy? It is precisely that kind of burlesque justice, which holds a person guilty even before trial, that the president wants to apply to the former heads of state.

Back to the Oputa report. Has the president forgotten that a Court of Appeal (Lagos Division) presided over by Justice George Adesola Oguntade has declared that the establishment of the Oputa Panel itself was procedurally illegal and unconstitutional? (Togun v Oputa (N0. 2) NWLR (2001) part 740 pg. 597). Obasanjo was too eager to hang the former heads of state to have any patience for the fine details of law.

From the recommendations of the commission, it is obvious that strenuous efforts have been made to smear the names of all three former leaders. For instance, General Abdulsalami is to be further investigated with respect to the death of MKO Abiola. The commission should have added in its recommendation that the delegation from the United States comprising Thomas Pickering and Susan Rice (who was said to have served the tea from a flask) in whose arms MKO Abiola died, and by extension former President Bill Clinton who sent them, should be investigated. How ridiculous!! General Buhari on his own has been asked to apologise to the families of the executed cocaine pushers because he and members of his Supreme Military Council infringed on the fundamental rights of the "businessmen" to deal in the business of cocaine. I will also add here that General Gowon, President Shagari, and of course Generals Buhari and others should apologise to the nation for the execution of all the armed robbers during their tenures.

Their execution was an 'infringement of their fundamental rights to engage in the business of robbery.' Only in Nigeria would such nonsense like an apology to the families of executed cocaine pushers be seen in official books. Those cocaine pushers (according to Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN) were executed because they breached a law that was appropriately formulated by the Supreme Military Council (the legislature at that time). Anybody that committed the crime of cocaine pushing at that time knew the consequences of being caught. Kenneth Owoh and others took chances and they paid the supreme price. No tears should be shed for them. Anyone that has been a victim of armed robbery in this country and knows the relationship between such violent crimes and the use of cocaine will not take the recommendation of the commission on General Buhari seriously. I am one of such people. I have twice been a victim of armed robbery attacks!

But as the reader can see from the title of this column today, I don't think that Justice Oputa has finished his job. He should have for instance recommended that the petition of Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti be revisited. Beko charged that his mother, the distinguished Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was murdered on the instruction of General Obasanjo when he was head of state in 1977. A commando-style military attack on the premises of Fela's (Beko's brother) Kalakuta Republic in which his singers and dancers were repeatedly raped and his mother thrown from the window left her with severe injuries which she never recovered from. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti had been active in the anti-colonial struggle, years before Obasanjo even contemplated joining the army and had introduced Fela, arguably Africa's greatest dissident then, to Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. It should be recalled that Fela presented the out-going regime of Obasanjo with a replica of his mother's coffin in 1979.

Second, Obasanjo used a retroactive decree in the heat and passion of the aftermath of General Murtala Mohammed's assassination to execute (or is it officially murder) people like Joseph Gomwalk and would have also used it on General Gowon but for the fact that Gowon was far beyond his reach. General Hassan Usman Katsina was also arrested and was only saved by providence. The death of Gomwalk should also be re-opened and examined as the commission has recommended for others. In what could be described as poetic justice, Obasanjo himself fell foul of the same law under Abacha (but this time not retrospectively) but the former head of state whom Obasanjo still characterises as a direct descendant of Lucifer was gracious enough to listen to calls for the commutation of his death sentence.

Third, the death of Colonel Abdu Wya should also be investigated. From the revelation we received about a decade ago, the promising colonel should not have been executed because the crime of participation in the coup was never proved against him. It was Obasanjo's vote in the Supreme Military Council meeting that considered the issue that led to his unjustified death. Chief Allison Ayida told us he was part of the meeting as the then Secretary to the Federal Military Government and contended that the arguments against the colonel were never proved beyond all reasonable doubt as was and still is standard practice. The late colonel now has growing and lovely grand children who would need to be told that their grandfather was not a criminal. Also, the circumstance of the death of his Irish wife is still shrouded in mystery. Just like the deaths of MKO Abiola and Yar'Adua, these two should also be revisited.

Fourth, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa should seek the expansion of the scope and jurisdiction of his panel's mandate to cover the present Obasanjo government. This should not be difficult since it has been done before. And in this case, I promise the distinguished jurist that he may even get the legislative imprimatur that has handicapped his job so far. That will help the nation to look into the cases of the abuse of fundamental human rights and the right to life of Odi villagers, Zaki-Biam natives and General Victor Malu. The president seems to have subscribed to the pedestrian impression that women, children and the disabled deserved to be killed in Odi and Zaki-Biam as reprisal for the killing of soldiers. I am worried that our president's appreciation of justice runs against the grain of civilised standards and is repugnant to natural justice. If soldiers were killed, then the government should have deployed all its machinery of coercion to apprehend the culprits and not take the lives of other people who might not even have known a thing about the murder of the soldiers in the first place.

General Malu's own village was even far away from where the 19 soldiers were killed and there is no evidence of his complicity. Soldiers were sent to his village to bomb his house, kill his 85-year-old blind uncle's wife and the uncle himself. An innocent farmer returning home with tubers of yams on his head was shot point-blank and left on the street to rot. If these are not cases of breaches of fundamental human rights, then nothing will ever be!

Fifth, there will be the need to revisit the OPC killings in Lagos and other areas of the Southwest. The president should be made to apologize to the families of the victims of the needless murders. This is more so because Nigerians believe the president has not used the full weight of his office to protect them from the bestiality of the OPC. The victims also include DSP Amao, the murdered DPO of Bariga police station in Lagos who is a Yoruba from Kwara State. By the way I can't remember the president sending policemen on reprisal mission after the killing of the DPO. The DPO was also a law enforcement agent like the 19 soldiers murdered in Tiv land.

Six, there is the urgent need to investigate the rumours that did the rounds between 1977 and 1979 when Obasanjo was head of state that the then government had set up detention camps at the crocodile infested Ita Oko Island in the outskirts of Lagos. Some of the reports were even carried in the international media of that time.

Last but by no means least, Oputa Panel would need to take a stand on the case of theft against General Diya and his lying under oath. The case of perjury is serious under any system. Diya must be made to apologize to the Nigerian public.

For true reconciliation, Nigerians have to know the whole truth. The distinguished members of the Oputa Panel obviously meant well in the discharge of their assignment. My only fear is that the president does not turn a perfectly good idea into a political weapon against perceived opponents in 2003 in furtherance of his mission of vendetta in government.

Contact: sam@nigeriaunlimited.com