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Recall that Pastor Uche Aigbe ,the presiding minister of Abuja branch of the House on the Rock church, in order to illustrate his message on ‘Guarding your Faith’ ,recently mounted the pulpit carrying an unloaded AK-47 rifle, during the second service, which created a scene as the congregation tried to figure out the motive behind preaching with the ammunition.
Pastor Uche later acknowledged the gravity of his actions and apologized unreservedly for thembut the police went ahead to arrest him along with the chief security officer of the church and the police officer that was on duty that day. I am not against the police because section 31 of the Police Act gives the police the powers to investigate an allegation while section 32 of the same Act gives the police the powers to arrest. However, I think this matter of pastor Uche is being blown out of proportion.
At times it looks as if we have first class and second class citizens and religion in this country. This is a country where Doyin Okupe was recently charged to court and later convicted of money laundary and in the same country we have one of the leading presidential candidates who once admitted that nobody should tell him how to carry his money, when he was confronted by journalists on why bullion vans were sighted close to his house, on the eve of an election day. No arrest has been made at least to investigate the incident. Recently we had his party spokesperson coming on television to hoodwink us once more that the bullion vans missed their way and came into the politician’s compound, since then I have been keeping my gate permanently open to know if some bullion vans could miss their way and come into my compound.
This is a country where a promising student, Deborah Samuel, was flogged, killed and burnt at Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto on Thursday 12 May 2022 and today it seems as if the matter has died a natural death. The students in that school took the law into their hands in what the police called ‘self-help’ and today we do not know what is happening in the matter where a promising young Nigerian was murdered by her own colleagues. As that was not enough, during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, an online video went viral showing where the taskforce in FCT visited a church and a mosque. The same taskforce on reaching the church arrested the pastor for conducting a service against government’s directive but in the mosque, the taskforce admonished the people not to be gathering against government’s directive and to worsen the matter while the taskforce was in the mosque people were seen observing their prayers and no arrest were made.
This brings us to the concept of first and second citizens/religion in the country against the provisions of section 42 of the Nigerian constitution, as amended. If Pastor Uche Aigbe were an Islamic cleric would police have detained him after he unreservedly apologized for his action? The hullabaloo this matter has attracted would it have been if an Islamic cleric were involved? Sheik Gumi , an Islamic cleric has been making some controversial statements and the highest thing our law enforcement agents could do was to invite him for an explanation and he was never detained because his religion falls under the first-class religion . In this case of Pastor Uche Aigbe , FCT police command swung into action immediately and stated that the law is trite and all violators would be adequately sanctioned, possibly because a second class citizen practising a second class religion was involved . Thanks to late Gani Fawehinmi for declaring that Nigerian law is like a cobweb strong when it gets to the weak ( the second class citizens ) and weak when it gets to the strong ( the first class citizens ).
We are in a country where unknown gunmen once invaded the Nigerian Defence Academy but the law enforcement agents never bothered to harass or intimidate anybody in the neighbouring communities but if that had happened in the southern part of the country, all the people in the neighbouring communities would have been the prime suspects , I need not narrate what recently happened in Izombe,a community in Oguta LGA, between soldiers and some youths . The recent one that occurred in the University of Benin is still fresh in our memory. I am not in any way supporting attack against on our soldiers or any other law enforcement agents but there are saner ways of singling out culprits of a particular crime in a community because it is also unlawful for somebody to be punished for a crime committed by another person.
Everybody knows that the pastor might have acted ultra vires in his desire to illustrate his message and that is why in law we have two elements to an offence: the physical elements (actus reus ) and the mental element (mens rea).In this matter ,police should remember that it will be difficult for them to prove the mens rea in the law court because pastor never had in mind of inciting the public before committing the alleged offence. Without proving the mens rea in this matter, this matter will not see the light of the day, when police must have wasted tax payers’ money in prosecuting this case .Okonkwo and Naish succinctly state that a police caution to a petty offender can nip criminal tendencies in the bud, and yet save the community the trouble and expense of a formal prosecution. Nigerians have learnt a lot from the case involving pastor Uche . This is a country where some Boko Haram members were pardoned and recruited into our army, if that was possible under this regime, I see no reason why pastor Uche ,and the two people arrested with him, will not be cautioned and released.
The recommendation by the FCT police command to IGP for the dismissal of Inspector Musa Audu is like using the proverbial gun to kill a mere housefly . The people involved in this matter have learnt their lessons; any further punitive measures against them may be seen as pursuit of personal or religious vendetta. Remember that Mohamed Gundarre, the man reported to have attacked President Muhammadu Buhari in Argungu, Kebbi State was forgiven and released by the DSS ,though I know that if that had happened in the southern part of the country, and preferably in the southeast ,that fellow would have been tagged an IPOB or ESN top commander ,whose mission was to assassinate Mr President or to topple his government and the next day he would be in court amidst tight security , but as he came from a favoured part of the country and belonging to a first class religion, his action was said to be out of his love for Mr President .
Nollywood and Hollywood actors use different types of guns, including the AK-47 gun , to interpret their scripts and nobody has ever arrested them after watching their movies ,so I wonder why pastor Uche’s case will be blown out of proportion when the motive behind his demonstration is now clear . In American and other saner climes, civilians wear Soldiers uniforms in solidarity with their soldiers, the same way football fans wear the jerseys of their preferred clubs and players but in Onitsha we all saw how a crippled was dehumanized by two Nigerian soldiers for wearing a military camouflage shirt. This is why late Okadigbo said that the first step in Nigerian democracy is ‘the democratization of the people to turn away from military mentality.’
Police and other law enforcement agents are known as peace officers and as peace officers not all matters that come to them end up in the law courts, at times they are expected to caution the alleged offender and move on with more important matters. The energy used in this matter involving pastor Uche should be appropriately channeled to securing our now notorious Abuja-Kaduna highway and other violence-prone parts of the country. The police can also use the energy to beef up security in the 240 polling units where INEC recently announced that elections would not hold so that INEC can reverse their decision.