By Nsikak Bassey

It was the late iconic human rights activist and crusader, Martin Luther King Jr, while delivering his historic and symbolic “I have a dream” speech on Lincoln Memorial Washington DC, on August 28, 1963, who stated it succinctly, thus: “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force”. The main piece of advice from King herein is the practical importance and necessity of leaders, even the led, of courageously doing away with the gross impunity of carrying out their actions, purely driven by hatred and bitterness.

King, an accomplished apostle of fairness, equity and justice also espoused the doctrine of “dignity and discipline” for all actions of both the state actors and nonstate actors to be seen as complete, comprehensive and justifiable. Sadly, the actions as well as inactions of the Department of Security Services (DSS) that arrested and subsequently detained the immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), have tragically, and most regrettably, fallen short of the golden rule and King’s well-structured piece of advice.

To begin with, the haste, brutal approach and the dramatic manner with which the DSS executed Emefiele’s arrest clearly indicated that his current travails might have been willingly orchestrated for the purposes of persecution rather than prosecution. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and indeed all the catalogue of legal/ penal codes in this country are replete and completely awash with how to go about the arrest, detention and ultimately the trial of suspects from inane allegation of wrong disposal of dust bins, to high-rate charge of treasonable felony. In all, the accused is deemed innocent until found guilty!!!

As it is, the question of Emefiele’s human rights as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must be asked and answers sought. Why did it take the DSS this excruciating number of times before preferring charges on the erstwhile CBN governor? Toeing the line of “justice delayed is justice denied”, have we not dangerously arrived at that crucial stage where we can authoritatively, going by the incontrovertible evidences on the table, aver that the charges now eventually brought against Emefiele, that he was in possession of illegal firearms, though laughable and questionable, is meant togive the dog a bad name in order to hang it.

According to the laws of the land, the DSS ought to have charged Emefiele to court not more than three days after his arrest. While the DSS failed to take this primary judicial step as required by law, some of Nigeria’s best constitutional lawyers and human rights activists, did so and subsequently secured a valid bail for Emefiele. Yet, the DSS never obeyed such injunctions coming from a competent court of jurisdiction.

Remarkably, this is quite lamentable as the behaviour of the DSS which has been roundly condemned by well-meaning Nigerians, is being discussed and witnessed not in a military regime, but in a democratic dispensation. The worry here is, virtually all Nigerians who were controversially accused of gunrunning hardly live to tell their respective stories even when they were marked by the hallowed public opinion as not being guilty as charged.

At least, the first editor in chief of the then high flying Newswatch Magazine, Mr Dele Giwa, was ruthlessly assassinated through a parcel bomb. The late MKO Abiola was slammed with the same charge among other charges and he never survived it as he mysteriously died in detention. We hope that such deadly treatments must not come the way of Emefiele who discharged his duties within the limits of his powers.

I totally support the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Joseph Daudu (SAN), human rights lawyers and a rights advocacy group, the Centre for Social Justice and Accountability (CSJA) who have counseled the Federal Government to strictly adhere to the principle of rule of law, fairness and justice in the handling of the case of the suspended governor of the CBN.

They also demanded that the Federal Government should comply forthright with all the numerous judgements seeking the release of Emefiele. Daudu’s point of view is most profound as he stated that President Bola Tinubu, with his background as a democracy advocate, will not support arbitrariness. On the other hand, Maxwell Opara, Abdulazeez Tijani and Anthony Akpua of the CSJA observed that the Federal Government must handle Emefiele’s case with care, caution and concern as its mishandling certainly go a long way in shaping the way international business communities “and related interests will perceive and relate with the new administration in Nigeria.”

What is very glaring, it would seem, particularly with the charge of gun-running by the DSS, is that the former CBN governor apparently, has no skeleton in his cupboard. As the CBN governor for almost 10 years, he supervised the country’s fiscal wealth, formulated its policies and regulated virtually all transactions in all the currencies of the world. We were all ears to hear a humongous amount of money, probably running into billions of naira that Emefiele had looted or stashed away in foreign lands.

But it was not to be. Thus, he deserves to be granted bail as court, lawyers and human rights activists have noted. This will portray President Tinubu as a leader who has come to fix things, not one ruling with bitterness and hatred as Martin Luther King Jr. warned against.