Olu Allen
Let me confess something unfashionable: I am less frightened by Nasir El-Rufai than I am by the growing enthusiasm for a justice system that bends according to the popularity of its target.
The true measure of a democracy is not how it treats its saints. Saints rarely need constitutional protection. The real test is how it treats those we distrust, dislike, or even despise.
The rule of law ceases to be law the moment it becomes a privilege reserved for the politically convenient. Due process is not an act of generosity extended to allies; it is the thin, stubborn wall separating a constitutional republic from the jungle of vengeance.
There is something deeply intoxicating about watching an old adversary stumble. It satisfies our appetite for poetic justice. But democracies are not built on appetites; they are built on restraints.
The moment we applaud the circumvention of procedure because the victim “deserves it,” we cease to defend justice and begin negotiating with tyranny.
Tyranny rarely arrives announcing itself. It enters quietly, wrapped in the comforting language of necessity, revenge, and public approval.
History is almost cruel in its consistency. Those who discover loopholes in the law often imagine they have discovered permanent immunity.
They confuse political influence with permanence, forgetting that power is never owned—it is merely borrowed until the next election, the next crisis, or the next betrayal.
Yesterday’s enforcers become today’s defendants. Yesterday’s applause becomes tomorrow’s silence.
That is why the precedents we tolerate today matter more than the personalities involved. Institutions possess longer memories than politicians.
Every shortcut we celebrate, every principle we suspend, every exception we excuse eventually survives the government that created it. The actors change. The script remains.
This is not a plea for Nasir El-Rufai. It is a plea for Nigeria.
If there is evidence against him, let it be tested in open court.
If he is guilty, let the law convict him without fear or favour. But if we permit our emotions to dictate the boundaries of justice, we will soon discover that justice itself has become a political weapon rather than a constitutional safeguard.
A republic does not collapse in a single dramatic moment. It erodes gradually, one exception at a time, each one justified because the victim was unpopular.
By the time citizens realise that the law has become selective, the habit of selective justice has already hardened into culture.
The question before us is therefore larger than Nasir El-Rufai.
It is whether we still believe that the law should govern men, or whether we have quietly accepted that men should govern the law.
Because the sword forged for today’s enemy has never remained loyal to its first owner. It always finds another neck.
Allen writes on public affairs and advocates for good governance.
