Ekweremadus: British Justice System Is Still Racist-Sexist-Imperialist

 By Onwubiko Agozino 

 The detention of Ike Ekweremadu (along with his wife, Beatrice) is a racist-sexist-imperialist act. They are detained on allegations of a conspiracy to traffic a 'minor' for the modern-day slavery plot to harvest the organs of a ‘homeless minor’ for transplant to their own ailing daughter. 

Ekweremadu is the Nigerian Senator representing my home constituency of Enugu West but I am writing as a scholar and not as a political supporter. I express some reasonable doubts about the case.

 This scandal raises the neglected question of whether the legal system in the UK remains institutionally discriminatory, unknown to many in Nigeria who hail the trial uncritically as proof that the British justice system is fair to all contrqary to a UN experts finding that racism is 'structural, institutionalized, and systemic' in the UK criminal justice system. 

Lawyers for the detainees have filed suits in Nigeria to force banks and government agencies to disclose the private details of the registration of the alleged donor to help them to establish their innocence whereas they should know that they have nothing to prove as defendants in a criminal case: the burden of proof lies with the prosecution beyond all reasonable doubts. The UK government should explain why they doubted the age shown on the Nigerian ECOWAS passport in the first place before the young adult allegedly confirmed it to the court as his real age.

 Since the aim of their travel to London was stated in an alleged letter to the High Commission visa officers who could have refused a visa if the donor looked like a minor, or if they suspected that it was a plot against the laws regulating organ donations, it could not have been a 'conspiracy' unless the High Commission staff were co-conspirators, or the Ekweremadus were set up. 

Based on the Common Law principle of the presumption of marital coercion, Section 34 of the Nigerian Criminal Code says that a married couple cannot be charged with conspiracy unless a third party is involved because (e.g., in Canada) matrimony makes a couple one legal personality. US and Australian Courts have allowed prosecution to proceed in serious cases like terrorism or fraud conspiracy.  In the case of the Ekweremadus who openly planned to save a child lawfully with an organ allegedly offered freely by an alleged adult donor, where is the mens rea or criminal mind?

 In the UK, all adults are presumed to be organ donors (Organ Donor Act 2020) when they die unless they opted out while alive, and all in need are registered to wait in a queue to prevent material inducements from the rich to influence poor people to donate organs to the rich. About 7000 patients are waiting for organ transplants in the UK and hundreds die a year while awaiting organ donations. 

Donors can still volunteer to help individuals, especially if they are related, though relatives may not always be the best match. Relatives still need to give approval in the case of harvesting organs from the dead. In the case of living donors, no one is dead but the voluntary donor can withdraw the offer at any time before the surgery. 

 If the young donor lied about his age in order to obtain a passport as an adult, or did not know his age as many births go unrecorded in Nigeria, or lied to the UK police about his age in order to gain asylum, he should now be granted asylum because he may have been used as a bait by the UK to entrap the Ekweremadus. He should not be deported to Nigeria nor trafficked to Rwanda by the government of the UK for 'processing'. 

 The blame lies with conditions in Africa that are forcing many to flee abroad for better chances. This includes rich people who go in search of medical treatments not available in the exploited rich continent. They are often attended to by medical doctors and nurses initially trained with the scarce resources produced by African workers at home before they checked out to provide technical foreign aid to industrialized countries in exchange for huge remittances. 

Ekweremadu has individually tried to improve the lives of some of his constituents through his Ikeoha Foundation NGO that awards university bursaries and scholarships and provides adult literacy programming and free medical services to thousands in the face of government failures. 

He moved the famous motion on the doctrine of necessity to allow the swearing in of Vice President Jonathan as President following the demise of President Yar'adua. He was physically attacked in public in Germany by some of his detractors in 2019. He is not a saint but even a devil deserves his advocate.

 It is understandable that any parents who have a sick child could be taken advantage of by anyone claiming to be a willing organ donor. But if it is discovered that the volunteer is under-age, this should be thoroughly investigated without remanding the Ekweremadus in custody pending weeks of fishy investigations with apparent prejudicial, racist, sexist, and imperialist implications. 

