Brooding over the Bobrisky debacle, I thought of a piece I would caption, ‘When the Sheriffs are Puritans’.The puritanic rendition of the Naira offence in relation to the personal life of Bobrisky must have flipped open the front page of the anti-graft agency’s book of sins, raising concern about institutional bias despite the arraignment of Cubana Chief Priest for the same Naira spraying offence in the wake of criticisms that trolled the alleged scapegoating of Bob. One can almost envision the EFCC clergy boss’s stern approval of a crackdown on the cross-dresser.
The guilty plea negation of the corpus delicti and submission to the Black Maria with a manifest refusal to exercise a right of appeal to, at least, commutate the sentence to a non-custodial term or payment of fine, are likely signs of a tacit understanding that saw excision of the money laundering charges in Bob’s case as a prominent bargaining chip. ‘Cubanagate’ must have taken a different turn with an adept demurrer by the defence lawyer who could have prepared to prove that the notes in the video were non-laundered forex or outright dummies.
Further celebrity trials like the Chief Priest’s would allay insinuation of hate motives in ‘Bobriskygate’, though with the possibility of a higher cost in forensics, subpoena of eyewitnesses and expert opinion, time and resources that could comfortably convict bigger thieves that plunder our Commonwealth, one would say. Last year’s February sentencing of the actress Ms Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin with a N300,000 fine same period the CBN issued a press release on the sale and abuse of the Naira is not unconnected with the debilitating effects of Emefiele’s fiscal Policies and resultant sharp practices that they caused. In Bob’s case, an offence that was visited with a mere six-month jail term should be classified as a misdemeanour and as such, in Prof Odinkalu’s words, not ordinarily deserve the time and resources of the nation’s anti-graft agency whatever the lessons or warning that were being served on the gold platter provided by the celebrity transvestite.
Money spraying, ibo ego in Igbo usage, is a widespread practice in Nigeria and elsewhere. I still remember that money sprayed during my wedding party hardly touched the ground because of the speed with which they were picked off by my people. But as a strict liability offence, I must have also been a culprit! Considering the straight jacket interpretation of ‘spraying’ under Section 5 (ii) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act, Section 21(3) criminalises the act of spraying without some qualifying words that would establish the mens rea (the intention) of abuse, defacing or similar negative use of the bank notes that are sprayed. The ‘B’ part of Section 2(3) that links the offence to the punishment Section 21(1) tends to assume that ‘spraying’ among other acts of matching or dancing on, during social occasions as stated in the Act constitutes ‘tampering’, the keyword the section used to summarise the illegal acts described in the allied sections.
While the phrase ‘spraying of’ is an isolated phrase in Section 21(3) of the Act, the word ‘dancing’ is supposedly made criminal by the composite words ‘matching on’ with the use of the conjunctive word ‘or’ that also made both words share a common preposition ‘on’ showing that it is not mere ‘dancing’ but also ‘dancing on’. This is not the case with ‘spraying of’ going by the application of the literal rule of interpretation and the framing of various charges from the section on which convictions have been secured. It could be contended that a strict liability construction of spraying reinforces the symbolic value of the currency notes as national objects of pride but it’s still debatable whether spraying implies a desecration in the manner it is stated in the Act. It is also the question, whether spraying the notes with pride in a prestigious celebration and flying the flag at half-mast in the same manner amount to different acts or motives.
The Coinage Act of the UK makes an offence the act of melting or breaking coins but not the practice of elongation that often accompanies ceremonial numismatics. Section 333 of the US Criminal Code from where we could have imported the 6-month punishment for the Spraying offence, does not have ‘spraying’ neither as a strict liability wrong nor with an accompanying mens rea. Australia’s Crimes (Currency) Act punishes ‘…deliberate damage and destruction of Australian money’. New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan Turkey, South Africa, Kenya, etcetera, all have similar provisions.
The critics of Article 38(1) of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Statutes that provides for general principles of law recognized by civilized nations as a source of international law could be having a rethink as to whether some laws are really made for civilized people who would never know the value of a national property even when they are the intrinsic owners or share immediate ample proprietary interests. The judge in ‘Bobriskygate’ making deterrence his reason for not extending the option of a fine permitted by law did not think that being dubbed an ex-convict for ‘merely’ spraying the naira would offer enough deterrence even among zombies.
In Canada, their Currency Act and Criminal Code completely omit the mentioning of currency notes in relation to the currency offence. The defacement provision is only related to coins, making the defacement or outright destruction of their notes a non-issue.
The position in Brazil is even more dramatic but quite interesting. There have been contentions that money belongs to their National Treasury only when it is still within their Central Bank but not when it is disbursed to the public, though the police were bent on prosecuting whoever ‘tears’ the currency note.
The European Commission is not concerned about the destruction of small quantities of the Euro coins and notes but urged member countries to prohibit the destruction of large quantities of the currency.
Bobrisky should realise that it could even be riskier after his jail term as institutional bias propels unimaginable hate crimes against sexual minority groups or related categories. It is therefore time for a deeper introspection and self-reexamination. It is time to decide whether to accept the African God or leave for the West to worship their Jahova.
• Offor is an Abuja-based legal practitioner and security analyst.
