The impeachment inquiry into US President Trump’s presidency is a bell that calls much to mind.After the Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee rounded up last week and reported to the judicial counterpart, the inquiry turned it all to an account of scholarship. Five law professors from different universities appeared before the Judicial Committee last Wednesday, and getting the nod from the scholars, the JC now can push for impeachment.
It gives a sense of pride to any scholar of good selfreckoning. Do not rush me. I am not interested in the impeachment as an end, or want Donald out at all cost. No. That is not even as important. After all, Trump has both sides of good and bad, and whether the bad side outweighs is entirely the business of his immediate victims. Of course the Trumpian impact has global effects but the roots are in America.
Only that many times, the American business concerns us, too, even if for the model of democracy we take after them. And here is why I am gaped by the system’s reliance on academics to get the point home. My tummy turned, for many obvious reasons you too, know. But that is no excuse for any loss of hope. It should spur us to the challenge.
While the impeachment saga wages, I stand from here, as a student in learning about the goodness of the system and how individual, group and collective human behavior, attitude and the processes of reason, conviction and accountability to fellow humans, officially or personally, can make or mar any public policy, plan or programme. And it is a sweet experience catching up with the sittings and the coverage from both shades of Fox News and Aljazeera
I am interested in the process of the impeachment as a learning rope that we can hold to lift ourselves from the shackles of embarrassing fallouts from the failure, or the many policies aimed to redress the local system in Nigeria, for efficiency. Face it, with all its corrupting and devilish effects, the American system always has something to teach the rest of us.
Get that line in my opening paragraph: the process of inquiry and the JC needed the last input from scholarship in order to make a final decision about whether or not to continue with the process and it is this point that interests me. And because of what those five law professors said, impeachment hearings became elucidate and clear, and can now continue Monday.
It is huge respect, at first, Congress gives to scholarship. This is on the simple account that as leaders of thought, academics are the mindguards of any nation. I am awake to the fact that in any decent society academics are important to both the guidance and the protection of the public sphere, public interest and accountability processes to the public. This, more than the immediate function of the classroom, should be the burden that scholars should hold for humanity in a given context.
I am pinched by the transparency of the process, even when Reps complained the Dems influenced, shaped and teleguided the stages and denied many Rep-leaning witnesses. Well, the White House and even some Reps did same by refusing to appear to testify in the inquiry, so there is the argument from both sides. The Dems astonished me by their calm and maturity during the repeated calls minor Intel Committee members made on Schiff and co to end the inquiry for lack of basis or ‘substantial evidence’.
This lesson would not have been passed to the rest of the world; if Reps wish to kill the inquiry prevailed long before now. I am even more astonished by the resilience of the inquiry amid the almost even-divided public opinion on the process. For a minute, I used to think forth and back that somehow, somewhere, someone may still be holding that knob that turned Trump against Hillary in a guffy.
I mean, Trump is by all accounts, liable. And this inquiry is about Trump’s abuse office, directly linked to his request for Ukraine to charge political rival Joe Biden, but remotely also, relating to the Russian or Ukrainian interferences in US elections. I mean, how sure is everyone on any side that the US system is free even as the tussle sails, even the process of inquiry is not entirely free from the said external influence, interference.
Or how else can you explain public opinion of the no nonsense people about an irresponsible President can be so tilted to raise questions on a process that has been so clearly indicting. Except for Turnley, all the other law professors told the JC Trump is liable. Their interpretation of the offence was guided by simple definitions of the keywords and constitutional clauses, put forward by book or oral submissions.
No public opinion or political sentiment was either allowed or could stand the eerie silence at the descent of reason on the saga. The scholars made it so easy for the JC and for everyone seeking justice, whatever the cost. This is in my believe that justice for the system is supreme to the cost we individually will eventually bear as a cost of effect.
The process of justice is a long road full of rigours and thorns. But the Dems are teaching us it is worth the travel. It is just amazing and it is good if we can rely on our academia and accounts of scholarship to shut down and out wailing, lies, hate and ungodliness from the Nigerian political process to justice and public accountability. I know you want to ask me, “is our scholarship, the academia reliable?”
No. you are right. How can we trust academics and scholars amid the careless public opinion about professors rigging elections; when the profession is sold out to incapacities; or when scholars cannot overcome sentiments for justice, the truth or accountability? But it is not late to wake. We should bypass the past and shape into the good roads to system reform of the FGN.
It is shameful sometimes, when you find an academic challenging rule of law or order of processes of reform, adjusts and tightening. No intent to IPPIS, please. I think ASUU has a case but one that difficult, by accounts of existing realities and the dilemma of the Government. Our scholars need to stand up.
Every certificate you hold and promotion you attain is akin to public demand and expectation that you stand up as the conscience and guard of the public on all fronts. This public demand is a grand responsibility humanity places on your shoulders as thinktanks who must always point out the way to the end where everyone expect the better and the best. Kada a faadi ba nauyi, don Allah.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect WikkiTimes’ editorial stance.
