The reason is that the government in Abuja believes it is above the law. Worse, it has contempt for the law; that is why it refused to appeal. The court, presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, had on December 2, 2016 ordered the release of the Shia leader and his wife in 45 days, the provision of an accommodation for the couple, and payment of N50m compensation to them. It is not clear what part of the judgement the federal government was unable to comprehend, for the order of the court was rendered in English and in a style that did not admit of any ambiguity. After all, the government put up a spirited but futile defense in court.
But days after the release of the Shia leader and his wife was due, the government has neither released the couple nor said anything. It is turning out that the Muhammadu Buhari presidency is both the law and the constitution. Any other thing, including the written Nigerian constitution, is obviously impotent in the estimation of the government and a rude, unpatriotic distraction. Rather than obey the court judgement on the Shia leader, certain faceless sources have sponsored publications intended to suggest that other more pressing reasons not placed before the court during adjudication are sufficiently powerful enough to make the government defy the court and the constitution. In sum, the Buhari presidency has served notice that it reserves the right to determine when, how and why any accused person would be released from jail.
The argument of the anonymous sponsors of the publications in the Sheikh El-Zakzaky case is simple but exasperatingly unpersuasive. Said the anonymous source defending the government’s defiance of the law: “The major constitutional policy objective of government as stated in section 14 (2) (b) is public and not individual security…The issue of the release of El-Zakzaky is not exclusively legal. It has security and public interest as against individual interest undertone. Public interest and national security implications must be factored into consideration in line with international practices that conventionally place national security and public interest above any other individual claim of right. The Federal Government of Nigeria is looking into the case with the public and security interest dimensions into consideration.”
It is not clear how ‘international practices’ supersedes the law and constitution of Nigeria, nor what public interest the source was referring to that transcended the rights of the individual enshrined in the same constitution disingenuously and mischievously quoted by the anonymous source to justify the arbitrary denial of a person’s rights. What is, however, clear is that by refusing to release the Shia leader and his wife, the government has deliberately decided to violate the law and desecrate the constitution. More, it has served notice that private considerations by government and its own insular interpretations of the law outside the courts of law are superior to any and every other consideration. In effect, the Nigerian has just been divested of his rights. If anyone thinks he has any rights henceforth, he must wait until he confronts the government to suffer disillusionment.
When this whole saga began in Zaria in December 2015, after elements of the Nigerian Army clashed with members of the Shia group called the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), the federal government repeatedly attempted to whip up public emotions against the group. In inquiry after inquiry, and from one court to the other, lawyers and witnesses of the government spoke of the Shiites in very uncomplimentary manner. They were a violent, surly and unruly neighbour to Zarians, said the government. They built without permits, said the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. They did not recognise any government, the governor added. And they were potentially more dangerous than the notorious Boko Haram sect, they summed up. None of these allegations against the sect held up in court, for the courts hardly judge anyone on intentions without proof.
Indeed, President Buhari and Governor el-Rufai anchor and justify their disposition towards the Shia group and its leaders based on the persuasion, sentiments and arguments of haters of the sect. They list a litany of grievances against the group, including the unruly execution of their obligatory marches, the mistreatment of neighbours, their imperiousness, and the adamantine resolve of the sect’s leaders to permit and even encourage their members’ excesses. Since the sect was uprooted from their Zaria redoubt in December 2015, said the neighbours gleefully, peace had descended on the community. According to the neighbours, the long list of excesses of the sect was possible because the Kaduna State Government was for many years absolutely remiss in controlling and checking the IMN. But when it finally chose to do something, following hard on the heels of the army’s crackdown on the sect, the state government went along with the rampaging soldiers regardless of the law. Sects and individuals often subvert the law as heartily as they wish, however, the law makes provision for reining in malfeasant persons and groups. The problem, it seems, is that neither the army nor the state government followed the law in finding a solution to the Shia excesses.
In fact, fearing that it could never secure a conviction against the sect’s leaders, and unable to defend its atrocious crackdown on the sect in court, including the more than one year detention of Sheikh El-Zakzaky and his wife without charging them in court, the government is now attempting to take refuge in the same constitution it has defied and desecrated. It is clear that the Buhari presidency operates outside the law when it suits it. It appears determined to keep the couple in detention for as long as it pleases, though it remarked snidely that El-Zakzaky’s wife was free to go if she was tired of caring for her battered husband. The government fails to realise that by cherry-picking what laws and judgements to obey, it is indirectly undermining both its own legitimacy and constitutional government, and invariably arming its enemies, many of whom have never had confidence in the president’s democratic credentials nor trusted Governor el-Rufai’s propagandist campaign that his messianic instincts tell him the worst of the sect.
At long last, the government has admitted what everyone has long suspected: that this government relishes and engages in self-help. Gradually, Nigerians are waking up to the fact that dictatorship may already be upon the country. Worse, the more astute rest of the world will gradually and deliberately begin the process of coming to the despairing conclusion that the Buhari presidency is averse to the rule of law. Coupled with the police invasion of the premises of the online medium, Premium Times, an invasion that appears to have neither rhyme nor reason, there are increasingly fewer people who think Nigerian democracy is in a safe pair of hands.
