THE “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY” LEGAL DOCTRINE

NOTE: First published on August 8, 2020. The “Published” date on the tab is the date that it was uploaded on this new site. Though some issues in this piece may still be current (depending on…), this is to avoid mistaking this piece as current news.

This is “No Bullshiting,” by Harry Agina.

Greetings, folks!

If I said it once, I said it a gazillion times, that every doctrine, every ideology, and every PRINCIPLE in the world has two interpretations, two definitions, or two ways. One way is for Nigeria and several Nigerians who live in Nigeria; and, the other way for the rest of the world. Sadly, very often, the nigerian way is fucked-up, criminal, and absolutely  crazy.

 Presently, President Buhari’s APC has completely fucked up the global legal doctrine of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty.” Nigeria has millions of very intelligent and decent persons who can move the country forward without stealing us blind, yet, President Buhari and APC have apparently adopted a policy that rewards crime and criminals. Buhari’s cabinet is full of corruption suspects, as well as persons that have actually been officially indicted for heavy corruption and looting by competent and legitimate panels. To make matters worse, too many of them are very incompetent. Some only got the positions for political settlements, while some were rewarded for reasons such as their roles in rigging elections; and, others were picked for family and ethno-religious favors. Our National Assembly is also full of crooks, majority of whom are APC members.

We ask APC why we have so many convicted crooks and suspected crooks in power? And, the irresponsible excuse from APC is that the convicts were not convicted in Nigeria, hence, they are not crooks by Nigerian standards. As for the persons who were indicted in Nigeria, APC tells us that “they are innocent until proven guilty.” And, I’m like…get out of town, motherfuckers! All Nigerians (even little children) know that these people are crooks, and already guilty by all reasonable, sensible indisputable implications and evidence. So, whosoever that defends or protects or favors them in any form, is a fucking senseless promoter of crime.

Check out this generic scenario, as I illustrate the criminal bastardization of this doctrine in Nigeria. Of course, I am not really saying anything new that you didn’t know already, but do oblige me anyway:

1. TODAY, a man, Mr. X is very poor, an absolute pauper, if you will. He is just a political thug. Mind you, he actually does have a college degree, but, obviously, that’s not what got him his present means of living as a political thug. He can’t find any other job in this degenerated society. Indeed, he is a political thug only because he needs the five hundred naira that he may receive this day in order to be able to have one meal in the entire day. He has to walk several miles home in order to save transport fare for that meal…
2. TOMORROW comes, and the Mr. X of yesterday is now riding a brand new SUV with tinted glasses…“Whether has changed,” he may quickly tell you. His position as a thug has been elevated quite a bit, and only God knows what he had to do for that elevation…some political murders during elections, perhaps…
3. AFTER MANY TOMORROWS(a year or two later), the same dude has been well rewarded for his “loyalty” to the ruling party. He’s been made the governor of a state, or a federal lawmaker. Mind you, he did not become governor or lawmaker by the will of the people of the society, no, sir!!! He became governor or lawmaker because there is no election in Nigeria; it’s all about who can rig better than the rest…
4. FAST-FORWARD to four years after one tenure as governor or lawmaker (loot-maker); and the assets and bank accounts of Mr. X have suddenly jumped from ABSOLUTE NOTHING four years back, to hundreds of billions of naira

In every sane society of the world, MR. X must show how he got so rich so quick, meeeeeeeen!!!! In the good old US of A, for instance, FBI and Uncle Sam’s Tax Man (the Internal Revenue Service) do not need anybody’s petition to follow Mr. X’s financial activities. The FBI wants to know that his sources are legitimate, and, any noticed suspicious wealth or financial activity is investigated. Indeed, suspicious cash deposits in banks are routinely reported to the FBI. And, as for the Tax Man, he is interested in making sure that Mr. X pays taxes on the new wealth.

This is what EFCC and IRS are supposed to do for Nigeria, perhaps with the aid of the DSS. Instead, our crooks are actually proud and bold to flaunt their stolen wealth and practically rub our noses on them to see how huge their “whether don change.” And, they don’t even pay taxes on the loots. This is all due to APC’s criminal bastardization of the noble “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” doctrine.

Here are some global commonsense factors that PROVE MR. X TO BE GUILTY of stealing, regardless of APC’s evil justice system:

(1) X’S REMUNERATION PACKAGE FOR FOUR YEARS:I can tell you straight out, for instance, that, even with their criminally bloated remuneration packages, no federal lawmaker can save more than one and a half billion legitimate naira (N1,500,000,000) in four years. Let’s cite our higher “paid” loot-makers, the senators, for instance. They are said to be taking home about thirty million naira (N30m) each, every fucking month. Multiply this by 12 months, and we have N360, 000,000 (N360m) per year. Then, multiply this by 4 for the number of years in office, and we have one billion, four hundred and forty million naira (N1,440,000,000) for Mr. X’s entire tenure.

