Consider the following situations if you will:

In 2012, Jose Dirceu, Chief of Staff of a former Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, (popularly known as “Lula”) was sentenced to almost 11 years’ imprisonment for masterminding a cash-for-votes bribery scheme to win support from legislators for the government’s programmes. At the time, he was the most powerful man in Lula’s government.

In the Philippines, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is facing criminal charges for electoral fraud. The allegation is that she ordered the tampering of electoral returns in favour of a supporter to enable him to win a Senate seat in the 2007 election.

Three-time former Prime Minister, multi-billionaire and one of the most powerful men in Italy (even without political office), Silvio Berlusconi, was convicted for tax fraud, fined the equivalent of about N1.6bn, sentenced to prison and banned for life from holding public office (the conviction doesn’t take effect until an appeal court confirms it). Berlusconi’s trial started in 1996, but was put on hold because he enjoyed immunity from prosecution while he was Prime Minister.

In Great Britain, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (their Minister of Finance), sat in a first class compartment on the train when he only held a standard class ticket. The ticket inspector insisted that he must pay the £160 upgrade for the first class seat. A scandal “ticketgate” broke out and was a major embarrassment to the Conservative government and almost cost Osborne his political career.

All the foregoing situations show clearly the supremacy of the law in those countries. Numerous other examples from other parts of the world can be cited.The great jurist Lord Denning puts it thus: “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”.

Is this the case in Nigeria? Cash-for-votes schemes are allegedly commonplace but who has ever been prosecuted for it? Allegations of tampering and manipulation of electoral results are made in almost every election petition and even where such petitions have succeeded, has anyone that matters in the Independent National Electoral Commission or in government ever been prosecuted? Would a Berlusconi in Nigeria not have used his position as Prime Minister to dismiss all the officers investigating him, sent them to unwanted “promotion’ courses or even have them imprisoned?

He would most definitely have destroyed the evidence against him making any prosecution after his immunity has lapsed impossible. We don’t have an efficient public railway system in Nigeria so we need not waste any time situating George Osborne in Nigeria.

The rule of law hardly exists in Nigeria today. Law enforcement agencies and government officers are the biggest violators of the law and they do so openly, shamelessly and with impunity such that law-abiding citizens are made to look either stupid or weak. The highest office in the land appointed INEC Commissioners some of who included persons who are known prominent members of a political party contrary to the dictates of the law, which disqualify such persons for appointment.

Despite protests to this flagrant violation of the law, the appointees remain in place. Treasury looters are either walking freely or are given slap in the wrist fines. Government officials and the rich and powerful have police orderlies and escort, not necessarily for protection but to keep them above the law. These policemen ensure that they beat traffic by driving everyone else off the road in clear violation of traffic laws; gain access to privileged places they would not otherwise be entitled; avoid queuing at airports when they arrive late; and park their vehicles in no-parking zones and so on.

Yet, those very people who openly violate the law know its value. They treat the law with disdain while in office. They undermine and obstruct it, but once they are out of office or have fallen from grace, they turn to that same legal process for redress. If the law and our institutions are to be robust, independent and just for all and sundry at all times, public officials must learn to respect those institutions, in and out of office.

It does not require a sociologist or criminologist to figure out that where the law is not supreme, there can be no proper and orderly society. Without order, there can be no peace and certainly without peace, there can be no progress. Martin Luther King Jnr. had said it – “Without justice, there can be no peace.”

No nation can be great unless its institutions are bigger than its individuals no matter how high and powerful those individuals are. History should rightly judge President Umaru Yar’Adua for his attempts to make the observance of the rule of law one of the cornerstones of his administration’s programmes. We must start strengthening our institutions by adherence to the rule of law instead of weakening them by strengthening individuals. From the poorest economies and weakest political systems to the strongest and most advanced, for proper functioning of society, the rule of law must prevail and infractions to it must be punished no matter who the offender is.

The final say here goes to President Obama who said when he visited Ghana in July 2009,that “ Africa does not need the strong man, but it needs strong institutions”. We need to heed those words in this country.

•Belgore, SAN, was ACN governorship candidate in Kwara State in the 2011 election.