Act and Deny: An infamous means of governance in Nigeria today

BY STANLEY ALIEKE

It is no news that the governments of the world claim to do no wrong even when they are caught in the act. Governments have the public relation department where their jobs are to create propaganda, paint the image of the government to be perfect before the masses, and counter every bad publicity or any publicity against the government.

The Nigerian government has taken this public relations game to another level; they make sure that they prove that the government does no wrong and whatever decision (whether good or bad) taken by the government is for the good of the masses. So, when the government is caught pants down, the strategy employed is denial, dissociate, pass the blame, and push the buck ‘system of governance’.

‘The government is not aware…, the government disassociates itself from…, etc’. These are some of the starting phrases of the denial statements issued by the government whenever they have messed up.

When the government denies or disassociates from the act, the subordinates that carried out the act that the government has already denied will claim that they acted from the instructions and directives from the top or that they mistook the instruction. They will all keep passing blame and pushing the buck around till everyone forgets and move on.

Recent instance; on October 29, 2021, it was in the news that the members of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), State Security Service (SSS), and the members of the Nigerian police force, all working on the instruction of the attorney-general and minister for justice, obtained a search warrant from the magistrate court to search the house of Her Lordship, Mary Odili, the second most senior justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and the wife of the former governor of Rivers state, Peter Odili.

The search warrant carries no name and bears the wrong address of the house to be conducted a search on, which makes the warrant void ab initio (but let’s leave this for another day). They claimed to have coincidentally found themselves in the house of the honorable justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria to execute the search warrant.

The purpose of the search is still unknown; whether it was politically motivated or they are just doing their jobs or it was an honest mistake, whichever it is, everybody associated with the failed search has denied it or claimed ignorance of it, which is pointing to the fact that something is wrong somewhere and the purported search conducted was way out of line.

The magistrate court revoked the search warrant, claiming the court was misled (the court denied being aware of the purpose of the warrant), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released an official statement to that effect, denying knowledge and disassociating themselves from the failed raid, the State Security Services (SSS) also denied participating in the raid when contacted.

The ministry of justice where the purported instruction came from also released an official statement denying knowledge of the raid and disassociating itself from it. The police agency is also cutting itself loose.

It now seems that just like divide and rule is a system of governance employed by the colonial masters during the colonial era, act and deny, shrug your shoulders and claim you are not aware, issue a statement disassociating yourself from the actions, and deny every knowledge of it is also a system of governance in Nigeria at the moment — which has recorded a huge success, starting from the presidency down to the least member of the government.

Stanley Alieke, Esq, can be reached via [email protected]