Adamu Adamu
24 June 2005
opinion
Alhaji Maina Dahuwa is a very compassionate, funny, good, kindly-looking, middle-aged man that we knew as children in the Azare of the 1960s. He is still around unchanged, and will never pass anyone without a smile or a kind word.
His pedigree is well known; because his blood is blue but not of the tinge that ultimately reaches the throne. But Maina Dahuwa is determined. So determined is he to reach the throne that all those who know him affectionately call him: "Sai-ka-yi". In other words, he was born to rule.
At close to 70, he is now greying and balding; but neither his infectious smile nor his readiness to help and other good qualities have deserted him. And he is still as determined as ever. To all those who know him, his name is still "Sai-ka-yi", to which he always answered, "Ko garin ba kowa;" meaning, he will be king even without subjects.
Nowadays we have many Sai-ka-yis in the country. The only difference between them and him is that he doesn't take himself or his long-gestating succession too seriously.
He never felt he had to control the Kingmakers or the Alkalai or the Majalisa - the three arms of the local traditional government. He never for once begrudged the Kingmakers for bypassing him. He was always ready and patient enough to wait his turn. And he has been waiting. He also had great respect for the judiciary and the rule of law; and, as a result, he always gave alkali--especially the chief alkali--their dues. He respected the legislative and administrative independence of the Majalisa and Emir in Council.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Maina Dahuwa have everything not in common, except the desire to rule. The many differences between them have made all this clear enough. Mallam Maina has not demolished the nation's biggest political party or terrorised its operatives and cowed its leadership. He has not emasculated the majalisa, the local equivalent of the National Assembly or changed its leadership without excuse. Maina has never accused or caused anyone to accuse the Chief Alkali of having accepted a bribe of a dozen-odd donkeys. Maina has never delayed the deliberations of the Town Council, or forced it to re-debate issues that have already been settled.
There are many more differences between the two of them; but perhaps the most important one is that while Maina may be ruler even if there are no subjects, Obasanjo will be ruler even if there have to be no subjects. One loves the institution and what it stands for, and it shows in all he does; while the other must bend it to work only for him, and it also shows in all he does. One protects the institution, but the other is ready to bring down all its arms--all the three arms that are already amputated. All in an effort to stay put.
That Obasanjo doesn't want to handover is known even to the birds in Nigeria's skies. Initially his handlers were planning for a third term. Then it became an extra two years, to complete the six-year term they want the National Political Reform Conference to recommend. When that became an impossibility they briefly toyed with the idea of coaxing the Supreme Court to, paradoxically, come up with a verdict against them. That the Supreme Court should grant the ANPP's prayer that the election be declared void and fresh polls ordered. The thinking then was that rigging a fresh election to get a four year term was easier than getting the Confab pass the mystery draft.
But with Justice Uwais at the head of the Supreme Court they could find no way of coaxing it to do what they want. The cookie monsters in government didn't know which way this cookie will crumble. And they again turned their attention to the confab.
Their only hope now rested with the report of the Conference Committee on the Executive. But even here the government position that rooted for a six-year single term for the president was defeated; and the committee recommended the retention of the two, four-year terms as it is in the 1999 Constitution.
Yet in spite of the clear position of the committee, the issue of presidential tenure was opened for debate in plenary session again. All in order to stay on in power. Then they woke up to the realisation that the Supreme Court would soon give its judgment.
For sometime there had been talk of corruption in the judiciary but this had always been understood to refer to the untoward practices prevalent in the lower courts. In general the Supreme Court or the Chief Justice in particular, has always been seen as clean.
But cleanliness is not necessarily a virtue any more in Nigeria. Everywhere dirt rules and the hand of government is never far away from the rot. In a nation that saw the rise and fall of four Senate Presidents in five years, it must remain an inexplicable wonder how the head of the Judiciary has remained un-decapitated all this time. Perhaps part of the explanation must be found in the fact that by the nature of the workings of that arm of government, it doesn't do anything about matters not brought to it. And since not many crucial matters were brought to it, nothing crucial, at least as far as the tenure, power and resources of government are concerned, has come out of the judiciary's apex court.
But all this is about to change because the Supreme Court is expected to give its ruling on the appeal filed it by the All Nigeria People's Party challenging the Court of Appeal ruling on the petition against the election of Chief Obasanjo. And so matters have really begun to change.
It began with the allegations in a series of petitions against Justice Muhammad Lawal Uwais, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, that he had received N5 billion in the James Ibori identity crisis case. "[T]he original plan they had was to get me disqualified from participating in the case. There were plans to pay money into my account and then it will be released to the press that I have taken bribe and that will force me to disqualify myself," he said. "Even if I deny it, because of that allegation, it was thought that I will disqualify myself [from] taking part in a particular case."
Then the unprecedented happened. One Ephraim Duru, a lawyer representing Globe Motors accused Supreme Court Justice of corruption. Basing himself on the petition written by an unknown group, the Patriotic Derivative Front, alleging that the Chief Justice had received a bribe of 13 Honda cars from a party to an appeal before the Supreme Court. This was truly unprecedented and if a blow is required to bring down the judiciary, this was it.
But according to the Chief Justice, something even more sinister may be at work behind all this. "The forces behind the petitions are here in the Supreme Court," Uwais said, in an interview with ThisDay newspaper. "I wouldn't like to give you names, but I can tell you why we say that. There are people overdriven by ambition, to succeed me and we are aware they are in concert with politicians and others, that you will see more of these petitions; you will see more of these allegations. This is their plan. What is being said is that I have stayed in office far too long and that those who will succeed me have not long to go. So why wouldn't I go now to give them more time to be in office? Since I wouldn't go, they will force me out of office by all these allegations and so on. I will just be fed up and say look what is there in this office, after all I have less than a year to go. I will put in my letter of retirement. This is what they want. This is the plan behind it. I can mention names, but I won't like to do it here. I know what is going on. This is the background."
But if it is the work of an insider, it is probably an assignment with the insider working out a script for an outsider, or working in tandem with him.
In the interview, the Chief Justice forgot or refused to mention the fact that an offer of a plum UN job was reportedly made to him by Obasanjo recently. Though presented as a crowning achievement for the nation's top judge, it was essentially an offer to remove Uwais from the Supreme Court that will deliver judgment in a case that may strip Obasanjo of his job. The quest is: is the insider working for the outsider; or, is the outsider working for the insider? To get rid of Uwais? To get his job? And to let Obasanjo keep his?
Maina Dahuwa may never get to be sarki yet, but at least people have benefited from his life, largely because he believed in the rule of law and the doctrine of live and let live. Others who don't may not be the source of benefit to anyone. As they say, everyone has some purpose in life--if only to serve as a horrible example. And so for those who give this type of example, if they don't benefit mankind by their lives, they do so by their death.
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