Though rich and powerful, the assumptions of white supremacy and patriarchy may have helped to disarticulate their privileged class relations in this case. If the Ekweremadus were of different skin color or even from different ethnic groups in Nigeria itself, it is unlikely that they would be denied bail, given that they have family in the UK, surrendered their passports, and are recognizable in their own rights. 

 Remanding both of them in custody shows no concern for the care of their sick daughter. Even if the man is proven to have done something wrong, why detain his wife too, why not detain their daughter and the doctor too if it is a ‘conspiracy’? This discrimination deserves to be denounced by all. 

 If the couple had $20,000 on them without declaring the amount, it is within the limits of $10,000 maximum each that can be carried without declaration in some jurisdictions. It is patriarchal for the media to report that the confiscated money was found only on the man. 

 After centuries of imposing modern-day slavery on Africans (not to mention the not so ancient slavery of the Trans Atlantic slavery), no British law-maker has ever been arrested in Africa and denied bail based on an allegation of a conspiracy for human trafficking or for any alleged offense. To do so in Africa would have triggered a major diplomatic row but the neocolonial Nigerian regime is silent about the arrest of a prominent politician because of the assumptions of imperialism and dependency. 

 I published a book on Black Women and the Criminal Justice System: Towards the Decolonisation of Victimisation in 1997 to show that race-class-gender discrimination is alive and kicking in the UK justice systems. It was republished in 2018. 

Let the investigation into this case include an enquiry into alleged racism-sexism-imperialism by the British legal system to help hold the system accountable.

Dr. Agozino is a Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech.

BUHARI ON EXISTENTIALISM

By Biko Agozino

In rationalizing his suspension of the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court, President Muhammadu Buhari stated without explanation, ‘This is an existential policy’. What is the ‘this’ referring to? Within the context of the speech, he could be referring to the fight against corruption as a fight that must be won if the country must continue to exist. However, since corruption is found in every existing country, it is doubtful that fighting corruption alone could be ‘an existential policy’. Perhaps, Buhari’s speech writers were giving us a hint of his ideological or philosophical orientation by invoking existentialism to define the man and his policies as guided by the fear of the end of existence. What is existentialism?

Existentialism is the European belief that existence comes before essence. A country exists before the essential policies of the country can be shaped and implemented by individual social agents. An individual exists before the subjective opinions of the individual can be interpreted by other individuals. Existentialists, therefore, see the world as absurd in the sense that the actions of individuals or the policies of nations do not always make rational sense especially when such actions and policies go against the interests of the actors or policy-makers. Existentialists wonder why some policy-makers pursue goals that may threaten the existence of the nation state or why some individuals indulge in actions that would harm them personally even while experiencing thrill, angst and dread about the consequences?

It is probably flattering to suggest that Buhari is philosophical in any sense of the term but his speech-writers may be individuals who strongly believe that what matters is the existence of political power and not the essence of good and evil policies. The speech-writers are indicating the obvious existentialist dogma that what makes a person like Buhari is the past existence of the individual and Buhari, having been a dictator in the past, is bound to continue existing as a dictator; irrespective of the essence of the present presidential constitution. It is possible that if Buhari understood this self-mocking implication of the concept of existential policy, he would fire the speech writers with what he called ‘alacrity’ in his judge-jury-executioner speech.

Buhari wants us to believe that he was only obeying the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunals by suspending Chief Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen and replacing him with an interim Justice. Critics shout that coming only weeks before a presidential election, Buhari is trying to hedge his bets that the election results may be determined by the Supreme Court. Thus, appointing an interim Chief Justice who happens to share his own religious affiliation, ethnicity, and regional origin on the existential ground of being the next most senior Justice of the supreme Court, is just what it is, neither good nor evil, according to existentialism. Being, perhaps, the only Supreme Court Justice with a doctoral degree and having been a Justice of the Sharia Court of Appeal in the past are just existential facts that should not be confused with the essence.

The essence of the policy of rule of law is that the suspended Chief Justice remains innocent before the law until proven guilty. The allegations against him are heavy and if found guilty following a proper investigation and fair trial, Buhari is right that he should not return as the Chief Justice because no one is above the law. However, if the Chief Justice is proven to have been corrupt, it is likely that the Associate Justices of the supreme court share in his guilt. 

