Judges, Abduction And Puerile Lies From DSS

By Okechukwu Anakudo

Regardless of your political affiliation, if you have any stake in the country called Nigeria, last Friday night's abduction of Judges of the high Court, appeal court and Supreme Court by Operatives of the Nigeria Secret Police known as the DSS over allegation of corruption should give every Nigerian a cause for concern. The barbaric manner the whole operation was conducted suggests that rather than an attempt to cleanse the judiciary of corrupt Judges, it was a clear case of vendetta by the Muhammadu Buhari-led executive arm of the government against another independent arm. A betting man would bet that this is nothing but a ploy to get back at some judges who have given unfavourable judgements against the APC like in the elections petition cases, the DSS as in the case of Nnamdi Kanu where Justice Ademola ordered the DSS to release the IPOB leader unconditionally and the Executive arm of government in general like the ongoing corruption cases where judges have refused to do Buhari's bidding of jailing suspects even without enough evidence.

Personally, I am not even pained by the actual act of breaking the doors to the houses of sitting Judges and abducting them in the middle of the night as much as I am pained by the moronic, imbecilic, idiotic and puerile defense put up by the DSS as justification for their action. If the DSS guys had not insulted our intelligence further with that trash they released in the name of press statement to justify their action, I would have just taken this as just another of Mr Buhari's tyranny. But no, the DSS had to prove they actually think our brains are all in recession by releasing that bundle of badly constructed, terribly packaged puerile lies known as press statement.

Let's look at the so called defense put up by the DSS:

First, they said it was a sting operation, yet, thesame DSS claimed the affected Judges have been previously invited to their offices and questioned.

I am putting it to the DSS that it is either they do not know the meaning of a sting operation or they think we, Nigerians, do not know the meaning.

For avoidance of doubt, a sting operation is a deceptive operation aimed at catching a person in the act of committing a crime. It usually involve a law enforcement officer or a cooperative member of the public posing as a criminal partner or a potential victim to the targeted 'suspect' with a view to encouraging the target to go on with the criminal act so he could be caught in a red-handed position committing the crime. This method is commonly used by the FBI with recorded audio and video evidence of the said target committing the said crime.

There are two things we need to take out here: One is that it is designed primarily to catch the target in the act of committing the said crime with more than enough audio and video evidence such that even if you were to allow the suspect try himself as the judge, he will have no choice but to convict himself due to the volume of watertight evidence at your disposal. And two, the targets are never aware that they are even under investigation. If you tip the target off by inviting him for questioning before or in the middle of the sting operation, you will have defeated the purpose of the operation as such a target will now take extra measures to cover his track having known you are now on his trail.

From the above, it can be deduced that it is either the DSS were lying to themselves or they were lying to us. Either way, they were not being honest when they claimed the illegal arrest of the Judges was part of a sting operation and still claimed the judges had been previously invited for questioning in their offices.

Does it not strike anyone as odd that the DSS claimed to have surveilled those judges for months, yet, they ended up raiding the wrong house and beating up an innocent man before realising the warrant they had was for another house??

Also in that press statement, the DSS claimed that the unnamed Portharcourt Judge had $2million in his house even when they clearly stated that the River state governor, Nyesom Wike and his group prevented them (the DSS) from gaining access to the Judge's house and later moved the money.

You are the DSS. You came to Portharcourt to arrest a judge in a Gestapo style at an ungodly hour. The governor being the chief security officer of the state mobilized people and stopped you from carrying out your roguery. You were denied access to the Judge's house. Yet, somehow, you still knew the judge had $2m in his house which was later moved by the governor and "a sister agency" (the police) according to you. This is the 8th wonder of the world!

How did the DSS manage to count the money to know it was $2m since they were prevented from entering the house??

Quite frankly, this would be fantastically funny if it wasn't such a crying shame.

It takes a man whose brain has been in recession from birth to believe these puerile lies from the DSS.

Since the DSS which is statutorily in charge of crimes and actions bothering on national security has become the EFCC responsible for corruption cases, when is the agency moving against President Buhari's chief of staff; Abba Kyari who allegedly collected N500million bribe to help MTN reduce their fine?? When will the DSS conduct another sting operation against the SGF who used 270million just to cut grasses growing around hunger-ravaged malnourished IDPs?? Or has the DSS not heard those cases?

