As a reminder, the chain of command in Nigeria in anything of significance or even non-significance is: General Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria, at the apex. Every other functionary falls in line behind him, well-below, and at the bottom rung of the ladder. The Police, through the so-called Inspector-General of Nigeria, takes orders directly from the General. The so-called Attorney-General of Nigeria also takes orders and cues from General Obasanjo, legally rationalizing and ratifying the General’s anti-constitutional and criminal policies and even criminal acts. The National Assembly sits at the General’s pleasure (though they would vigorously deny that—but without counter-proof), a mere rubberstamp body. The so-called Council of State, made up of persons notorious for putsches and forced suspension and rape of the Nigerian constitution; and looting of the Nigerian Treasury in previous years—who, incidentally, continue to draw government pension and are holders of government contracts—are a big joke; to describe that council as a rubberstamp for General Obasanjo would constitute an insult of the gravest kind to ink, rubber and paper. The so-called Council of State is best described as a zombie-group, paralyzed by the potion served by General Obasanjo. The Judiciary is taken serious only when it is pressured to rule in the General’s favor, even with decisions that make the lay populace cover their faces in great shame; otherwise, the General simply ignores court rulings—and nobody can do anything about it. What type of chain of command are we talking about? Well, the General has to give his personal decision, consent and approval for every inch of Federal Road constructed in Nigeria.

The case of the 53 above illustrate the transition of the Attorney-General of Nigeria to the Nigerian “General’s attorney”—General Obasanjo, that is. It also reveals the functioning of the Nigeria Inspector-General of Police as the General’s inspector of the police: General Obasanjo’s. It is General Obasanjo who swore that MASSOB and anything related to MASSOB must be punished, crushed and extirpated at all costs because it goes against his personally declared stand that he, the General, would die defending Nigeria. Little did it occur to him that the UN Charter, to which Nigeria is signatory, guarantees the right of self-determination for any ethnic nation; nor that even the constitution of Nigeria, which is his duty to defend, allows human and civil rights, which MASSOB is using to seek self-determination for Biafra. And, MASSOB is doing so using non-violence principles. In his blind rage against MASSOB—and by extension, against Biafra, and by further extension, against Igbo, a known bias—General Obasanjo has demanded and commanded the violation of the rights of these 53, and the Police and incidentally, the Nigerian SSS (State Security Services), have dutifully obeyed and carried out this order and policy, obliging the General. The General, the Nigeria Police, and the Nigeria SSS—the entire Obasanjo’s government, under the instructions of Obasanjo himself—have thus gone against the constitution of Nigeria: that is not this author’s conclusion; the Nigerian courts say so. By refusing to carry out court orders to release the 53 on bail, the General and his agencies who are always the first to claim that they hold the laws of Nigeria and the judicial process in awe and great respect, are in fact in flagrant contempt not just of the courts, but of the constitution of Nigeria; and they are doing it with brazenness and arrogance.

Long before this, an Attorney-General mindful of his duty and responsibility to the country, would have stepped in to point out the erring ways of the General and his government, and staked his job on enforcing the constitutionally correct thing. But instead, the current Attorney-General legally diminished and tarnished himself by attempting to single out and brand MASSOB, in front of an incredulous Nigeria, a treasonable organization, while using a lame and most circuitous argument to exonerate other groups, some of whom are in fact at war, literally, with Nigeria, on the same issue of self-determination. All this, so that the Attorney-General can please his master, the General.

Forget the 53 and the soccer tournament, let’s say. The Attorney-General was mum while the Police systematically and methodically stopped all peaceful protest in Nigeria (and bragged about it), protests against the General’s anti-people policies and acts. Time and again, the NLC (Nigeria Labor Congress) strikers and other participants were intimidated, brutalized, jailed and even killed, without accountability, by the Police, when they attempted to engage in peaceful protests. This was done on the orders of Obasanjo’s well-understood zero-tolerance for advice and consent, for discussion, and for disagreement, for protest or opposition. The Attorney-General kept quiet.

But what of the recent written and now public shocking admission by the General that he was made aware of the rigging of the Anambra State elections in 2003 by the admitted mastermind; and yet, the General did not contact the proper electoral law enforcement agency—not even the Attorney-General of Nigeria? Did the Attorney-General notice an impropriety and act on it?

How about what should be criminal acts and even treason, committed by agencies and agents of the General, operating under the General’s orders—like the abduction of a sitting State governor, which General Obasanjo called a partisan “family affair” instead of a crime and perhaps, treason that it really is? Was the offending then Assistant Inspector-General of Police involved in the case prosecuted in a court of law? No. …Like the recent mayhem in Anambra—the razing of State property, harassment and intimidation of State officials, and killing of innocent civilians while the police looked on (captured on video), masterminded by an agent of the General’s who is being shielded by the General himself? Has the Attorney-General said anything? There are so many examples.