Unknown to Buhari’s speech-writers, it is not the Chief Justice alone who determines cases that come before the court and so if people suspected of corruption have been freed by the Supreme Court on ‘mere technicalities’ as alleged, is there evidence of dissenting opinions and concurring opinions to show how the Chief Justice could over-rule the jury of his peers? 

By the way, the Supreme Court usually considers ‘mere technicalities’ or points of law and not the facticity or substantive evidence that may have been examined by the court of first instance. The rule of law uses such ‘mere technicalities’ to ensure that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape punishment than for one innocent person to be punished. Nigerian courts may be corrupt but they are clearly more accountable than the legislative and executive arms of government perhaps because of the relative security of tenure that should not be undermined.

If all judges are tainted in Nigeria, as many suspect, then where would the country find the angels to preside over court cases under a corrupt neocolonial regime? Kwame Nkrumah also removed the Chief Justice of Ghana from office after people suspected of plotting to kill Nkrumah were acquitted by the apex court. Buhari points to undeclared assets worth millions of dollars that the Chief Justice himself admitted that he mistakenly did not declare or failed to declare correctly and the postponement of the National Judicial Council that could vote to suspend the Chief Justice. Critics say that if the same existential policy is applied to Buhari himself and to his nepotistic appointees, there would be a government shutdown in Nigeria.

One of the greatest weaknesses of existentialism as a Eurocentric philosophy is the over-emphasis on the individual who interacts with other individuals in arts and philosophy. Greater attention to the structure of an unjust society would need to go beyond existentialism and individualism to address the on-going generational ethnic-religious-gender-class struggles. 

Buhari must be commended for fighting corruption but he must be reminded that he cannot fight corruption by targeting individuals who may not be loyal to him while turning a blind eye to his cronies. His existential policy of giving more to areas that gave him 95% of their votes and less to those who wisely gave him 5% of their votes with knowledge of his unrepentant chauvinism may not be challengeable in corrupt courtrooms but voters still have the limited power to hold the politicians accountable to some extent if they bother to vote.

In the final analysis, it is not the law that will determine the nature of the society; it is the society that will determine the nature of the law in Nigeria. So long as Nigerian politicians and the masses refuse to address historic wrongs done with the support of the law against millions of the people in the past and the present, for so long will the existential policy of fighting corruption remain a smoke-screen. Buhari does not need the Supreme Court or the Code of Conduct Tribunal to order him to apologize to the survivors of the genocide that he helped to lead against the Igbo in Biafra, of which he was reported as saying that he had no regrets and that he was ready to do it again. 

Nigeria should offer reparations to the survivors as recommended by the Justice Oputa Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Abuses in the country. Many survivors of other tragic wrongs in the country have been offered some atonement but not the Igbo who still feel unwanted by a country that dreads letting them go to build their own nation. There is no need for a court order before the politicians wage a war against intolerance, illiteracy, disease, and poverty in the country in concert with other African states towards the Peoples Republic of Africa in which no existential individual will be able to impose his free will on the masses ever again.

Press Release on Black Unemployment

Press Release: African Criminology and Justice Association Policy Proposal on Black Unemployment

The unemployment rate for African Americans (16.7%) has been reported to be at its highest level since 1984.[i] At nearly double the national average (9.1%) or over double the rate for white Americans (8%), the members of the African Criminology and Justice Association, meeting in Washington DC, November 2011, hereby vote to propose feasible policies for the elimination of such a scandalous level of unemployment among African Americans in particular and Africans in general who were always at the receiving end of hardship even in 1984 when unemployment was lower than it is today.

Source: Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2011.

We disagree with the rightwing proposal of Mr. Arthur Laffer, chairman of Laffer Associates, who is co-author, with Stephen Moore, of "Return to Prosperity: How America Can Regain Its Economic Superpower Status" (Threshold, 2010).[ii] In an opinion editorial article published in The Wall Street Journal of September 12, 2011, Mr. Laffer called for the creation of ‘Enterprize Zones’ in the inner cities where a) There should be zero payroll tax on employers employing people who live in the inner city zone; b) The minimum wage legislation would be suspended; c) Building codes in the zone should be audited quickly with the view not to constrain entrepreneurs and union membership requirements should be suspended; and d) Profits from the zone should be taxed at one-third the normal tax rate.

