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Nigerian Judges Tell IGP Baba, EFCC Chief Bawa, No, You Are Not Above The Law

A Disturbing Lack Of Respect For The Law By Law Enforcement Institutions
Feature Article IGP Usman Alkali Baba and EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa
NOV 30, 2022 LISTEN
IGP Usman Alkali Baba   and EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa

In basic criminology or criminal justice classes, it is common knowledge that if a person has been convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, they must go in custody by turning themselves in, or they will be dragged there if necessary.

And if you just decide not to show up or manage to escape, in law-abiding democratic environments, you’ll get more time added on once you get convicted of escaping or refusing to show up.

You are likely to receive bail if you respect the court process and orders and are in jail for a non-serious or minor charge.

If your prison sentence will be shorter than the amount of time required to resolve your appeal, you are likely to receive bail. This is the case because you could possibly serve your sentence in full before your appeal has been decided. If you were convicted on a minor charge, you are likely to receive bail.

After being sentenced for a crime, you may be able to post bail and get out of custody during your appeal.

You cannot be convicted and sentenced for a crime, then announce that you have filed an appeal suddenly when you have not turned yourself into custody as ordered by the court before any post-conviction proceedings.

As it appears here by the manner of these issues, it is okay to appeal one’s case, but only after you have shown up at your assigned prison, with the aid of a lawyer if you are able to procure one, requested bail, posted bail, and gotten out of custody during your appeal.

No matter who you are as a convict and prisoner, you do not have an automatic constitutional right to bail during the appeal process, as you would while awaiting a trial in a criminal case.

In fact, in many democratic and constitutional nations, many do not provide post-conviction bail at all, and where it occurs, the law gives judges substantial discretion in determining whether it is appropriate and how high it should be. The court may set bail based on a variety of factors, including whether the defendant is cooperating, disengaging, or engaging in irresponsible behavior; whether they pose a threat to the community, are good role models for work settings and citizens in terms of respect for rules.

In fact, after being convicted and refusing to be imprisoned, one cannot simply wake up and go to an appeals court to file a case. A defendant may appeal a judge's decision if the attending or sentencing judge denies bail or sets a too-high amount; in fact, the appeal generally will not be successful unless all proper steps to make the public and media aware have been taken rather than just making a sudden announcement.

In fact, a convict no longer is entitled to a presumption of innocence, except after posting a successful bail, when a judge uses his or her discretion to re-visit the case, give a lesser sentence, vacate the sentence, or decide to keep the convict in jail to serve the sentence.

It is expected in many democratic and constitutional nations that, as part of the public office consequences following the announcement of being convicted and ordered to turn oneself in to prison, a public service official must quickly resign or be fired and be barred from public office jobs. For those with active criminal cases in court yet to be convicted, they must quickly relinquish their positions and be suspended or placed on administrative leave.

In fact, mere involvement in a criminal offense with or without charges, under investigation for a criminal violation, points to ethical criminal justice and administrative violations of truthfulness or insubordination, for example, to the judiciary in one's position as a public servant or peace officer.

Abdulrasheed Bawa, Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba's failure to show up for their court date or comply with court orders, likely caused the judges to convict them, issue a warrant to arrest them for failure to appear or criminal contempt of court. The courts generally frown on those who continue to disobey and disrespect the courts, and they are usually convicted of criminal contempt of court.

The matter of Baba is more clearly defined here by the judiciary. Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja specifically sentenced the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba , to three months in prison for defying a valid court order. The judge, in a ruling, ordered Baba in custody for a period of three months, or until he obeys an order made on October 21, 2011. "If at the end of the three months, the contemnor remains recalcitrant and still refuses to purge his contempt, he shall be committed for another period and until he purges his contempt."

