"The North" is angry. No reader of the Weekly Trust of Friday 29^th December, 2000 with the blazing headlines "Controversy Over Faseun Release" is left in doubt of that fact. The Weekly Trust is the barometer of the North's political climes, the thermometer of its political temperature and the reliable mirror which reflects the most pervasive sentiments among northern people. For this reason, one is highly disturbed, since the anger of the north today is not only baseless, but likely to lead to long-term political disaster.

The greatest irony of the situation the government finds itself in is that it is the somewhat anti climatic result of its orchestrated exposure of proceedings before the Oputa panel. The objective of that soap opera was to reveal to Nigerians the extent of the brutality and ruthlessness with which our past leaders treated citizens. The result, at least as far as the Lagos sessions were concerned, fell far short of expectations.

For detainees like Mustapha and Bamaiyi, the sittings were more than an opportunity to stretch their legs and breathe the air of freedom, albeit fleetingly. At the end of the sessions, El-Mustapha left the populace with an image more of brilliance than of cruelty; Bamaiyi was a "democratic mole" in Abacha's government, whose support for complete withdrawal of the military from politics made him suspect in his own administration and a target of adverse security reports not to talk of his present predicament; Diya turned up like a complete nincompoop who planned a coup that failed from day one, who knelt and cried and begged like a baby and, to add salt to injury, denied before the world TV evidence of his disgraceful conduct; Adisa capitalized Diya's fibbing and captured some moral high ground: By conducting himself with an affectation of truthfulness, he was at least able to garner some of the respect Diya had lost, even if many were not inclined towards sympathy.

But by far the greatest coup of the sessions was that planned and executed to perfection by Bamaiyi. Out of nowhere, in his statements, the crafty general introduced a graphic description of his ordeal vis a vis that of OPC leader Frederick Faseun and succeeded in creating the impression that he was a victim of his "northernness" at the hands of a Lagos State Government determined to promote the interests of the descendants of "Oduduwa" against "Gambaris".

Bamaiyi's statement threw Lagos State Government on the defensive. The government has had to issue long Press Statements and take out paid advertisements to clear its name. The State Governor, Bola Tinubu, with characteristic haste, responded with Chicagoan ineloquence to what he saw as a personal swipe. About the same time, the governments of Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi States issued a joint statement condemning the continued detention of their "sons" (Bamaiyi, Abacha, Yakubu and El-Mustapha )while Faseun was released. The Kano State government followed suit. Sule Lamido, our foreign minister (in case you have understandably forgotten we have one) added his weight (or rather, weightlessness) to these voices (some say he is clairvoyant and has seen the president's new-year ministerial list). And now the Weekly Trust, the respected voice of the north has articulated this grievance and brought it up for public discourse. In the sudden emergence of this wave of sympathy the hidden hand of Abacha acolytes who benefited from the plunder of this nation's treasury and who continue to walk in the corridors of power can not be ruled out. Too many governors and ministers, federal and state legislators and party bigwigs fall into this category to be ignored. Yet, unpalatable as it may end up being, this attempt to turn the trial of Abacha et al into an "anti-North" agenda, or to turn those persons into heroes of the North and/or Islam must be exposed for what it is: a self-serving attempt at hoodwinking the North, and dragging it once more into the abyss of moral decadence, sacrificing the values for which it is known on the altar of myopic political goals. What are the issues?

First, there is no logical comparison between the OPC mayhem, for which Faseun is alleged to have some responsibility, and the crimes for which these characters are being tried. The Lagos mayhem is one of a pattern that has taken place all over the country particularly since Obasanjo came to power. There were similar occurrences in Sagamu, Kano, Kaduna, Umuleri, etc. The failure to stop these massacres and bring anyone to book is an indictment of the security apparatus of this government and evidence of the incompetence of our president as Chief Security Officer, Afolabi (the Internal Affairs Minister), Musiliu Smith (the Inspector General of Police), Bola Ige (Attorney-General) and the head of SSS. What the North, and the nation, are faced with is the stark incompetence of the man chosen by northern politicians as the messiah destined to lead this country to the promised land. The point here is that the Lagos mayhem and its aftermath can not be judged by any standards higher or lower than the mayhems in Kano, Kaduna, Onitsha and other parts of this country. In spite of the fact that religious groups played a role in the religious crises in Kaduna, for instance, leaders of CAN and JNI were not prosecuted for murder. This is the logical parallel to Faseun's case, not the case of Bamaiyi and Abacha. Indeed, were we to pursue a logical course of reasoning, what we should ask is why Ibrahim Coomassie, Abacha's Inspector-General of Police, for instance is still walking free inspite of the damning revelations of erstwhile Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Abubakar Tsav.

Second, Abacha, Mustapha and Bamaiyi are held for specific murders or attempted murders of Nigerians. For northerners who are Muslims, it is important to remember that Kudirat Abiola was a devout Muslim wife who abided by Allah's injunction on standing by her Muslim husband at all times. She was murdered in cold blood. One of the cases being investigated is the murder of Shehu 'Yar Adua, a Muslim, and chairman of the Islam in Africa Organization, through what is suspected to be injection of murderous substances into his system. In any event, Islam respects sanctity of life, Muslim or non-Muslim. These and other dastardly crimes were committed by, or on the orders of, people who lack a fear of God and whose hunger for power and ill-gotten wealth knew no bounds. They were not acts committed in the name of the North or Islam, in the interest of the North or Islam or in keeping with the moral standards of the North or Islam. Not one of their accusers has insinuated that their act reflects the values and political strategy of northerners and Muslims, unless one were to give undeserved hearing to the vacuous soliloquy of Lam Adesina , Oyo State’s tribalistic Chief Executive. The governors of "Shariah States" who now support these suspected criminals do so in gross violation of the clear guidelines of the Qur'an and the Shariah they claim to implement. The Quran explicitly enjoins Muslims to be steadfast in justice, true witnesses to God, even against themselves, their parents and close relations, rich or poor.

Finally, the attempt to make these suspected criminals the substance of a "Northern" issue constitutes evidence of political insomnia. The reason the north is in its present political predicament, out of power and seemingly boxed in by enemies weakened and marginalized, is precisely the activity of these persons when they were in power. The silence of the north at that time made it possible for those who, in the best of times, could never seriously aspire to leadership, to capture the moral high ground. The North's path back to power does not lie in moral bankruptcy, but in a return to the path of moral rectitude. The first step is to wash our hands off these characters and allow them to face the fate Allah has written for them, and work with other Nigerians to ensure that never again, from the north or anywhere, shall a group of people visit upon families in this country the suffering visited upon many innocent Nigerian families by Abacha, his family and their security men. It is only in this way that we can affirm our own lack of complicity in those actions and denounce those who seek to paint us all as thieves and murderers. Those politicians who were part of the system and benefited from those crimes must have the courage to speak as individuals, not as spokespersons for the north or Islam.

This is the only path of sanity.

The writer is a manager at United Bank for Africa, Lagos