By Bayo Oluwasanmi
It is not uncommon for cowards to stage different con tactics
to escape all responsibilities for their criminal acts. The most popular and
the most successful one is feigning illness.
Lu Xiang, a Chinese anti-graft prosecutor once told a
Chinese Court that corrupt officials often fake illness to dodge trial. Since
2009, Lu Xiang has handled more than 90 major corruption cases, 17 of which
involved bureau-level cadres, 19 at departmental level, and 47 cases involving
people who had received one million yuan (about $1.26 million) or more in
bribes.
Alan Knight and his wife Helen of Sketty, Swansea, UK came up
with cock-and-bull story to dodge justice. Knight tried to dodge trial for
conning a vulnerable elderly neighbor out of his 41,000 British pounds savings
after he was charged to court in September 2012. The wife Helen Knight, had
claimed her husband couldn't stand trial because he was a quadriplegic.
She even wrote Prime Minister David Cameron to support her
campaign for cops to drop fraud charges against her husband because he was in a
coma. But police found Knight 48, had been on family vacation and shopping
trips during the two years when he was supposed to be in a coma. Alan and his
wife were however sent to jail for pretending Alan was in a “vegetative state”
to escape trial. Alan was jailed for an extra 14 months in addition to a
four-and-a-half year term for fraud.
In 2012 in the Philippines, Renato Corona Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the Philippines was convicted for failure to declare several
high value assets including $2.4 million in foreign currency deposits on his
Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and
Net Worth (SALN). Corona's vain attempt to feign illness did not succeed in securing
his release. The Senate sitting as the Impeachment Court, voted 20 to convict
and 3 to acquit. Corona was the first impeachable official to be successfully
impeached and convicted in Philippine history.
V.D. Savarkar, the brain behind the failed attempt
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, on January 1948 escaped with an acquittal on
the basis of feign illness.
Nigeria is a nation where the big fish swims to escape. Our
history has shown that no high ranking Nigerian government official, minister,
or senior political appointee has ever served commensurate prison time for
corruption while anti-corruption activists often face harassment and arrest.
It's no secret that those the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) had successfully prosecuted in corruption scandals tend to be
low-level public employees whose conviction is unlikely to change the way the
system works. Cases against high-level officials and politicians tend not to
proceed at all, or at best stalled; largely due to political interference,
intimidation, and purchase of judges. Mr. Saraki's case is a painful reminder
of a big fish swimming undisturbed. These corrupt officials have one thing in
common: they use their group's commitment to self-preservation and
self-promotion to their advantage, as a cover for their crimes.
The March 28 Democratic Revolution that brought President
Muhammad Buhari to power is fighting corruption terrorism on all fronts in
Nigeria. The flamboyant former Petroleum Minister Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke,
former National Security Adviser Mr. Sambo Dasuki, and former EFCC Chairman Mr.
Ibrahim Lamorde claimed they are all sick to face trial or scrutiny. Mrs.
Alison-Madueke is “sick of breast cancer” and she's receiving treatment in
London, UK. For now, she cannot face trial at home. Mr. Lamorde few days ago
jetted out of the country to escape appearing before the Senate committee on
ethics, privileges, and public petitions. He was accused of diversion of funds.
His lawyer said he was abroad for medical treatment. Mr. Dasuki was not so
lucky.
Mr. Dasuki was first arrested in July by the State Security
Services (SSS) after a prolonged siege in his Abuja home. He was charged to
court with illegal possession of arms and for stealing $2 billion meant for the
military to fight Boko Haram. Mr. Ahmed Raji SAN, the lead attorney for Mr.
Dasuki pleaded that his client's passport be released to allow him to travel
for three weeks for treatment of his “budding cancer.” Justice Adeniyi Ademola
of the Federal High Court Abuja granted Mr. Dasuki's request for his passport
to be released to enable him receive treatment abroad.
Fuming with anger on the re-arrest of Mr. Dasuki, Justice
Ademola queried: “Court order must be obeyed. What is wrong in the defendant
traveling and coming back to face trial? Only a fit person can stand trial and
investigation. My own orders will not be flouted,” said the angry Justice
Ademola.
Now that Mr. Dasuki has realized that the net is closing in on
him, he too resorts to feigning illness. It is simply not plausible that this
is a real sudden illness striking a major public figure. The fake illness is
essentially to neutralize any further investigation better still, to stall the
case till the second coming of Christ. This is an act of desperation to escape
justice.
The claim that Mr. Dasuki is sick of cancer is a filthy lie.
He's not alone in the game to con 170 million dumb Nigerians. These con artists
operate on lies, vile, deceptions, and murderous fraud. The evidence of their
feign illness is faked – and is particularly supported by the timing of their
sickness. Agreed, any one could fall sick at any time. Sickness doesn't give
short or long notice. Mr. Dasuki's “sickness” is more of a planned, coached,
and rehearsed excuse than a coincidence. It's a cock-and-bull story!
How come throughout the Jonathan years when these suspects
were junketing all over the world, building castles all over the place,
stashing money in known and unknown banks, wining and dining with the rich and
the famous they didn't complain of mere headache talk more of cancer? Dasuki's
story is simply not believable, not to any degree.
If 86-year old former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could
stand trial on his hospital stretcher, there is no reason why any of the
accused could not be brought to court dead or alive. As part of his war on
corruption, President Buhari by executive power should stop all politicians
from going overseas for medical treatment. They must be treated at home. After
all, they are responsible for the sordid state of our healthcare. Many poor
Nigerians die of cancer and other diseases everyday due to lack of treatment.
Let the wicked and corrupt politicians have a taste of the hemlock being forced
down the throat of impoverished
Nigerians.
There is every effort by some people especially those who are
related to Dasuki by way of treasury looting to give credence to his fraud. For
example, the star of the EkitiGate the ex-danfo driver, the lunatic Governor of
Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose came to the defense of Dasuki: “The department
of State Services (DSS) placement of former NSA under house arrest despite
court order that his passport be released so that he can travel abroad for
medical treatment is wicked, inhuman, dictatorial and a clear attempt to deny him
of his rights to life as enshrined in the constitution of Nigerian.”
Nigerians, don't be surprised to see Mr. Dasuki staring at us
with those vicious, soul-less eyes, laughing in his gluttony while perfecting
another concocted story to escape trial. Regardless of the outcome of corruption cases against the corrupt
politicians who feign illness in order to flee from justice, their legacy is
one of wretchedness and filthy corruption, whether dead, alive, or in limbo.
These wanton destroyers of our economy and of the common
people, are nothing other than cowards who would fake their death. It's all as
a means to ensure that they to escape any scrutiny and any trial for their high
crimes against humanity.
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