The court order adjudging Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde guilty of contempt of court and ordering him jailed has profound implications. First, it finally and dramatically bursts the bubble of the EFCC’s invincibility. All those claims by the EFCC, false as they have been suspected all along, that their officers operate within the rule of law have come crashing down. The fact as has been clearly established in this case is that the EFCC has no regard for the courts of Nigeria. By implication, the Commission has no respect for the law of the land or the constitution of the country.

Who fights crime by committing crimes? That is the question on the lips of every Nigerian upon hearing that Mr. Lamorde will be the resident of the prison facilities soon, unless he does what he had since refused to do – obey the law. The greatest lesson of all this is actually simpler to state. That lesson is that the EFCC is not and cannot be above the law, however hard its officers may pretend to the contrary by their actions. For nearly a decade now, EFCC has used a combination of propaganda and intimidation to subdue Nigerians and create an atmosphere of fear around its operations. Its officers intimidated judges and muscled everybody into some blind acquiescence in what was obviously a chain of impunity and internal corruption within the Commission.

As they say, nothing lasts forever. That era of impunity would ultimately yield to a dawning of a period when the judges or someone else would rise to question the abuse of power, to which the EFCC had become accustomed. I, as a lawyer and a former detainee of the EFCC, knew right from my first encounter with it that it is probably the most corrupt agency in the Nigerian Government. I never hid my opinion of the EFCC men. Even while in their custody, I made it clear that the leaders of the EFCC were the most inept and most corrupt officials in the country. The evidence for this has been glaring. Where is Ribadu today? How did he leave the EFCC? What happened to the money he claimed was the 15 million dollars bribe from Mr. James Ibori, which actually ended up being a political contribution he, Ribadu, was collecting for President Obasanjo’s third term? Ribadu’s personal ambition became too apparent when he came back from a self-imposed exile to try to be the President of Nigeria. Nigerians who were never deceived by his antics knew better and roundly rejected him. And what happened to the inept and most corrupt Mrs. Farida Waziri? She ended up in total ignominy and now parades herself as a local fashion model at weddings of her personal friends’ families. Both Ribadu and Waziri fled Nigeria after their tenures on some fabled stories of running for their lives.

What is going to happen to Lamorde? It is already clear. He is the first EFCC head to face jail term. This judgment has clear personal messages for the man. But it also shows he is not a bright fellow. It would have taken several months and many court appearances before the court would make this ruling. If Lamorde was bright, how come he did not see this coming? All he needed to do was to obey the court order and apologise to the man whose rights they violated. But arrogance and hard-headedness got him to ignore the danger cloud gathering around him. Also, the entire episode goes to the question of fitness. Lamorde is not fit to head any modern law-enforcement agency. Now that he is known to be a law-breaker, what moral right does he have to continue to head EFCC? He has clearly brought shame to the President that appointed him against many warnings. And the President ought to fire him immediately. How can he have in office a man that violates the laws of the land with such unbridled impunity?

What remains to be seen in the coming days will be how cowardly Lamorde is. It is believed that he would now issue the apology he had refused to issue all along. He would not obey the order of the court until his butts were placed on the burners. As a coward, he would do everything to save his skin. He does not want to go to jail. So, he would obey the order of the court. That makes him the wrong man for leadership in any capacity. Nigerians need officials who would voluntarily obey the law and not those who would rather violate the law as long as they have not been caught. Who knows the many other laws that Lamorde and his men might have been violating without being caught?

It is clear that Lamorde would not actually end up in jail, not this time. He would try to save his skin at all costs. But the damage is done. The judgment of the court was indeed too lenient for him. Why give him two more weeks to obey the order of the court? He should have been ordered arrested immediately and jailed. He may then have the chance to apply for some relief after he has served a couple of weeks in jail. If every person that commits a crime in Nigeria is allowed the option of two weeks to choose to go to jail or not, nobody would ever take the laws of this country seriously. Criminals and violators of the law, should, upon conviction, go straight to jail. They shouldn’t be given two weeks to purge themselves.

The jailing of Lamorde is a significant development. He was sent where he rightly belongs – the prisons. That would teach all those in power a simple lesson – that no one is above the law and that all should be equal before the law.

•Ugwuonye is an international lawyer practising in the US and Nigeria. •Photo shows EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde.

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