Chicken that went abroad to roost

Thirty witnesses were called by the prosecutor to testify against Orkar. They all said he was the planner and financier of the two separate bombing operations. Orkar refused to testify in his own defence, which means, according to the judge, the witness testimonies were not challenged. He is expected to be sentenced on Friday and under South African law, must receive a minimum of a life sentence in prison.

In the wake of the conviction, many Nigerians were wondering what would have been had Henry Orkar not lost his way and gone to South Africa to plan his dastardly outrage against his home country. To begin with, even though MEND issued a statement just before the Abuja bombs went off claiming responsibility for them, they got a very high profile defender that very day: President Goodluck Jonathan. He said he knew MEND did not carry out the attack. He did not say, but his body language indicated that leading Northern politicians opposed to his contesting the 2011 elections did so. In fact, the security agencies here had already began acting out the president’s script by questioning Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, director general of General Babangida’s campaign. IBB’s arrest and interrogation wasn’t far off when the South Africans struck. A day after the attacks, they nabbed Orkar.

How many such bombings have taken place in this country and no one has as yet been successfully convicted in the courts? Even the men who were apprehended here for the same offence, including Henry Orkar’s brother Charles, are yet to reach a decisive stage in their trial. It is one story after another. Witnesses did not show up; case file is being awaited from the Ministry of Justice; some exhibits have been sent abroad for analysis; the prosecutor has been transferred from his station; the defendants have changed their lawyer etc, etc.

The only real surprise here was, when Orkar knew he was planning such a major terrorist outrage, why didn’t he just stay in Nigeria to plot it but chose to do so in Johannesburg? He reckoned that he would be too far away from the scene to leave any footprints? Even when he used cell phones, computers and cheque books? Talk about nemesis. Talk about chicken going abroad to roost.

By the way, how come that since the South Africans apprehended Henry Orkar, we have not had any more threatening e-mail messages sent to media houses by Jomo Gbomo? One more piece evidence that the guilty one had been found.

One suit, thirty years later, no winner

Even as we were marvelling at the relative speed with which the South African justice system brought Independence Day bomber Henry Orkar to justice, we were reminded of just how fast matters can be in our own courts. Reports in the newspapers said a land ownership case instituted at the Nnewi Division of the Anambra State High Court in July 1976 was finally resolved by the Supreme Court of Nigeria last Friday. Yes, 37 full years to conclusively resolve one case!

The case was a land dispute between two parties that shared a common ancestor. Each party tried to oust the other from use of the land for cultivation and other purposes. It was not clear when the High Court ruled on it, but the matter went to the Court of Appeal which delivered a ruling in July 2005, that is 19 years after the case started. The matter then went to the Supreme Court which delivered a ruling last Friday, another 8 years later.

And who won the case? No one! The panel of 5 Supreme Court justices ruled that neither party proved that it had exclusive ownership of the land in dispute. It therefore ordered them to bear their own trial costs and to go and live in peace. What? It took 37 years to say only that? A village head could have delivered this judgment under a tree in less than an hour!