When Pontus Pilate stood in the judgment hall as the representative of the ‘civilized’ world and the Roman empire on Friday morning, April 7, A.D. 30, faced the Jewish council of elders and effectively declared, for the third time, that after examining Jesus he found that he was innocent of the charges were brought against him, Pilate was offering an opportunity for redemption from a self-imposed and self-inflicted moral, spiritual, and societal decadence to which the rulers of the Jewish people (not the ordinary people who believed in Jesus as a prophet and teacher) had subjected the nation.

Indeed, when Pilate, still trying to steer the crazed mob towards sanity offered to release Jesus – or Barabbas -- through the customary amnesty that was exercised during that time of religious convocation, to his consternation and amazement the crazed Jewish elders demanded that he release Barabbas, an armed robber and brigand, into their custody rather than Jesus -- at worst a philosopher and at best a teacher of divine truth. The crowd went further to cast all caution to the wind by demanding Jesus be crucified and declaring at the same time: "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children." By A.D. 70, Titus, the Roman general, had razed to the ground, decimated, and subjugated the ancient land whose people were scattered to the four winds of the heaven.

History has shown that the descendants of the Jewish people have not fared very well since those events, and even today, there is evidence of the inherited gloom and doom that the erstwhile fathers bequeathed upon their children in the wake of that dark and avoidable episode.

I find that there is a parallel, albeit a small one, between that ancient history and what is happening now in Nigeria under the present PDP-led administration. If Jesus personified in some way the best and the purest values and the virtue that the Jewish people of the time had the opportunity to embrace and entrench in their psyche and culture, does not genuine democracy and the rule of law that the most civilized and prosperous nations today espouse represent the challenge for Nigeria – indeed, for Africa as a whole -- in this century?

Pilate was amazed how a people could be so fastidious about securing the recipe for their own self-destruction by preferring a clear criminal to a clearly innocent and just man under the laws of the day, regardless of what that would portend for theirs and succeeding generations.

Similarly, I sense that presently the Western world is becoming very uncomfortable and uneasy about the policy of Obasanjo’s administration to court and provide sanctuary to an indicted war criminal in the person of Charles Taylor, despite overwhelming circumstantial and other evidence of brigandage, genocide, thievery, avarice, and corruption perpetrated by this man and his surrogates during his time as warlord and then President of Liberia. Charles Taylor clearly represents as much a threat to the peace and security of Nigeria and the West-African sub-region as Barabbas did to the province of Judea and Samaria during the reign of Pontus Pilate. Yet, with four and an-half years time to practice and imbibe democratic values, redeem the society of corruption, avarice, crime, and unconstitutionality and poverty, this administration has instead squandered all the good will it received from around the world and within Nigeria at the advent of this present democratic experiment in 1999.

Indeed, the Nigerian people gladly embraced democracy, but her leaders did not. The political leadership of Nigeria, in particular the presidency, has ensured the emasculation of the National Assembly, the Judiciary, ASUU, and are now putting the NLC in their cross-hairs as the next target. When the former National Assembly wanted to exercise democracy by impeaching a renegade President, the "elders of the Jewish people" in our midst began to cry like they did to Pilate that they were threatening the "nascent democracy." One governor from the Southwest even went as far as suggesting that some of the legislators were collaborating with the military to truncate democracy. All when they were, indeed, exercising their democratic right.

The "elders" preferred "Barabbas," i.e. armed robbery, instead of a decent, forthright, and transparent electoral process that would ensure Nigeria’s stability and prosperity. Certain notable persons preferred the "Barabbas" of tribalism to calling a spade a spade when the elections that were clearly fraught with intimidation, coercion, ballot-box stuffing and other forms of rigging were concluded. One can hardly believe that the NLC leadership for whom we have so much empathy today were the very people who certified that the 4/19 elections were ‘generally free and fair," when other reputable and neutral monitors certified that they "did not meet minimum standards for democratic elections anywhere in the world."

When certain Nigerians were calling for the Georgian treatment for the illegal administration, they were immediately branded ‘demons’ and every diabolical name imaginable. Some even described them as a "bad case," etc., etc. But just stop for a moment and think of how different Nigeria might have been if all Nigerians regardless of creed, color, code, or communion, collaborated in calling this administration’s bluff by striking that iron when it was still hot. But no, we had to prefer parochial and other interests above the interests of genuine and transparent democracy and the rule of law. Look where that has brought us. Now, everybody is crying and complaining everywhere. When it was time to act, we could not and would not act.

The record, tendency, and direction of the present administration since the 4/19 elections have simply been satanic in almost every form. Almost every step has been wrong and calculated to driving Nigeria deeper into the abyss of infamy, disrepute, and folly. When Chris Uba with his battalion of police orderlies orchestrated what may be called the crime of the year by abducting Governor Ngige (clearly a crime) the PDP said it was a "family affair," and our President said he was "looking to God" (not the courts) for a solution. Since then, it has been constant prevarication and adding of insults to injury under so-called democracy and the rule of law.

By the same token, the president’s spokesperson, Remi Oyo recently described Interpol’s intervention in the Charles Taylor saga as unhelpful and actually described the matter as "a political, not an Interpol affair." Does that rhetoric and logic sound familiar? The other day Mr. Ihonbere, another cabinet level official, was practically foaming at the mouth to denounce the report of Human Rights Watch that indicted Obasanjo’s administration of gross human rights abuses and violation of democratic norms -- in the face of all the evidence in support of the report.

I am not a lawyer, but I still cannot fathom, for example, what geo-strategic, geo-economic, or geo-political benefit Nigeria stands to gain from making Charles Taylor’s handover for trial an international issue and incident. Other ex-heads of state have been forced to stand trial and everyone distanced themselves from them when that time came. Why is Nigeria standing with and by Charles Taylor as the Jews preferred to stand by Barabbas? Why must we always ally ourselves with persons, personifications, or values that debase rather than elevate us in the eyes of others?

To be sure, this is not the decision or preference of the Nigerian people. Just like Jesus’ capture and subsequent events were planned and executed in secret and in haste for fear of the common people, Nigeria’s entire foreign and economic policy is hatched and planned in secret without respecting the views or sensibilities of the citizenry or even their elected representatives. From Charles Taylor’s issue to the matter of deregulation, to COJA, and now CHOGM, none of these issues was open for discussion or review, or even to a pseudo-referendum by public polling systems, etc., by which a sensitive and intelligent government can gauge the mood of the people and take same under advisement in implementing policy.

A commentator in one of the national dailies recently said that the lesson of Georgia was that the security and military apparatus did not take advantage of the crisis to seize power by unconstitutional means. That is very unintelligent and incorrect. The events that led to Eduard Shevarnadze’s resignation were not constitutional. It is not prescribed or contemplated by their constitution that in the event of disquiet and discontent over the conduct and results of an election the opposition may invade parliament or seize control of the state house as was threatened by the protesters.

Notwithstanding, the people were right to do what they did and force the authorities to step down because what transpired under the guise of election was robbery, coupled with the abject poverty and rampant corruption of the ruling elite. However, the difference between what happened in Georgia and what happens in Nigeria (and this is where the writer of that article was in error) is that whereas the Georgian security and military forces had empathy and refused to obey orders to crush the protesters – and to that extent actually supported the threat of unconstitutional usurpation of governmental authority – the Nigerian police and military would jump at the opportunity to brutalize, maim, and kill, innocent civilians, as if they are not suffering the same deprivations. This is the fundamental difference between the Georgian experience and Nigeria’s; it is basically the presence and exercise of humanity and intelligence by the one and the total absence and lack of it in the other.

Contrary to what some people may think, I have not given up on Nigeria; I know that there will be many that will view my comments here as heresy. I have faith that Nigeria is going through a cycle of regeneration and cleansing where the worst of society, values, and governance is being thrown up as the waves of the ocean throw their dirt and rubble onto the beach. When this present administration is removed (one way or another) Nigeria will experience a reign and a time of social sanity and repair where the likes of Obasanjo, Uba, Babangida, etc., will hide themselves in shame, because there will be no place for their kind anymore. This time will surely come.

Peace.

Dec 2003