The Abubakar US trial: Wrong man, wrong case

By Dolapo Bamigboye

THE case of violation of human rights brought against former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, comes up in a Chicago court, in the United States of America on December 10. The genesis of the unfortunate trial started on February 23, 2001 when the General was honoured with a chair by the Chicago State University in Illinois, United States. But a US-based democracy group, United Democratic Front of Nigeria, filed a lawsuit in Detroit, Michigan against all the surviving heads of state, including General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan and General Abubakar, on the assumption that all Nigeria’s past leaders would be in Chicago to honour Abubakar. Apart from Abubakar, none of these leaders showed up. The arrowhead of this group is Kayode Oladele, a Nigerian lawyer in the US. After some legal fireworks, the case was transferred to Chicago. And the tango has continued.

From the facts laid bare by the counsel to the plaintiffs, Mr. Oladele, the case was initially not against Abubakar and others per se. The primary target was Babangida who the group holds responsible for annulling the June 12, 1993 election. However, since their ‘man’ was not around, they changed gear. General Abubakar became an opportunist target. The group started the case in an absurd manner by including all sorts of names of those it considered as having a grudge against past Nigeria’s heads of state such as Hafsat Abiola, daughter of late MKO Abiola; Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Owens Wiwa, Chief Anthony Enahoro and Arthur Nwankwo. Subsequently, Fawehinmi, Wiwa and some other names had to be dropped. Clearly, what transpired at the initial stage of the case shows that UDFN instituted the case without any advice by any of the listed plaintiffs. Perhaps, the group was initially out to gain international recognition and attention. At the time the suit was instituted, the group was almost in turmoil over disbursement of money allegedly donated to it by the Canadian government. Therefore, the suit against General Abubakar was probably meant to mend the cracked walls of the organisation and serve as a rallying point.

The other agenda of the Oladele-led group was to get $100 million from whoever was interested in saving Abubakar from the ‘embarrassment’. But he got it wrong: neither Abubakar nor his ‘friends’ would fall for it. Unfortunately for them, the case which they thought would be over within a few months has dragged on for years.

Let’s come to think of it, do these so-called plaintiffs have a case against General Abubakar? Candidly, they don’t. First of all, should Abubakar be held responsible for what his predecessor(s) did? He was barely in government for less than a year. And most of the grievances of the plaintiffs happened before he became head of state. In Hafsat’s case, she is claiming damages for the wrongful death of her mother and the accompanying emotional stress. It is doubtful if she could convince the court about General Abubakars’s involvement, given the way the case has gone so far.

As for Nwankwo, it appears General Abubakar is in a win-win situation, because of Nwankwo’s inability to prove that General Abubakar was responsible for his arrest and detention. So far, nobody has been able to show proof of the damages suffered.

Out of the three, it is only Chief Enahoro who is yet to explain how he suffered damages or how Abubakar was part of the problem that sent him on self-exile. Yet it was this same Abubakar that implored all those on self-exile to return home and instructed the attorney-general to enter a nolle prosecui in favour of all human rights activists who were facing one criminal case or the other. Beneficiaries of this directive include Senator Bola Tinubu, two-time governor of Lagos State; Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (retd) who later became the country’s ambassador to Russia; and nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka among others. The suit, indeed, is just like calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Their burden of proof is to convince the judge that General Abubakar was involved in any case of human rights abuse or violation during his about one-year stint as head of state.

But, does the Chicago court have the jurisdiction to handle the case? Lawyers have argued that since the complaints of the plaintiffs did not take place on American soil nor was the defendant living in America, definitely, the plaintiffs do not have any case. Though there are ‘The Alien Tort Claims Act’ and later ‘Torture Victim Protection Act’ which allows foreigners to institute a suit in the US against a tort committed against them outside the country, this is after the complainant must have exhausted all the alternative remedies in the foreign country. So, could the UDFN and its group be said to have done this? Not at all. Their claim is that the Nigerian judiciary is inept, corrupt, timid and lacking in independence, among others.

Moreover, what should be understood here is that the case is all about the Nigerian nation even if General Abubakar is, for now, the only party. The lawsuit is questioning the integrity of the Nigerian judiciary. While the Financial Times and the Chicago Bar Journal have continued to question why the US is stretching itself beyond its proper jurisdiction, the reports of the suit in the Nigerian press have been very sensational. Some sections of the Nigerian media have been reporting the case as if it is a criminal case, which it is not. There is not going to be a “guilty or not guilty” verdict as being reported. A situation whereby journalists serialise the so-called plaintiffs’ lawyers’ response to the defence lawyer’s observation as if it were a ruling of the American Supreme Court is not only misleading and unethical, but also unpatriotic.

Although some past Nigerian military governments have wreaked havoc on Nigeria’s body politic and Nigerians, one sympathises with the Abiola family for the tragedy they suffered in the loss of the patriarch of the family, particularly Hafsat, who lost both parents. But sentiments apart, the situation of the trial in the US calls for reason and logic. Abubakar should not be used as a scapegoat. He did his best for the country and the accolades he has received and is still receiving should be appreciated by all. US court or not, Abubakar is a wrong man being tried in a wrong case.

- Bamigboye sent this article from Akure, Ondo State.