By Sokari Benebo-Briggs

It was Nobel Laurate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who put forward the hypothesis that “Justice is the first law of humanity.”

Justice guarantees fairness, equity and leads to freedom and prosperity. With justice, standards, due processes and procedures are diligently followed and observed. With this, security, peace, tranquility and orderliness are substantially achieved.

Sadly, what we have witnessed in the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele’s case, is a departure from what real justice as expounded by the country’s judicial system and its legal framework, should be.

In other words, the question ought to be asked: Is Emefiele facing prosecution or persecution? This question has become imperative given the fact that the Nigerian system is at war with itself, thereby encouraging and promoting illegality and outright contravention of what ought to be.

Simply put, Emefiele’s case cannot be treated in complete or comprehensive isolation, in relation to all related files.

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As a matter of fact, the former governor of the CBN cannot, without lawful cause be treated like a common thief.

Remarkably, the sordid story of the fraud called Nigeria Air could not be left unattended to by the relevant anti-graft agencies, including the Department of State Services, DSS, while Emefiele is being harangued or harassed.

Recall that the immediate past officials of the Ministry of Aviation staged a national scam in which they blindfolded the entire nation and the entire world through the fraud called Nigeria Air. Without due process and disregarding pleas by aviation experts and the Airline Operators of Nigeria, AON, they insisted on their idea of the Nigeria Air project, which has brought international disgrace to the country.

When the fraudulent project of reviving the national carrier was initiated, the AON used a Federal High Court in Lagos to stop it by obtaining an injunction in November 2022. Hampered by the injunction, which prohibited the Ministry of Aviation from going on with the illegal idea of launching a new national carrier, officials of the ministry, on three consecutive occasions in March, April and Early May, 2023, boasted that the launch would go ahead.

Nigerians of good conscience were shocked when on May 24, 2023, the then Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, on Channels TV, insisted that in spite of the court order against him and the ministry, a new aircraft belonging to Nigeria Air, would land in the country on May 26, just three days to the expiration of the administration he was serving as minister.

Just as he boasted, an aircraft that belonged to the Ethiopian Airlines touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and was branded in Nigerian colours as Nigeria Air. Before Nigerians could settle down to ask the nagging questions about the Nigeria Air, the aircraft was flown back to Addis Ababa, the land of its owners.

As Nigerians raised eyebrows, the Senate Committee on Aviation, chaired by Senator Biodun Olujimi, invited Captain Dapo Olumide for questioning, where he confessed that the aircraft used for the relaunch of Nigeria Air belonged to Ethiopian Air.

It amounts to a national shame that rather than the Federal Government of Nigeria putting those behind this on trial, the authorities are chasing shadows and grasping straws.

Today, the conspirators are still walking the streets of Nigeria freely. How could this selective prosecution lacking in transparency and genuineness promote the course of justice? Yet, the Federal Republic of Nigeria with President Bola Tinubu in charge, can just do one thing to redeem the ugly situation as it were.

The Federal Government must have realized that the arrest and the ongoing trial of Emefiele was wrongly initiated, its investigations poorly done and it is also being wrongly executed. In this regard, if Soyinka’s coinage of “justice is the first law of humanity” is still a factor, then, Emefiele should be granted bail and asked to go home.

Thankfully, the court and established professional bodies and eminent personalities from all walks of life have called on President Tinubu to toe the path of honour, integrity, progressivism and constitutionality by obeying the court orders which directed a bail to the former governor of the CBN.

This is why it has been said that the Nigerian legal system is facing an integrity test – a litmus test – as it is unfathomable that while those who committed an economic sabotage of national proportion are allowed to walk free, Emefiele is dumped in detention at the pleasure of some vengeful forces in the corridors of power, in utter disregard of a subsisting order of court.

* Benebo-Briggs, a rights activist, wrote from Abuja