The Police versus Citizen Saraki
Another sad saga is unfolding in the history of criminal investigations. The country’s number three citizen, some would say a disloyal member of the ruling party is being dragged into a robbery case. His name is Olubukola Saraki and he becomes the third inner-caucus member of the National Assembly to their names dragged into robbery […]
Another sad saga is unfolding in the history of criminal investigations. The country’s number three citizen, some would say a disloyal member of the ruling party is being dragged into a robbery case. His name is Olubukola Saraki and he becomes the third inner-caucus member of the National Assembly to their names dragged into robbery or violent crime in recent months in a curious coincidence involving ‘disloyal’ members of the ruling clique.
Dramatic Dino Melaiye and Shehu Sani have recently had their names linked to similar incidences. Saraki is being asked to report for questioning for his alleged links with the masterminds of the infamous Offa robbery incident in which over 30 people were killed including pregnant women and police officers. Saraki is being summoned along with his political godson and the governor of his home state of Kwara, Abdulfatah Ahmed.
This obvious trial by media alleges that the mindless thugs who murdered defenceless citizens were ex-political thugs of the Senate President and that the arms and some of the vehicles used during the operation had been procured through Government House, Ilorin. It is yet to be seen how this links to the Offa robbery.
The curious phenomenon of trial by media has been with us but it gained notoriety under disgraced former IG, Tafa Balogun. It was he who plagiarized catchphrases to rebrand the force including his infamous Crime Fighters a North American project that operates on a totally different level. Because we live in the era of partisan law enforcement, it is moving dangerously into a level where public ridicule and libel trumps legal conviction.
The phenomenon where quondam friends of the ruling cabal battle their former friends in the party is gaining notoriety. In Kogi, it gave nuisance Dino Melaiye fame associated with dramatized political opportunism. When the ruining elite is at each other’s throats, bystanders like us should grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the skit. But this goes deeper. It exacerbates a curious aspect of our justice system. In other climes, trial by media disrupts prosecution; obviously it is not too different here when one looks at the way the so-called anti-corruption war has been prosecuted.
An IG may owes his promotion to the man who appoints him, but the police as a federal institution should give its loyalty to the people it is expected to serve and protect. A police head worth its salt should sacrifice its own survival interest for the protection of the sanctity of the institution and professionalism. It is the universal expectation. The police as an institution have not lived up to its expectation in intelligence gathering and crime fighting a lacuna that impedes its role of securing lives and property. Its sloppiness has impeded the successful prosecution of crimes and criminality as demonstrated in Offa and elsewhere. The police might have redeemed it’s image with the arrests so far made in the Offa incident; it relapses into mockery and jeopardizes successful prosecution if it continues to politicise investigations even of a loathed member of the ruining elite. The police should not be seen to be anybody’s attack dog or project itself in a way that exposes manifest subterfuge and outright manipulation.
The way and manner our police rushes to the media with contrived information obviously obtained under duress and without a thought to the outcome of prosecution accounts for why people have lost interest in its operational credibility. The leaked audio recording of the Offa robbery suspects; the contrived questioning using the media questions the credibility of both the police and the media.
In the three cases cited here, all the maligned gave advance warning of a plot to rope them in. No serious prosecutor takes its hard-earned evidence to the media; they meticulously prepare their case file for presentation to courts of law, careful not to have judges throw away their case before it has reached trial. This should be the norm whether the suspect is a serf or a king. We do not have to like Saraki or any of his friends in the sinnate to agree to universal truth. Justice is not served when journalists are made to secure conviction in the court of public opinion rather than in the courts of law.
The press should not allow itself to be used to malign individuals or impugn the character of suspects before a court has heard them. This drama is bad for the ‘confessing’ masterminds as it is for the investigator/prosecutors; it destroys the impartiality of the media and makes suspects guilty before trial. We must strive to have a police that is insulated from political interference; one that could do its work without covert internal or external manipulation.
Media managers must re-examine the unwholesome dalliance between its reporters and the police. The media has no business being used as attack dogs for politicised institutions. Its duty is to put institutions on their toes and protect transparency. The media has no dog in this fight. An independent media that asks the right questions is the foundation for the survival of the nation and its democratic institutions.