When everything else fails, the Scriptures will not. That’s why the Bible is the greatest, most read and accurate book ever written. The book of Proverbs, for example, is an excursion, a genre of wisdom and thoughtful sayings. No wonder the writer of Proverbs says that, “when justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers”(Proverbs 21:15). Twelve days after the Supreme Court of Nigeria had drawn the curtain on the hotly contested Feb 25 Presidential election, reactions continue to trail the judgement delivered by both the Presidential Election Petition Court and the final verdict by the Supreme Court, on October 26.
Clearly, for sometime now, our judiciary has come under a blanket of suspicion. Reactions against some of the decisions made at both the lower and appellate courts, have been largely condemnatory. It’s not for nothing. It is wrong, in fact, manifestly wrong, for anyone with his brain well seated, to describe Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the PDP in that election, and Peter Obi, of the Labour Party, as sore losers. Nigeria lost, not Obi, nor Atiku. Our democracy suffered by the outcome of the presidential election. But no one spoke truth to power, and expressed unambiguously, our collective pain and legitimate concerns about the present state of the judiciary as Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad did. He retired from the Supreme Court, October 27, a day after the apex court delivered its judgement that affirmed Bola Tinubu as President of Nigeria. In a career spanning 47 years and shaped by a resolute determination, Justice Dattijo had in his valedictory speech, given Nigerians a strikingly candid portrait of our judiciary in the past, and its ugly present. In his words, “the judiciary I am exiting from is far from the one I voluntarily joined and desired to serve and be identified with. The situation has become “something else”. Without a doubt, what we have seen in the judiciary in recent times is unusual, exceptionally out of the ordinary. This is an impassioned farewell speech, an assessment and exceptional understanding of where Nigeria is today. Indeed, to give a thoughtful valedictory speech when you are retiring can leave a lasting impression on not only one’s colleagues but the honouree himself.
Yes, a farewell speech can be one rare opportunity to say goodbye, not only to friends, but to your nation. It doesn’t only offer a chance of a lifetime to express one’s gratitude for the privilege to serve, at the apex court where Justice Dattijo meritoriously served for eleven years, nothing comes closer to differentiating justice from evil. And he did, masterfully. It will not be an exaggeration to say that Justice Dattijo’s farewell speech is perhaps the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account yet of a retired Justice of the Supreme in recent memory ever written – encompassing not only the highpoints and crises of his own career but the gripping account of the mess that our judiciary and its officers have fallen into. If you like, call it is a treasury moments caught alive in which the incumbent Chief Justice of the highest Court in the land was not spared.
You see, when things go wrong(as Nigeria is going downhill now, and our judiciary at crossroads), only men and women of courage and conviction, can stand up to be counted on the side of truth, fairness and justice. He hit the bull’s eye. The revelations by Justice Dattijo, should not be totally shocking to many. Rather, coming from an insider, it only confirmed the long-held public view that the judiciary has become “something else”, or Atiku Abubakar puts it, “the lost hope of the common man”. The question is, how did our judiciary go down from that pristine position of trust and confidence, to the present sorry state of collosal loss of public confidence that troubles the minds and hearts of many?
Justice Dattijo provided us an insight into the trouble within. Putting things in perspective, he said the journey was initially “calm and fulfilling until halfway through his Supreme Court years when turbulent cracks made it awry and askew”. When he lamented that the CJN Olukayode Ariwoola has absolute powers, “both the final and only say to appoint 80 percent of members of the Federal Judicial Service Commission, it appropriately reflects what Lord Acton said, that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’”. The same is true for the awesome powers conferred on the President of Nigeria by the Constitution. That is why Nigeria will remain a coven of injustice and evildoers. It’s an invitation to tyranny. For our judiciary, Justice Dattijo says it ‘is the unimaginable retrogression’. His assertion that “children and other relatives of serving and retired judges and Justices are being appointed into judicial offices at the expense of more qualified candidates lacking in such privilege and backing”, is no longer news. But it’s highly disturbing. Didn’t the present CJN recently preside over the swearing in of one of his sons as a Judge of the Federal High Court? Is this not the same with the daughter of retired Justice of the Supreme Court Mary Odili? There are many more of such cases at the state judiciary, where some governors have sworn in their own wives as Judges. Privilege should not take the place of merit and competence.