The last opportunity to prove whether it is indeed the office of the Attorney-General of Nigeria or in fact, the usual office of the “General’s attorney,” has arrived today, in the form of the serious and credible allegations of financial fraud against the erstwhile Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun. The first thing that General Obasanjo did was to force the “General’s Inspector” into premature retirement, and going by previous examples, that will be the end of the matter, since the General provides protection from prosecution, or even the mention of it, for those operating for him and under him.

But, it is not for this that the Attorney-General of Nigeria should speak up. According to the newspaper accounts, the General, president Obasanjo, has been aware of Balogun’s corruption all along, but has said and done nothing about it. In fact, the so-called Economic Crimes Commission could not even start investigating the Inspector-General of Police even though the commission had credible facts, until it received the personal permission of General Obasanjo to proceed; and, the commission still had to convince the General about Balogun’s financial improprieties with facts thus obtained, which would not have happened had Balogun himself not failed to explain his huge bank accounts and wealth to the General himself in a personal appearance. There are at least two potential crimes here, and one of them involves General Obasanjo, who knew about this fraud and still covered for the Inspector-General of Police, presumably because the inspector always used the police to do Obasanjo’s bidding, without question. So, the question is: Will the Attorney-General of Nigeria rise, please, if there is any such functionary?

If there is doubt that General Obasanjo has always been aware of Balogun’s corruption, one needs only recall that the General was handed a list of Nigerians and Nigerian officials with loots illegally stashed away in foreign banks and investments by an agency of the IMF—done in response to General Obasanjo’s constant whining about Nigeria being so poor that she deserves her IMF debts to be forgiven. Against a huge public outcry, the General decided to pocket this list and refused to make it public. With as much wealth as was reported illegally amassed by Balogun, it would be a great surprise if his name did not show up on that list. Yet, the General was to award Balogun with Nigeria’s highest honor just last year, even though the General himself had exposed the Police in public as running a guns-for-hire operation. At another recent ceremony, the same General Obasanjo also praised Balogun and his work. Not to forget that the choice of Balogun for the post of Inspector-General of Police, in the first place, was all General Obasanjo’s.

In a decent society and a decent country, General Obasanjo, the President of Nigeria should not wait for the Attorney-General’s action or lack thereof before resigning and facing punishment. In a decent country, by now, the Attorney-General should have brought the President of the country to book, and failing that, should have himself resigned in indignation and protest. In a decent country, the National Assembly should have started impeachment proceedings against the President of the country; but even here, we have more of a “General’s (General Obasanjo’s) President of the Senate” than the Senate President; hence, the leadership, courage, morality and will are lacking to initiate such proceedings in the Nigerian Senate.

Yet, all these heads can roll in voluntary or forced resignation with or without prosecution, but at the end of the “cleansing exercise” there still would remain NIGERIA, that structure which corrupts the incorruptible; that structure which is guaranteed to bring out the worst out of even an Angel, and constrain the Angel to function as such. Into this structure, new “leadership” is to be re-instituted, only to succumb once again, in a never-ending corruptive cycle that has made the name, Nigeria, the quintessential example of “failure in the midst of plenty” in the entire world, and by implication, Nigerians? It is incomprehensible and near-unfathomable what this has done to the peoples forced to live, suffer, waste away and die in Nigeria.

It is time to break that mold called Nigeria, to remove that irredeemable corruption-nurturing, corruption-sustaining, corrupting structure known as Nigeria, so that the peoples can breathe again, so that the peoples can fulfill their otherwise promising but stultified fortunes and stifled destinies. This is a conclusion that the learned and intelligentsia of Nigeria—and there are many such deserving luminaries—studiously avoid in a show of intellectual dishonesty if not moral cowardice. For this, we have all paid a hefty and unbearable price, and continue to do so.

General Obasanjo has stated that Nigeria is like his bride, and he has thus treated Nigeria as a worthless harlot. He styles himself as “the father of Nigeria” not in a usual symbolic sense, but quite literally. Previous similarly dim-witted rulers have treated Nigeria and the peoples living in Nigeria in the same manner. It is up to the general masses living in Nigeria to prove that they are not the “General’s masses.” As long as the structure called Nigeria exists, the fate and place of the peoples are sealed.

Writer after Nigerian writer has been quick to blame these well known problems of Nigeria—the problem that is Nigeria—on “Leadership.” But, Leadership is not the problem nor the issue with Nigeria. The problem with Nigeria is Nigeria—the structure of Nigeria. It is a rotten structure; it is a bad structure. A proper structure, at the very worst, evolves good leadership, even transmuting really bad leadership into good by natural selection. Naturally, a proper structure provides an enabling framework for good leadership to emerge and to thrive, allowing the people to fulfill their existential imperative. On the other hand, a bad structure will bend, break and assimilate any incoming or left-over good leadership, while at the same time proving that even when one thought that things couldn’t get any worse, bad leadership can actually get worse. A bad structure corrodes and corrupts all that come in contact with it, and has no redeeming offering; it kills the peoples forced to live within that structure. It is clear that Nigeria finds itself in this latter category, going by common and even uncommon experience.