Nigeria’s seemingly unremitting slide into anarchy and lawlessness continued recently when hoodlums invaded a court premises in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and attacked anybody within sight in what could simply be described as a desecration of the temple of justice. The invading hoodlums ensured that the court did not discharge its functions for the day.
For a country already gripped by a siege mentality following a string of mass killings by non-state actors, this is an unwanted addition to the list of infamy for which the security forces have not yet got a clue. There is a sense of a gradual surrender of state monopoly of weapons of coercion, which should be urgently reviewed.
The May 11 incident in the Rivers State capital, triggered by rival All Progressives Congress thugs and adherents trying to stop a court verdict, witnessed a prolonged period of gunshots in what read like an anatomy of mayhem and helplessness. Video clips of the incident showed a complete breakdown of law and order within the premises of the court. Vandalised vehicles and other property littered the premises as evidence of the deadly confrontation.
According to reports, judicial workers were not spared. Those who were not physically assaulted were prevented from gaining access to their offices. And for the period that the pandemonium reigned, there were no serious efforts by the security agents to restore order. Many are left to wonder why adequate security was not provided or why the security forces did not act proactively to ensure that the messy situation did not occur.
Needless to say, a situation like that has the tendency to pervert the course of justice. Certainly, a judge acting under such an atmosphere could be forced to give a strange verdict, if he feels his life is at risk. This was the situation in Osun State last year when a judge was forced to reverse his ruling on a case involving a former Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, following a demand to that effect by students and staff of the institution, who had staged a serious protest outside the court premises.
It is quite unfortunate that the court, which should be an embodiment of orderliness, civility, decency, genteel behaviour and awe could be reduced to a battleground for political brigands and outlaws. No country can claim to be operating a democracy when the judiciary is under the grip of terror.
And if a court should, for whatever reason, become a place where judges would have to act under fear and intimidation or be cloaked in bulletproof jackets to perform their duties, then anarchy and a complete loss of confidence in the judiciary would be the inevitable outcome. The dangerous corollary will be people taking the law into their own hands. It will be a complete corrosion of the confidence in the judiciary as the last hope of the common man.
With the wisdom of hindsight, however, very little should be expected by way of a crackdown on the hooligans, despite the calls by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, the Nigerian Bar Association and members of the National Assembly for a proper investigation into the matter to fish out the perpetrators. According to the CJN, if allowed to go unpunished, the hoodlums might one day make the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court their next targets if they felt a certain verdict about to be delivered would not be in their favour.
One could not agree more with the CJN, given what happened in Colombia in 1985, when a group of drug dealers, believed to be led by a baron, Pablo Escobar, invaded the Palace of Justice, the site of the country’s Supreme Court, and killed many justices. By the time the military moved in with tanks to dislodge the criminals, over 100 people had reportedly lost their lives, many executed by the criminals.
When a similar court invasion by thugs took place in Ekiti State in September 2014, a High Court judge, I. O. Ogunyemi, had his sitting disrupted, and had to be ferried out of the premises to safety by police officers. Two days later, it was the turn of J. O. Adeyeye, who was beaten up and had his robe torn by the goons. A statement by the registrar of the court, Obafemi Fasanmi, said “the police officers on guard looked unconcerned and uninterested as judges, magistrates and members of staff had to run for their dear lives.” Yet, the culprits were not brought to book.
Similarly, in August 2015, soldiers stormed the premises of a magistrates’ court in Benin and forcibly took away some suspects. The magistrate was left with no option but to order a petition to be written to appropriate quarters. But the Benin incident turned out to be mild when compared to the bombing of three court premises in Rivers State in February of the same year. A police statement described as a “coordinated attack” the detonation of Improvised Explosive Devices at court premises in Degema, Isiokpo and Port Harcourt.
Coming so close to the 2019 elections, the recent Port Harcourt court attack is a warning of ominous signs ahead; more of such violent assaults on the judiciary should be expected – unless, of course, the perpetrators of this particular act are arrested and severely punished to serve as a deterrent to others. It is even more imperative to act now because the stakes are only going to be higher as intra-party elections give way to inter-party contests.
This gratuitous assault on an arm of the government that should be completely insulated from politics should be discouraged once and for all. The government has to read the runes and take appropriate actions of arresting and punishing criminals and law-breakers, no matter who they may be. That is the only way to run a civilised and law-abiding society.
