The US president-elect, Mr Donald Trump threw the luvvies of the world a  curveball with his comments to President Rodrigo Duterte of the  Philippines that his controversial fight against drugs was being carried  out “the right way”. For the records, in the four months that Duterte  has been president as many as 2500 people have been executed on the  streets for allegedly being drug dealers or users.
Trump and Duterte represent the growing departure from the culture of  spineless political correctness, which however carries its own risk of  opening the door to abuse. For the Philippines president, it is a matter  of placing the nation’s 103 million citizens above the interest of a  dozen thousands drug dealers that are on their way to sink that country.
The outgoing US government has been critical of the crack down on drug  dealers, citing right abuses and extra-judicial killings of course,  without offering something concrete in the way of how to deal with the  destructive drug problem. Trump, who had repeatedly expressed his  disgust for political correctness, apparently understands that the  larger population’s right must be considered even as the rights of  criminals and terrorists are recognised.
As is usually the case, a growing spiral of silence driven by a robotic  imbibing of political correctness has removed the capacity of those in  the position to act to protect the larger population from the  destructive mission of a few fanatics that hide under human rights to  threaten the wellbeing of the other citizens. The full scale of this  problem is better appreciated against the recent trend of judges that  free persons that would have been summarily executed in other countries.
The most brazen of this development is Justice Gabriel Kolawole of a  Federal High Court in Abuja who freed the leader of extremists group,  Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakyzaky in spite of the known antecedents of the  Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), which he leads. The group, reportedly  under the direction of El-Zakyzaky, had killed security personnel in the  past. It does not believe in the right of other Nigerians in the course  of holding its various treks and processions and to cap it all it does  not recognise the secular nature of Nigeria even as it pursues  ideologies that are not different from those held by Boko Haram  terrorists.
It is worrisome that Justice Kolawole admitted IMN’s tendency and  capacity to become ferocious like Boko Haram and still went ahead to not  only unleash El-Zakyzaky on the nation. If that was not bad enough, the  judge added salt to the injury by awarding N25 million to the IMN leader  and another N25 million to his wife in damages, which is nothing short  of forcing the government to finance a terror organisation under a  judicial cover.
The judge has also created a new problem by moving El-Zakyzaky out of  the place where he has been kept both as part of investigation into his  crimes and for his own protection. Now that he is leaving protective  custody has Justice Kolawole considered the implications if IMN members  go ahead to eliminate their leader to precipitate crisis as they were  earlier reported to have planned.
One would be safe to assume that the judge manifested a helpless  enslavement to political correctness in arriving at such sickening  verdict. The mull other possibilities is frightening since what comes to  mind is that the IMN leader either bought the judgement or that Kolawole  implemented the first phase of a gang up against the Department of State  Services (DSS) since it first led an offensive against corrupt judges.  It would be a disaster if the latter possibility turns out to be true  because it would imply a few men that are willing to mortgage the  country for their own interests.
How to walk back the damage done should be the concern of Nigerians at  this point. One may want to revel in the fact that the judiciary, in the  wake of the anti-corruption clamp down on its members, has given the  presidency and the security agencies a black eye, we could in the usual  fashion of being copycats claim that the excesses of military and  security agencies have been curbed, or we could just flow with the dark  joy at having another sensational news make the round; but ultimately we  are all at risk.
We are at risk because of something called judicial precedence. There  are Boko Haram fighters that would eventually be arrested,  pipeline-bombing militants that would one day be apprehended, rampaging  herdsmen that have killed hundreds of citizens would likely be caught  one day and even the criminals that kidnap for ransom are being taken  into custody. But Justice Kolawole has ensured that all those in this  category would not get to stand trial because they would instead make  the government pay them for being terrorists and criminals and even add  buildings into the bargain for them.
Nigerian Dutertes must thus emerge in the judiciary to reverse this  damage, not to order extra-judicial executions but to place the safety  of 180 million Nigerians above the ‘rights’ of a few hundreds  terrorists. We need those that will not compromise the safety of the  rest of us because they want to appear politically correct and to be  seen as aligning with international nuances that have not helped us in  the least.
Bodies and officials with the responsibility must also take steps to  prevent a repeat of this kind of disaster where the judiciary is seen as  empowering terrorists against the state. The National Judicial Council  for instance would do well to interrogate how Kolawole arrived at this  his magical ruling.
In the interim, the DSS must seek detailed analysis of the ruling since  it only ordered El-Zakyzaky’s release within 45 days and did not acquit  him of the crimes that brought him into protective custody. The  department should therefore proceed to arraign El-Zakyzaky for the  terrorist crimes he committed. The Philippines is getting real with its  drug problems and we should get serious with our terrorism problems too
Written by Okanga Agila.
