To say that it was not planned would be, on the one hand, an excessive indulgence in the abnegation. The mandatory retirement last month of Captain Emmanuel Ekpe Owen from the Nigerian Navy marked another act of horrific injustice that has increasingly become a permanent feature of public and private sector governance in the country. The evil behavior manifests itself in various forms, but none comes close in severity to the impunity enjoyed by senior government officials in the workplace.
More often than not, when these officials are caught in one form of brazen wrongdoing or another, they get away with it by using their privileged status to intimidate those who try to hold them accountable and then fight their way to a total freedom. And in the end, by the sordid connivance of the state apparatchiks, it is those who ask the questions and demand that things be done well for the good of society who burn their fingers badly on the open grill. It is a measure of the extent of systemic rot in which the sense of the consequences of wrongdoing is heartbreaking.
Owen happens to be the latest victim in this saga of injustice, his story an unmistakable taxonomy of terror in the relentless wave of corruption sweeping across Nigeria. Its problem began overseas in the mid-1990s, in the heat of conflict aboard the NNS AMBE, a warship that Nigeria had deployed to Liberia as part of the Economic Community Monitoring Group contingent. West African States (ECOMOG) to save the latter from a brutal civil war. war and went through a series of frustrating encounters with different levels of authority that culminated in his forced retirement in July.
Dada Labinjo was in command of the ship, then a commander, who was also coincidentally controversially retired as captain a few years ago. Former Navy Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Ibok-Ette Ibas, then Lieutenant Commander, was his second in command (executive officer). Owen, then a lieutenant, was the watch officer in addition to being the watch mate and supply officer. As Supply Officer, he was responsible for feeding and meeting the administrative needs of the ship’s complement of 85 personnel comprising 12 officers and 73 ratings.
On one of the ship’s return voyages to Nigeria for “military ammunition resupply”, 40 of the crew, comprising five officers and 35 ratings, were abandoned and 45 were left on board and returned to Monrovia for continuation of the functions of ECOMOG. Ibas, as the senior officer at the time, happened to be the one with the file containing the quarterly allowances in various sums for the crew. One day, the payment file was mistakenly sent to the ship’s secretary, and while leafing through Owen discovered that although the ship’s 45 naval personnel had received their allowances, money had been collected for the original 85. who made the first trip. This means that Ibas received money for the 40 personnel who were jettisoned when the ship returned to Nigeria, which was wrong.
The young officer gathered his guts and confronted his boss about the discrepancy, and that was the start of his troubles. Retaliation came quickly. In his petition to President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2019, Owen recalled of Ibas: “His look and attitude towards me was strange and hostile when I told him that the development might put the ship in trouble and also embarrass Nigerian Navy”.
Determined to punish him for daring to expose the misconduct of a superior, Ibas offered the ridiculous accusation that the officer had descended from the ship to receive food and other supplies for the ship, a task that made the originally part of the officer’s duty as the ship’s supply officer. After pressing this bizarre allegation, he ordered that Owen be locked up in disused “heads” (toilets in a ship) with no ventilation. He slept on the bathroom floor for six days and contracted an undiagnosed illness. On the seventh day, despite his ill health, the accuser held a summary trial on the deck of the ship where he was also the prosecutor. But Owen objected to the lawsuit because due process was not followed, and so it was called off.
Under armed escort, he was taken to the ECOMOG field hospital where he was diagnosed with a lung infection which required his immediate evacuation to Nigeria. Away from the vengeful eyes of his boss, Owen felt relieved until Ibas was appointed Navy Chief of Staff in July 2015, then the persecution returned in full force and lasted beyond the departure of the chief.
All the justice letters Owen wrote to Buhari were also received by all those of importance in the country’s military and defense circles, but no action was taken. At all levels, all efforts to obtain redress have been in vain.
In his own letter to Buhari, Pelumi Olajengbesi, a human rights lawyer, acting on Owen’s behalf, noted: “The CNS (referring to Ibas) has channeled all its official and unofficial resources to make the unbearable life as a naval officer for the captain. Owen…” He recalled that he had been denied a promotion three times and had his records tampered with, removed from his position as Deputy Director for Procurement at the Defense Intelligence Agency and fired, among many others forms of sanctions, until his retirement.
For a resourceful and dynamic officer who has committed no offense and still has five years to go before leaving public service, Olajengbesi called Owen’s mandatory retirement “unwarranted”.
One of the main drawbacks of the fight against corruption is the inability to protect citizens who strive to ensure the accountability and transparency of the system against victimization and to punish the perpetrators of fraud and other types of corruption. wrongdoing to deter others. In this particular case, rather than questioning the misbehavior of a senior officer who became the leader of one of the armed forces units, the government not only conspired in the scheme to cover up his misconduct, but also went on to reward him with a diplomatic assignment. Meanwhile, the junior officer, the true patriot, who exposed his boss’ fraudulent act is the one being punished severely with the full support of the government.
Unless the government reverses its course by acting firmly on the side of justice for citizens retaliated against for reporting wrongdoing or demanding accountability, Owen’s experience will not cheer anyone in the military, let alone the Nigerian Navy, to join the war against widespread corruption in the country.
Onyeacholem is Senior Program Officer at the African Center for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) and Coordinator of the Whistleblowing, Corruption Anonymous (CORA) project
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