By Muyiwa Adetiba

I must confess I didn’t hear it: I read it in one of the publications but then neither the PDP nor President Jonathan has denied it. I am referring to the statement that the President was reported to have made in one of his campaign rallies that the Nigeria of his dream is a country without prisons. This was supposed to be a sort of dig at General Buhari who had many politicians jailed for long terms under his watch.

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I personally think the issue of the long jail terms has been over flogged and taken out of context. We must not forget the mood of the country at the time these sentences were handed out. We must not forget the excesses of the NPN government and the Akinloye champagne scenario.

The late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo warned that the then government was spending money irresponsibly and that the country was heading for an economic precipice. The party responded by describing Chief Awolowo as a doomsday prophet, and went on to say that Nigerians were not feeding out of the dustbins after all. We must not forget that the government actually led us to an economic precipice which subsequently resulted in belt tightening when our letters of credit did not have dollar backing. We must not forget the jubilation on the streets when the Shagari government was toppled.

Many vocal Nigerians, including prominent ones, pleaded for stiff punishments for the corrupt politicians. Many urged the Rawlings treatment which tied corrupt politicians in Ghana to the stakes and shot them. We also must remember that Buhari couldn’t have acted alone. There was the Supreme Military Council that took the final decisions, there were the judges that handed out the jail terms, there was the press that in the main, egged them on, and finally, there was the public which gave tacit endorsement.

But I merely mentioned these lest we forget. My issue today is about a President who can envision a country without prisons and chooses it as his dream goal. They say out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

This statement, if true, explains a lot of things. It explains a father who spares the rod; a leader who loathes to reprimand; it explains a President who, even when not condoning crime, hates to punish perpetrators of crime.

Are we then surprised at the culture of impunity that has grown steadily since our democracy took root and has peaked in the last few years? Let’s look at a few examples of the lawlessness that has taken over the land. You see an expensive car drive recklessly on the wrong side of an express road endangering himself and other road users in the process. Behind the wheel is ‘a big man’ who looks educated – he probably studied abroad- and therefore should know better.

You see another expensive car packed in the middle of the road while the owner saunters into the nearby supermarket. You see two young people driving side by side and having a conversation while ignoring the other road users who are hooting impatiently behind them. You see the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate drive on the Lagos – Ibadan express road as if there are no traffic laws in the country. You see people refusing to stop when a patrol team stops them.

You see uniformed people openly collecting egunje on the streets while daring you to reprimand them. They do all these things because they get away with them and they get away because there is no willingness to bring anybody to book. Now we know why; punishment via prison terms seems distasteful to our President.

The offices are even worse. White collar jobs seem a license to be dishonest. Almost everybody is on the take and many are flaunting their ill-gotten wealth without any reprisal. In any case many of the judges give judgements in favour of the highest bidder. The press which is supposed to be the watch-dog now seems to be watching its own pocket.

Many newsrooms are now swayed by the size of the ‘brown envelope’ or ‘the advert’. The banks charge whatever they like and the poor customers have nowhere to go, no one to complain to. The telephone networks deduct whatever they like without any one holding them accountable. Everywhere you turn there is impunity.

Then there is the official impunity. The other day the ruling party refused to recognise a freely elected chairman of the governor’s forum and insisted that 16 was superior to 19. It did it because it knew nothing would happen and nothing did. The Ekiti State governor took it a step further by allowing a motley crowd of four to remove the State Speaker. They appear to be getting away with it. Just as the minority in the Federal House would have gotten away with it if it had succeeded in removing its Speaker.

Or if the River State Governor had not acted quickly in preventing a kangaroo impeachment. A high court judge was publicly humiliated in the same Ekiti State. Again nothing happened. Sometimes the impunity is committed with the active involvement of law enforcement agencies as happened in Lagos State where a building was ransacked and computers worth millions of naira destroyed without any recourse to law. Nothing so far has happened and nothing it seems, will.

This might be because the President does not have the heart to punish any form of misdemeanour. Three years ago when the petroleum hike strikes shook its government to the roots, the President was forced to institute a couple of panels to investigate the stinking mess in the oil industry. People said nothing would come out of the probes because the people involved were those who financed the 2011 election. Many of us hoped the presidency would put a lie to the rumours by prosecuting the culprits.

We are still waiting. A powerful man in the House was caught receiving bribe. Nobody in government has had the courage to prosecute. A minister was alleged to be spending funds belonging to one of the departments in her ministry recklessly. We expected sanction; she got elevated. The culture of impunity is probably rising because we have a man whose dream is to have a country without prisons.

Mr President; what we need in Nigeria are bigger and better prisons to house the many criminals in the nooks and corners of the country and some of them are your ‘bosom’ allies. People must understand that the wages of crime is a jail term. There must be deterrents to impunity. If Mr Jonathan can’t or won’t do it then somebody would have to do it.