Wike vs Nigeria military: Why Wike should go to court

BY OPATOLA VICTOR

There is something deeply ironic, almost poetic, about watching powerful men taste their own medicine. For years, Nigerian citizens whose lands were unlawfully seized or properties demolished by governments have been told, with arrogance and disdain, “If you don’t like it, go to court, go to court.”

Did the table just change?

In the FCT, reports emerged of a physical altercation, an open confrontation, between Minister Wike and military personnel over a disputed piece of land. The scene reportedly involved shouting, tension, and the kind of chaos that could easily have spiralled into tragedy. Bullets could have flown. Someone could have died for nothing.

Wike should go to court, simple.

The minister should go to court like every other Nigerian, are told to. Even if the minister believes that the military officers deterred him from his lawful duty, he should still go to court, instead of engaging in a televised altercation. Instead of addressing the press, Mr Wike should approach the court like millions of Nigerians whose properties were unlawfully demolished or taken over.

When powerful people use the military to take over citizens’ lands or properties, such citizens go to court.

So a day will come when a minister, one of the apostles of “go to court”, will suddenly cry foul of land grabbing.

Suddenly, it is a powerful interest been threatened. Suddenly, it is he facing resistance. Suddenly, a minister can say that he cannot be intimidated.  Interesting times, we live in.

Why can’t he go to court too?

We live in a country where “go to court” has become both a taunt and a joke. It is what government officials say when they trample on citizens’ rights, when they demolish homes, seize land, and destroy livelihoods without due process. It is the official lingo for impunity.

The minister’s office is a legal entity; it should approach the court too.

Why must the minister’s grievances be fought with shouting contests, fury and a press address, while ordinary citizens must endure the slow and years and years of litigation? Why must Nigerians obey a law that those in power feel too mighty to kneel before?

If every dispossessed citizen must go to court, then the minister should go to court. That is what equity demands. That is what justice demands. That is what dignity in a democracy looks like.

Please, make no mistake; this is not even about Wike and the military, but about the soul of a nation that has normalised arrogance in public office. A nation where government agents demolish homes in defiance of court orders and still have the audacity to tell victims to seek redress in the same courts they despise.

Maybe this is how Nigeria forces its leaders to taste what ordinary people swallow daily, a bitter, choking reminder that power is not impunity.

If we are a country of laws, then every man, whether minister or mason, must bow before the same scales of justice. The minister must do the civil thing; he must go to court.

Opatola Victor is the national coordinator of Lawyers for Civil Liberties.