The current IGP and his office have reacted to the court’s ruling, stating that Baba did not disregard the court order or the rule of law, that the IGP is not aware of any court order during the current IGP’s tenure, as the most recent judgement on the matter was given in 2011, which should ordinarily not fall under the direct purview of the current administration of the Force, and that the IGP has directed the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Force Legal Unit to investigate the allegation in a bid to ascertain the position of the court and provide informed legal advice for the IGP’s prompt and necessary action.

This reaction by the office of the IGP is not applicable here because the court order is directed towards the head of the police service, and it matters not when the indicated judgment was given or when the case first came up.

If the IGP is to defend himself, it must only be after he has turned himself into custody, and then, with the aid of his lawyer, he can seek bail and appeal the sentence. He must, however, first report to custody as a convict and refrain from making public dictations. Baba’s office has since reacted this way: "The office is not aware of any court order, during the current IGP’s tenure with respect to a matter making the rounds in the media that the IGP disobeyed a court order for the reinstatement of a dismissed officer of the Force." Not enough. Ignorance or denial of the law or a court order is no excuse.

Baba was sentenced to three months in prison for his refusal to obey a court order reinstating a police officer, Patrick Okoli, who had been compulsorily retired, back to work. As the current IGP, Baba should be aware of major pending court judgments as part of his administrative duties through his legal department.

The dispute began in 1992, when Okoli was forced into compulsory retirement, which he claimed was illegal. On October 21, 2011, a different judge ordered that he be reinstated in the police force with all lost monies, and the Police Service Commission, PSC, recommended Okoli's reinstatement.

Along the same lines, in a Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice Chizoba Oji convicted the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, for contempt and ordered that he be committed to prison at the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja.

The judge held that Bawa was in contempt of the court order made on November 21, 2018, directing the commission to return to a complainant his Range Rover and the sum of N40 million.

Unlike Baba, who was sentenced to at least three months in prison, Bawa’s judge stated that "having continued willfully in disobedience to the order of this court, he should be committed to prison at the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja for his disobedience and continued disobedience of the said order of court made on November 21st, 2018, until he purges himself of the contempt."

Ordinarily, as in most democratic nations, among which Nigeria supposedly counts itself, Bawa should have immediately turned himself into custody as a convict. His office’s reaction that Bawa had approved the immediate release of the Range Rover and the sum of N40 million in compliance with the November 2018 court order has no bearing on him complying with the court order remanding him as a convict, even though it has no specific timeframe.

The fact that the said judgment that resulted in sending Bawa to prison for contempt of court happened three years before he became the EFCC’s chairman does not matter, just like he and his office suddenly released the Range Rover Sport and are working to see that the N40 million is returned to the complainant, shows that such a court order should have long been followed by the EFCC and any supervising chairman as part of respect for the rule of law and regard for lawful orders of court.

Even Bawa’s announcement that he had appealed the case is not in line with the steps of a conviction and its aftereffects. When he is released from prison as a prisoner or bailed after his conviction, that is when the issue of an appeal will be relevant. However, by way of his discretion, Justice Oji, in a subsequent ruling, set aside Bawa's conviction. It is uncertain which judges were in the appeals court in which Bawa filed a notice appealing his conviction, and did the appeals court uphold or not uphold the original sentence? Did the appeals court return the case back to the lower court of Justice Oji, who then vacated the conviction and sentence?

The sudden administrative moves by Baba and Bawa, respectively, with their agencies should have been carried out by their predecessors or by them long ago; instead, they waited to be publicly declared convicts before the nation and the world, especially as public service, or peace officers.

As long as Nigeria exists as a democracy, the running joke in law enforcement, the legal, educational, and marketplace sectors, and schools—even among primary and secondary school students in social studies and civics education classes—is that two heads of law enforcement agencies involved in maintaining law and order in Nigeria were convicted of breaking the nation's laws. Which begs the question: why such an observation will not give its citizens the right to break its laws in terms of not following court orders in a timely and respectful way

As a country, Nigeria has not yet turned into a "banana republic," where the rule of men instead of a government prevails. So, let's stop all this nonsense.

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