         Now, let’s even pretend that he did not spend one kobo out of his four-year remuneration package; he still should have only about N1,440,000,000 in cash and assets, nothing more. Remember, a law forbids him to do any other business, or make any money with the influence of his office within those four years. Same goes for Mr. X if he was a state governor. There is a limit to his legitimate wealth after four years. But, thanks to The Nigerian Factor, we see Mr. X openly parading convoys of billion-naira vehicles; several mansions worth tens of billions of naira each; and businesses and assets that are worth hundreds of billions of naira.

 We The People whose money was stolen indict Mr. X for his obvious looting spree, but APC tells us that he is innocent until proven guilty. And, I say, okay, true, Mr. X is indeed innocent until proven guilty; so, let’s quickly prove him guilty. After all, to prove most of the indicted persons in Nigeria guilty is not a problem at all, because their crimes are too evil, too greedy, and too childishly planned to pose any problem to any sane law enforcement and judicial system in the world. The problem is that Nigeria’s system is absolutely insane; APC breaks every law in the book to make sure that the indicted crooks will never go to court to be proven guilty. When few of them do appear in court, charged by APC’s own DSS or/and EFCC, no conviction happens, because APC does not want it to happen. Our judiciary is too criminally fucked up, and too much in the control of the APC and its criminality, so, they free the crooks.

(2) CONFLICT OF INTEREST:If Mr. X’s new wealth exceeds his legitimate remuneration package, one common crime other than direct stealing of public funds, is violation of Nigeria’s “Conflict of Interest Law.” If he used his office to enrich himself, he has committed a crime. And, it is also illegal if anybody, whosoever, made money using his name to obtain favors from his government, and paid him kickback. So, whichever way we slice it, Mr. X’s wealth after four years should not exceed N1,440,000,000.

This law is part of what EFCC pursued against Dame Patience Jonathan, and the court did order her forfeiture of some of her assets of unexplainable sources. If pursued to the fullest, Dame Jonathan could have been very easily convicted with prison sentence for using her husband’s position to enriched herself. And, from what I heard about Dame Jonathan, she sure was apparently one First Lady that certainly knew how to fleece people with her husband’s position.

So, here are some moral questions that we must ask APC with its criminal version of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” bullshit:

• How the fuck do we prove Mr. X guilty, when you are shielding him from the law by appointing him into a bigger position, where he can steal even bigger than what we already accuse him of? If we take Godswill Akpabio as Mr. X, he is already being accused of squandering N81 billion, shortly after you shielded him from the law in previous N801 billion indictment. The dude seems to have some spiritual or ritual covenant with the figures ‘8’ and ‘1.’ First, it was N801 billion, and now N81 billion, meeeeeeeen!!!
• Why the fuck do you put Mr. X in your government, thereby destroying the integrity of your person and your government, and, importantly, portraying nigeria to the world as a nation of crooks that cannot find any decent persons to lead us, huh, huh, huh???

The crazy criminal abuse of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” doctrine is the reason that we have Rochas Okorocha in our so-called Hallowed Chamber of the Senate as our senator. What makes his own so fucking crazy is that several assets of Okorocha and his family members have been forfeited to the government, which means that APC and their judges agree that the allegations against him are true. Yet, APC protects him from prosecution and conviction, allowing him to still remain our senator, which contributes to destroy the integrity of our “Hallowed Chamber” in the global community…only in the crazy nigeria, meeeeeeen!!!

For the same madness, we have the heavily indicted Godswill Akpabio as Minister of Niger Delta. And, long before Akpabio, another heavily indicted man, Rotimi Amechi, was the first that Buhari made Minister for using our alleged stolen money to install him as president.

Such persons in APC, Buhari’s government, and our National Assembly, are too many for me to mention here; all for the evil bastardization of the otherwise noble “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” legal doctrine. However, much as I want to keep my examples few, the list cannot be right without the mention of Adams Oshiomhole, another multi-indicted son of the biblical Adam and Eve who brought sin into the world. He’s the one that announced APC’s evil policy to us. He told us that APC forgives sinners, and that was shortly after APC forgave his own multiple indictments and made him National Chairman. APC has protected him and his likes from law and justice ever since…with the same wayo “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” bullshit.

So, in a world where political parties and governments of sane societies run away from convicted criminals and indicted persons like plagues, Nigerian government has virtually made it a policy to acquire crooks and alleged crooks into our executive and legislative branches. Without bullshitting, I conclude that the extreme criminal bastardization of the “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” doctrine makes Buhari’s government the most corrupt in Nigeria since 1999, maybe even before 1999. A man who claims to fight corruption, and clad in a huge toga of integrity, has virtually filled his government with crooks. Yet, some stupid half-baked propagandists continue to tell us that President Buhari is MR. INTEGRITY, because they ain’t got the foggiest idea about the definition of the word. Now, if that ain’t called huge political crazy bullshitting, then, I wonder what is, meeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!!!

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