•Ajaero learns the hard way. He should treat state institutions with utmost respect
Democracy is a web of puzzles, many of them diametric opposites. For instance, which is worse: state impunity or citizen impunity? Both are bad. ..Read Full Article
State impunity leaves the citizens as mere slaves in a territory theoretically their own making. Citizen impunity leaves the state at the mercy of a few. That baits anarchy, and leaves both state and the majority of citizens in jeopardy. Both are terribly bad — and should be avoided.
But this is no tutorial on basic theories of state and governance. It’s rather a good window into the (mis)adventures of Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and Organised
Labour’s wrong-headed whoop that such a brush tears at its collective integrity.
That is acute delusion that borders on arrant hubris. It’s bad for Ajaero as a person; even worse for NLC — and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) — as a collective. The more Organised Labour continues to conflate individual frailties with corporate health, the less they would deliver on their workers’ mandate. Workers need not hold the short end of the stick for the folly of their leaders.
But how did this all start? Maybe it’s better to start from when it grabbed the latest media attention: Ajaero’s arrest by the Department of State Services (DSS) — Nigeria’s secret police — while jetting out to London, on September 9, to attend a UK TUC parley. Ajaero, among his other global peers, was billed to speak there.
On the arrest, there are conflicting claims. A source claimed the DSS had invited Ajaero which he allegedly shunned, only for him to make to travel abroad. But NLC, per Benson Upah, its Head of Information, countered that claim, insisting that both DSS and Ajaero indeed had a mutual understanding on Ajaero’s September 8 travel which, after he missed his flight, he rescheduled for the morning of September 9.
Still, the problem with NLC releases is that it’s always a pot-pourri that you don’t know which is information to inform, which is propaganda to confound. Perhaps that’s the best NLC way to be earnest on all fronts. But it lays itself open to fair charges of muddying the waters, so it could always play the victim.
Besides, if Ajaero had not developed a recent history of choosing — for whatever reasons — to pick when to honour police invitations, the DSS would not have seized on that habit to press its right of lawful arrest which, in any case, is beyond dispute.
As at the last count, Ajaero had delayed a police invite: invited for August 20; honoured the invite for August 29, with all the road razzmatazz that he could do and undo, so long as he had behind him the might of Labour; and the counsel of his battery of lawyers — hardly a crime. In the same token, he is yet to honour a follow-up invite. For both invites, the NLC always made a row it would go on strike should Ajaero be arrested. Pray, is he above the law? Or does he enjoy constitutional immunity? Yet, both have to do with alleged serious security breaches.
In the civic space, those are exceedingly bad conducts, which mock routine security management and administration, failure of which put the rest of us in jeopardy. What security infrastructure worth its name would live with the ruinous optics that its legal powers were in vain, simply because Ajaero is NLC president? What happens if two, three, or four other bodies copy such dangerous conceit?
Without prejudice to facts still unknown on the matter, DSS did well to push its power of lawful arrest. But as NLC itself hinted, that might just have arisen from a watchlist, arising from Ajaero’s most recent see-saw with the police. The DSS was clinical and professional too, during the detention, granting Ajaero administrative bail after.
That’s a good start. But the critical point is fairness. Inasmuch as the DSS — and the open police — have power of lawful arrests, such must be exercised with squeaky fairness. Ajaero — or any citizen for that matter — must be treated with decorum and dignity, whenever they interact with the law. Citizens too must discharge their duties by fully cooperating and aiding proper investigations.
The point is; the law is the law. Obeying the law is mandatory, not optional. So, let Ajaero tell the police what he knows. Let the police themselves play by the rule. If they fail, Ajaero’s lawyers will not fail to claim his rights under the law. Democracy would be nothing without checks and balances that are the soul of due process.
While that re-set goes on, let the NLC purge itself of the arch-delusion of hostile railings, each time the police invite Ajaero. The police cannot sustain trumped-up charges against Ajaero any more than an NLC bluster can spring him if there is solid evidence. So, let Labour face its core mandate of protecting workers as the security agencies do their job of protecting everyone. Any other thing is empty din that helps no one……Read Full Article
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