By Valentine Obienyem
I came across a post on the Facebook page of my friend, Chijioke Precious, SAN. He did not write it merely to inform, but to invite reflection – that nobler function of thought through which truth slowly reveals itself. Permit me, then, to share and ponder its hidden message.
First, let us summarise the learned SAN’s post: Following threats from inmates, two police officers have been stationed beside former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cell at Paris’s La Santé prison. The 70-year-old, serving a five-year sentence for raising campaign funds from Libya, described his first night as ‘frightening,’ prompting an investigation and added security.
Beneath its cold lines lies the warmth of civilisation: a society that has learned to hold even its kings answerable to the same laws that bind the peasant. France, like other mature nations, has built a moral architecture where no man, however exalted, stands above justice.
Going by the history of France, the nation has indeed endured many political upheavals along its tortuous path. From the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte to the restoration of the Bourbons, and from the extravagance of its queens to the fires of revolution they helped ignite, France has passed through storms that ultimately shaped its modern conscience.
Across the world, similar stories echo. In South Korea, two former presidents – Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak – were imprisoned for corruption and abuse of power. In Israel, Ehud Olmert, once the nation’s head of government, exchanged the corridors of power for a prison cell. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was condemned for corruption before destiny, and the people, restored him. In China, the once all-powerful Zhou Yongkang was brought low by the same state he had ruled. In South Africa, Jacob Zuma, hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, was not spared when he defied the law.
In these examples lies a moral symmetry – the kind that suggests civilisation begins not with buildings or machines, but with the subordination of power to principle. It is sustained when leaders realise that they are not above their countries.
Now let us turn our gaze homeward. In Nigeria, the same crimes flourish like wild grass in the rainy season, yet the reapers of justice are blind. Our prisons overflow with the poor, while the rich dine like Lucullus at the banquets of impunity.
Who was Lucullus? A Roman general of courage and conquest who, after years of war, exchanged the rigours of the camp for the softness of luxury. His feasts were so lavish that his name- Lucullan – became a byword for extravagance. When Cicero once teased him about his indulgence, Lucullus replied proudly, “Today, Lucullus dines with Lucullus.”
So too in Nigeria: our public officers, having plundered the commonwealth, withdraw into a Lucullan peace – dining richly upon the spoils of their own corruption. Of course they are always above the laws of the land.
Ours is a country that adores even its worst leaders. Agencies created to fight corruption often end as instruments of vengeance or bargaining chips in political chess. Justice in Nigeria moves with lightning speed against the weak, but limps like an aged pilgrim when the accused wears the robe of privilege.
The ancient Scythian sage, Anacharsis, once said that “laws are like spiders’ webs; they catch the small flies, but let the big ones break through.” The centuries have not dimmed the wisdom of that saying. In Nigeria, our legal system glistens in the sun, but its beauty is deceitful. It catches the petty thief and the market woman, but the grand looter, swollen with public wealth, tears through it with ease – and even grace.
The tragedy is not merely legal; it is moral. Every time a hungry youth is jailed for stealing a loaf of bread while a politician accused of stealing billions walks free, we announce to the world that our nation reveres theft when it is grand, and punishes it only when it is small.
Walk through Abuja or any of our great cities. Behold our monuments, our streets, our airports – most of them bear the names of men whose deeds were a wound upon the nation’s conscience. We celebrate them because they once held power, not because they used it well.
What irony! Some of those whose names adorn our landmarks seized power through coups, annulled constitutions, and ruled by decree. They silenced dissent, squandered fortune, and corrupted our moral soil. In a just world, such names would inspire solemn remembrance, not veneration. Yet we immortalise them in marble and concrete – as if to mock Nigerians.
This inversion of values teaches our youth a cruel lesson: that to be remembered in Nigeria, one must first have betrayed her. Our honours, our institutions, our monuments are testimonies of usurpations.
In France, a former president sits behind bars – a message to the living that power does not sanctify wrongdoing. In Nigeria, those who have plundered the nation are serenaded in songs, celebrated in ceremonies, and embalmed in stone.
Perhaps one day, when our collective conscience awakens, we shall build a society where even the mighty fear the law; where power bows to justice; and where honour, once lost, cannot be bought back with monuments.
Until then, Sarkozy sits in prison – and Nigeria, still free of justice, remains in chains.
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