MY COMMENTS ON COMMENTS ARISING FROM MY ESSAY ON BUHARI'S DICTATORSHIP TENDENCIES
Mr. Kalu Idika Kalu (KIK) wrote:
But this sustained, heckling and taunting, “second guessing” of PMB is summin’g else!
You guys should get down to more ordered, open-minded pursuits, or get lost in total irrelevance in the effort now underway to salvage the polity!
Mr. Stephen Chukwuemeka Uche wrote:
I didn’t see anything wrong in what the President said above that would warrant your criticism, making me wonder when you were home last? In fact, the President could have said the same thing to the Nigerian police, judges, soldiers, doctors, nurses, teachers, university professors, bankers, priests, traditional rulers, etc., etc.
Both commentators were responding to what I wrote which in a summary was that Buhari's speech to the 55th Nigerian Bar Convention to the effect that lawyers should stop protecting their clients no matter the magnitude of the briefs and work with his administration to fight corruption was wrong headed and is a dictatorial tendency.
Each person did not either read through my essay or did not understand what I said. For KIK, I fail to see where I committed the mortal sin of “sustained, heckling and taunting, “second guessing”” Yes my essays on the whole tend to be opposed to President Muhammadu Buhari's words or actions. But at no time have I have heckled (to interrupt (someone, such as a speaker or performer) by shouting annoying or rude comments or questions.- Marian Webster) or taunted (a sarcastic challenge or insult) the President. If he thinks that I did I would like to see the sentence or word or phrase that did either or both.
For Mr. Uche, I think he did not understand any part of what I wrote. His lack of understanding is exhibited by his listing of the professionals that PMB could have addressed in those words. If PMB had indeed addressed university professors or traditional rulers with those words, yes he could be on solid grounds and would win my vote. But he was addressing the Bar Association, an organization the plays UNIQUE roles in the dispensation of justice based on advocacy. To bring this home to Mr. Uche let us consider a situation where Mr. Uche is accused of defrauding the government and he hires an attorney to defend him. He tells his attorney his story and his attorney joins the government and becomes the government witness, in the process of fighting corruption. The system is not supposed to work this way.
If I go to my attorney and confess that I did indeed defraud the government, my attorney would most likely work out a plea bargaining agreement in which I would plead guilty in return for a lighter sentence. This happens all the time. But if I did not confess, my attorney should do his best to save my neck. But what PMB is advising my attorney to do is join in the gang up of his client. This is unacceptable and would always lead to injustice.
I stand by my commentary that PMB was wrong headed. He is trying to bring under his umbrella things that should be separate. A dictator (a person who rules a country with total authority – Mariam Webster) wants to control everything; the lawyers for defense and the lawyers for his government.
Nigeria will be better off without it.
Written by Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba.