President Muhammadu Buhari easily provides a good example of a living realist who sees, and appreciates, things as they really are, devoid of all unnecessary niceties.
While addressing the Nigerian community in far-away Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Buhari came out loud and clear, “In the fight against corruption, the Judiciary is my greatest problem”. Is Buhari alone? Certainly not.
We agree with the President that except he gets the Judiciary to buy into his vision in the fight against corruption, not much will be achieved. This is where the Judiciary has attempted to constitute itself into a clog in the wheel of progress.
Again, besides the battle-front of the corruption fight, the Judiciary, as symbolized by the apex court, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, has exposed itself to public opprobrium in many respects:
For example, lately, we have observed a sharp dichotomy between the Court of Justice and the Court of Law: On electoral matters, while the lower courts – the Election Petitions Tribunals and the Court of Appeal have stood on the side of justice where they saw no alternative to re-run elections in areas where elections were bedeviled with widespread violence and massive irregularities and in most cases elections did not hold at all, like Rivers and Akwa-Ibom States, yet miracle results emerged.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court has remained on the side of the Court of Law and technicalities where strict constructionism holds sway. And nothing else counts.
Every aspect of the contraptions in the 2015 elections in Rivers and Akwa-Ibom States manifests signs that can easily consume everyone – a situation in which people are openly encouraged to win elections by all means and at all costs; and then proceed to the Courts to validate it portend real danger.
We wonder how anyone could be allowed to become a winner of such bedeviled contests as happened in Rivers and Akwa-Ibom States where, largely, elections did not hold at all and results were written, no thanks to the so-called power of incumbency. Someone must tell the Supreme Court Justices that they have just given a stamp of approval to violent elections and election robberies. We are back to the murky waters of dirty politics; and the world is watching us. The tree of liberty must be watered by the blood of tyrants.
Sadly, there is an added dimension to our adjudication process. We call that the hanging judgment. Apparently, with monotonous regularity, the Supreme Court gives judgment before going into the books in search of the reasons that fit the judgment. This is working from the answer to the question.
At last, the Supreme Court Justices have obliged us with the deferred reasoning for their decision in the Rivers State gubernatorial contest. We search, but in vain, for any spectacular reason that clearly justifies the waiting, apart from putting a death knell on the Card Readers. Is that what we must wait for 16 long days to hear? And this was a case that they had three months to deal with, a reasonable part of which they could as well have devoted to writing the decision.
We have seen how the deferred reasoning works elsewhere. In Year 2000 presidential contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush in the US, the difference in their scores was razor-thin. Inauguration clock was ticking off and there was a quick legal question that needed to be determined as to who should be inaugurated. The Supreme Court sat all night and untied the tight knot.
In such an emergency, there was good reason to ask people to wait for a few days to hear the full details and reasoning behind the Supreme Court decision. Definitely, this cannot apply in cases where someone was sleeping on duty and asking the world to watch him snore.
Which system of justice anywhere in the world would totally ignore the feelings and temperament of the people in its adjudication process as the Supreme Court of Nigeria would want us to believes?
Is it not becoming clearer that former President Goodluck Jonathan really saved this country from catastrophe?
We can now see why the Judiciary may never forgive him for choosing the path of honour by bowing out honourably.
If nothing else, there is loss of income to some people somewhere. Some expected him to reject the outcome of the last election. They were already laying wait for him at the entrance of the Supreme Court, where a favourable decision awaited him.
And since the feelings of the people do not come into reckoning, it would also not have mattered an inch if by now, the entire country was aflame. This represents a frightening glimpse of the dangerous path the Supreme Court is shaping for this country.
There is no better time than now to begin to listen to those who feel that our judges must stand to be judged. The time to subject our Judiciary to total investigation and overhaul is now. The Judiciary cannot be exempted from the current crusade against corruption. In fact, it should be at the very centre.
Recently, a judge whose allegation of massive corruption and misconduct was about to be determined by the National Judicial Council, NJC, quickly threw in his retirement papers and went back home to become a first class traditional ruler.
Recent action of the Supreme Court is one impunity taken too far. For how long shall the entire country be taken for this jolly ride?
We, however, take solace in Justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa (1918-2014), a former Justice of the Supreme Court and one of the most eminent jurists the world has ever known: “We are final not because we are infallible; rather we are infallible because we are final”.
Yes, the powers in the hands of judges are great but they must be exercised with caution. After all, the stones are still on the ground. In extreme provocation, people throw them at people! Sadly, we are getting there.
