Former Governor of Bayelsa state, Diepreye Alamiyeseigha ought by now to have gone down in history as the first Governor in Nigeria's Fourth Republic to be sentenced to jail on the grounds of corrupt practices. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment, by the court of Justice Mohammed Shuaibu of the Federal High Court of Lagos, following a protracted trial and his admission of guilt in a 25-count charge. The judge also ordered the forfeiture of six of his companies, eleven houses at home and abroad and sums of money totalling about N600 million.

But because the embattled Governor had already served out the term of his imprisonment in EFCC custody, he is already a free man. Under normal circumstances, Alamiyeseigha, who before now had jumped bail in England in a money laundering case - he says the British authorities organized his escape, and those ones are diplomatically silent (!), should be generally promoted and cited across Nigeria as a persona non grata, as a man who has fallen from grace to grass, as a living symbol of the fate that awaits corrupt leaders and a living lesson to all serving Governors and public officials.

But here in Nigeria, Alamiyeseigha's trial and conviction have ended up as a farce and a sorry anti-climax. Whatever moral lesson that should be learnt from his trial and humiliation have been blunted by various attempts to glorify him. Since his release from prison custody, he has been treated like a hero. Concerned Bayelsans have had to raise funds for his treatment abroad in a curious show of support and solidarity. Spritualists reportedly organised thanksgiving prayer sessions to celebrate his return from prison while well-wishers besieged his home in Ikeja, GRA, Lagos, to pay homage. Alami is now on his way back to Dubai where the authorities only a few weeks ago, diplomatically shoehorned him out of their hospitals, not wanting to be seen to be supporting a discredited Nigerian leader. The former Governor has also been received in audience by President Umaru Yar'Adua at the Presidential Villa in Abuja where he reportedly was recruited as a kind of Honorary Special Adviser to the Federal Government on Niger Delta matters.
It is not impossible that a Presidential jet was sent to Lagos to take Alamiyeseigha to Abuja, and that he traveled to the Villa in a Presidential convoy. He must have walked majestically on the grounds of the Presidential Villa, decked out in his Niger Delta regalia, complete with cap and walking stick, and resource control swagger, had quality audience with the President, enjoyed the pleasure of Presidential lunch.
This is the same man who only a week earlier was at the mercy of prison warders at the Ikoyi prison and EFCC officials who treated him like a common criminal. The court found him guilty of using public funds to set up companies and a property portfolio, collecting kickbacks from contractors, and using his position to amass odious wealth. A week later, the same man was being treated by both the Presidency and a section of the public as if he was a prisoner of conscience and a victim of the Nigerian state. He has even been called the man with the solution to the Niger Delta crisis.
From EFCC custody to the Presidential Villa as guest and Honorary Adviser, former Governor Alamiyeseigha must be feeling triumphant. He does not feel that he has been disgraced, and when he says he is a victim of the machinations of the Obasanjo government, he gets a good audience. This development is most unfortunate. It deals a big blow to whatever positive signal may have been represented by his conviction in court. The work of the court of Justice Mohammed Shuaibu has been short-circuited by politicians acting outside the court of law. When the President holds audience with a convicted man, with such a historically significant burden, and receives him with so much ceremony, he is unwittingly rubbishing the cause of justice.
Don't doubt this: the day Alamiyeseigha returns to Bayelsa, there will be dancing in the streets from Yenagoa to Wilberforce Island, congratulatory messages in the media, a 21-gun salute by the combined forces of ethnic militants and kidnappers of the Niger Delta., and the media so complicit in this matter will report it all with relish and flourish. This is the sad thing about our country: on every score, in every matter, we find it so expedient to strike the recursive note.