No amount of sophistry will obliterate the fact that the action of the DSS is criminal. You don't invade people's homes in the middle of the night, break their doors as though you were a criminal gang, subject their innocent wives and children to emotional trauma before abducting them only to start bandying around outrageous and mind-blowing figures as the amount you recovered from the criminal operation and expect Nigerians to roll out the drum for you. You cannot break one law to enforce another law. You cannot knowingly break the law and hope that mentioning earthquakic figures will blind us to your thuggery. It doesn't work that way. Luckily for me, I don't even have a door. So if they come to abduct me, they won't see any door to break neither will they see any brother to manhandle.

Democracy is all about procedures. There are laid down Procedures in handling cases of corruption cases involving Judges.
The judiciary is an independent arm of govt. As the DSS, you are a branch of the Executive. If you have a case against any judge, you petition the NJC. It is the NJC that will look into the matter and if it deems your case credible enough, it will retire that judge compulsorily and recommend him/her for prosecution. That is only when you the DSS or the police can institute criminal proceedings against the said Judge.

The biggest tragedy in all of these is hearing some so called youths utter garbage like, "what is a judge doing with $2m in his house?"

Those mentally retarded intellectually malnourished simpletons have not seen any $2million ooo. They just heard the DSS say it and that is all. No proof that any money was even recovered and was actually recovered from those judges. All we have is the word of the DSS and nothing more. Yet, those intellectually kwashiorkored youths are already jumping up and down calling for the heads of those Judges.

These are thesame gullible lots who believed 90million pounds was recovered from Diezani Allison Madueke, Billions of naira recovered from a soakaway pit in the house of one service chief, another billions recovered from ex governors in Dubai and yet another billions upon billions of naira recovered from looters but before the eyes of these gullible youths, thesame govt that claimed to have recovered all these monies is now crying that the country is broke.

How gullible can some people be??

This govt knows we have so many gullible youths who would swallow anything hook, line and sinker as long as they hear "corruption" and "billions" or "trillions". So after hearing the condemnation that trailed their action, the DSS quickly went to their coven and came back with their normal line of, "We recovered so so and so billions of naira and millions of dollars in the houses of these judges".

Supposedly well lettered adults want me to believe that learned Justices of the highest court in the land would be so dumb to collect bribe from politicians in hard currencies and still leave those monies in their houses even when they were supposed to know the DSS was on their trail having previously invited them for questioning as claimed by the Agency.

Honestly, some people need to have their certificates withdrawn and the awarding institutions sanctioned.

While you are celebrating this idiocy, just pause and ask yourself: If Justices of the Supreme Court can be humiliated in this manner by the DSS just on mere suspicion, what kind of treatment do you think you, an ordinary man will get from thesame DSS??

Just so we are clear, no one is saying there is no corruption in the judiciary or that corrupt judges should not be prosecuted. All I am saying is that this particular operation by the DSS doesn't seem like an operation against corrupt Judges.

The Buhari govt should stop trying to fool us with the sham that is the anti-graft war. When this govt wants to fight corruption, we will know. For now, it is still aiding and abetting corruption by friends, families and close associates of president Buhari.

Who released ex-governor Timipre Sylva's 148 houses to him after withdrawing all corruption cases against him simply because he donated generously to Buhari's presidential campaign?? Who defended general Buratai after SaharaReporters exposed his Dubai properties?? Who aided and abetted illegal recruitments into CBN, FIRS etc?? Who is protecting Justice Okon Abang??

C'mmon, we are no fools! When this hurricane that is the Buhari-led APC govt wants to fight corruption, we will know. For now, he is doing a great job destroying all the critical institutions upon which democracy rests.

Gradually, Buhari is making Tyrants like Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler and others look like saints. Even Stalin's Russia wasn't this bad.

The legislature has since been bullied into submission. Now it is the turn of the judiciary. When he's done destroying the two arms of govt that are supposed to checkmate his tyranny, he will now proceed to running the country like a full-blown dictatorship.

I've said it before and it bears repeating now, democracy died with the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as the President of a 21st century Nigeria.

Argue all you want, lie to yourself if it makes you feel better, call me prophet of doom if that will help cure the recession but the truth remains that this country will never survive Buhari's 4 year tenure. This is less than 2years ooo. Ask yourself, if it is this bad when we have not even reached half of his 4 year term, how will it be by the time we get to 2019? By the end of Buhari's 4 year term in 2019, if we all don't die of hunger before then, we would be too weak trying to afford one 'unsquare' meal a day that we won't even have the strength to ask Buhari to respect our laws.

Indeed, there was a country called Nigeria!!