The log in your eye

BY HASSAN GIMBA

There is a phrase that has gained widespread currency across the world: “Physician, heal thyself.”

Not many know it is a biblical proverb and a direct quote from Jesus (AS). He said, “You will surely say to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself’: do here in your country what we have heard was done in Capernaum.”

This phrase is similar to another quote from Jesus in Matthew 7:3-5: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.”

Unfortunately, instead of adhering to these timeless exhortations by Jesus (AS), those who are supposedly his acclaimed adherents feel they are too important to heed such urgings and the laws of their lands because they are The Chosen, God’s Favourites!

They consider themselves “different”—people with specially created souls—while viewing the rest of us as “goyim”; people without souls, fabricated to serve them. While they make the law and its custodians bow and tremble before them, we are held spellbound in front of those custodians who trade justice to the powerful and the highest bidder while trampling over us, hewers of wood and drawers of water, the wretched of the earth.

This is why some individuals, who can at best be described as “accidental” leaders, forget that they are where they are courtesy of God, who grants such positions to whom He wishes—not because they are any better than the next person.

With their heads in the clouds, their brains supplanted with those of donkeys, and therefore insensate to citizens’ sufferings, some of these leaders keep braying their right to ride roughshod over the laws but cry foul when they find themselves on the receiving end.

About two weeks ago, I had cause to call out a governor – who, but for Atiku Abubakar, would have been defeated by a political Amazonian – for accusing some people in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of “bastardising” democracy. In contrast, he is shamelessly in cahoots with those blinded by the love of filthy lucre and inordinate ambition to destroy the party that made them what they are.

As if that drama was not enough, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) last week regaled us with tales that the Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara was not obeying court orders and, therefore, peace would continue to elude the state.

He declared: “I was a governor; I have always obeyed the rule of law. You heard the governor say that our state is turning into a state of anarchy where people do not obey the rule of law.

“You must obey the judgement of the court. You must not take the law into your hands. The moment you don’t obey court judgement, you are inviting anarchy; you are inviting violence,” Wike said on national television. But has Wike always obeyed the lawful orders of the court—especially in a country where living above the law is the true mark of a big man?

For the record, Wike was one of the best governors at obeying court orders in the breach, and now, as minister, he is behaving true to type.

In 2018, Governor Wike disobeyed the court’s judgement to pay teachers their salaries immediately. In February 2016, he stopped the salaries of almost 300 primary and secondary school teachers working in the demonstration schools of Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, and Ken Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic, leading to litigation and protests.

The National Industrial Court of Nigeria, on June 26, 2018, granted the reliefs sought by the teachers, holding that the teachers’ employment was valid. It ruled that the stoppage of the payment of their salaries by the state government was unlawful and awarded the cost of ₦2 million to the claimants, to be paid within 30 days.

The government of Wike appealed the industrial court judgement at the Court of Appeal, which struck it out in October 2020. One year later (making it five years), the Rivers State government had not obeyed the court judgement.

Or is it about choosing which court to obey? In August 2016, Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, issued an interlocutory order postponing the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) convention until September 7. However, Wike did not like it and obtained another judgment from a Port Harcourt High Court, allowing the convention to proceed.

In May 2024, a claimant in an Abuja High Court case asked that the minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and the director of the Federal Capital Development Authority, Mukhtar Galadima, be imprisoned for disobeying court orders.

Still, in another legal notice, the defendants were put on alert that they must provide reasons why an order of attachment should not be issued for “an order for committal to prison of the 3rd and 4th defendants/contemnors, represented by Nyesom Wike and Mukhtar Galadima, for having disobeyed the order of this court made on the 18th day of October 2023 enjoining and restraining them from tampering with the rest of this matter pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.”

The matter was an offshoot of demolition activities in Abuja.

Yet, in October 2023, despite a court ruling, Wike ordered the demolition of a multi-billion-naira property next to Gbajabiamila’s residence. The property, owned by Shrodder Nigeria Limited, is located in the Cadastral Zone of Maitama District.

Just a month later, the National Industrial Court in Abuja began contempt proceedings against Minister Wike and others over the alleged disregard of a series of court orders. The court had affirmed Faruk Abubakar as managing director and chief executive officer of Abuja Markets Management Limited (AMML), while the minister refused to accept him.

In Form 48 marked NICN/ABJ/62/2023 and filed on November 3, entitled: “Notice of Consequences of Disobedience to Order of Court,” the application read: “Take notice that unless you (the defendants) obey the orders and directions contained in the judgement of a court on July 20 and the order of this Honourable Court made on July 26, you will be guilty of contempt of court and will be liable to be committed to prison.”

To be continued.