Such a policy of sweat-shop zones in American inner cities would make matters worse by turning our fellow citizens into working poor who would be trapped in unsafe working conditions with less than minimum wages while corporate fat cats would enjoy tax holidays. Mr. Laffer’s ludicrous suggestions would only take African Americans back to the years of share-cropping with all the attendant oppression, exploitation and impunity. There must be a better way for African Americans and indeed for all people of African descent.

First of all, we call on President Obama and all the presidents of African countries to look beyond the Jobs Bill and consider an entrepreneurship bill for African Americans and all Africans. Obama needs to set aside at least $50 billion from the proposed Jobs Bill (estimated at $470b) to be disbursed to unemployed Americans to enable them to set up their own small and medium businesses. The same way that the government gives out huge grants as agricultural subsidies and business start-ups for the richest one per cent, we call on the government to initiate enterprise subsidies for the urban poor. 

We commend the governor of Anambra State in Nigeria, Mr. Peter Obi, for disbursing one hundred million naira to a thousand unemployed youth after their training to help them to be self-employed. We urge him to make this an annual part of the budget and not a one off and to increase the size of the checks given to some to enable them to become medium to large-scale entrepreneurs. Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State in Nigeria has also implemented a similar grants program worth about fifty million naira while the federal government announced that it has fifty billion naira set aside for similar purposes. 

We condemn the plan of Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich to turn poor inner city school children into janitors and toilet cleaners for their schools in the guise of training them as apprentices on the assumption that poor children have no work ethics even though poor people are the hardest working people.

The entrepreneurship policy we advocate will work as follows: select 1000 unemployed citizens from each state and send them to be trained as apprentices by successful businesses. On completion of the short apprenticeship, award each of them one million dollars to set up their own enterprises. If each of them goes on to employ 100 people, that will be 5,000,000 new jobs every year! Repeat this every year and we will be creating millions of jobs every decade while making sure that the wealth created will stay in our communities to help transform the urban neighborhoods into zones of prosperity. The Hip Hop generation has been telling us that they are not into seeking jobs to work for Massa anymore, they want to be their own bosses and our simple and practical proposal will help to do this quickly and save the economy too. The government already does this to bail out Wall Street, it is time to bail out the street corner too.

We support the current Occupy Movement that is sweeping across the world but we go beyond the call to occupy Wall Street and to occupy cities to call for the occupation of the prison industrial complex. The excessive incarceration of African Americans and other minorities is helping to fuel to job crisis because corporations that rely on prison labor would be unlikely to hire free labor until we end the inhumanity of what Michelle Alexander[iii] aptly dubbed The New Jim Crow and free the captives from the unjust drug wars, decriminalize all drugs and restore the voting rights of all felons.

Across Africa, unemployed youth are increasingly being drawn into violent armed robbery and kidnapping for ransom gangs. We believe that have every African state implement our entrepreneurship policy proposal would result in massive wealth creation and possible reduction of street violence across Africa. Every industrialized country gives out massive grants to spur entrepreneurship while African countries neglect the creative talents that abound in Africa and only call on developed countries to end subsidies to their own entrepreneurs.

With the decriminalization of drugs and the ending of the war against African Americans in the guise of the war on drugs, as we have called for in a previous Press Release, many of the youth who may not get grants to start their own businesses could grow their own marijuana and sell them legally to medical patients and recreational users alike, pay taxes on their sales, create jobs that will pay well and end the ‘homey-cidal’ violence that is associated with the war on drugs. We can rely on education to get our fellow citizens to say no to drugs the same way we do with more dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco which kill more people than all the illicit drugs put together.[iv]

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[i] ‘Black unemployment at highest level in 27-years’ Chicago Tribune, September 2, 2011.

[ii] Arthur, Laffer, ‘How to Fight Black Unemployment: The tragedy of the failed stimulus is felt hard in minority communities. There's a better way.’ Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2011.

[iii] Alexander, M. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New York, New Press, 2010.

[iv] Rieman, J. (1979). The Rich Get Rich and The Poor Get Poorer. New York: Wiley.