Perhaps more disturbing of the unsavoury developments in the judiciary that caught the attention of Justice Dattijo, was the unpredictable nature of some of the Supreme Court decisions early this year, in particular, the case of former Senate President Ahmad Lawan, and his successor, Sen. Godswill Akpabio. How the duo contested the last National Assembly election despite not participating in the primaries, courtesy of the Supreme Court, remains one of the low points in the history of our judiciary. The alleged “infighting among the Justices of the Supreme Court”, (as Justice Dattijo puts it), is yet another case in point. Recall that the present CJN was said to be one of the ‘active participants’ in the revolt that pressured the immediate past CJN Tanko Muhammad to retire before his time was up. Overall, the emerging facts that our judges and Justices are seemingly becoming more partisan than politicians is a threat to democracy. We saw this during the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, and the recent Supreme Court judgement, in which some commentators alleged that the learned Justices did a ‘better job’ defending the Respondents than the their legal team did. Judges, an old saying goes, are supposed to be heard, not seen. That is no longer the case. In the present dispensation, judges, justices, intermingle with politicians, forcefully defending their case as if they have become consultants rather than judges in the temple of justice. Recall what happened on November 24, 2022, when CJN Ariwoola was in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital. He was a guest to former Governor of the state Nyesom Wike. Speaking during the banquet in his honour at Government House, Port Harcourt, the CJN reportedly said, “I am happy that my Governor(Seyi Makinde of Oyo state) is among the G5 within the PDP”. Even though he doubled down on his comments, saying he comment was “misinterpreted”, a video released later by Channels television confirmed he uttered the exact statement attributed to him. In the past, it would be rare(if at all) for an incumbent CJN to utter such partisan statement. That reminds us of one the famous quotes by late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa who distinguished himself at the Supreme Court. He said, “if you are a judge and you are corrupt, where do we go from here? Then, everything has come to a halt. If the Executive or Legislature is corrupt, you go to the judiciary for redress. If the judiciary itself is corrupt, where do you go from there? To God you don’t see? To history which is past? To the future that has not come?
Unfortunately, Nigerian politicians are exerting so much pressure on the judiciary to do their bidding. Recently, Justice Charles Omole of the London Circuit Court, alleged that “there is corruption in Nigeria judiciary through administrative misconduct by clerks, registrars and admin staff”. He claimed being told my some of his friends in the Nigeria’s judiciary that undue pressures are being mounted on judges. He listed these corrupt tendencies to include blackmail on judges to enter judgment in favour of their clients and spiritual attacks on judges who fail to compromise their oath of office. He claimed that outright purchase of judgment “is the most rampant in the lower courts, and even at the Appeal Court and Supreme Court”. How true this claim is, cannot be ascertained. But it comes close to the warning by Martin Luther King Jr, about the catastrophic risks involved in such a situation where justice is traded for money. Luther King said, “we need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice, leaders who are not in love with publicity but in love with humanity”. Simply put, Nigeria desperately needs a new kind of leadership. But hope of getting such leaders in our politics is fast fading away.
In all, the credibility question that Nigeria’s judiciary is facing today is a grim reflection of our leadership crisis that has creeped into key institutions of governance that ought to strengthen democracy. For example, in a survey released last year and funded by a Washington DC-based National Endowment for Democracy, showed that 71.2 percent of Nigerians said they have lost trust in the judicial system to treat everyone equally. The report also showed a deep citizens’ negative perception of governance in the country. Just recently, statistics published by The Guardian newspaper indicated that the credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has sunk to an all-time low, as 94 percent of contested election results await tribunals’ verdict.
Though the electoral umpire faulted the report, saying it was based on wrong assumptions, it is beyond doubt that Nigerians are divided over the capacity of INEC and the judiciary to deliver free and transparent elections and justice that will restore public confidence. This should worry anybody who wants this democracy to succeed. As governorship elections are holding this weekend, all eyes are on the INEC and other government agencies. Failure to deliver fair, credible and transparent elections in these states – Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi – could signal a descent into anarchy. The ominous signs are everywhere.