- True or false, classifying Nigerian courts as bastion of filth should shock the judiciary into painful self re-examination
First, it was furtive rumours. Then, it became stubborn assertions. Now two organisations, one local: the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS); the other international: United Nations Office for Drug Control (UNODC), have outed with a sensational claim: that the Nigerian judiciary is a bastion of rogues!
Worse, for the justice-criminal system: the Police, by the report, are Number 1; and the judiciary is Number 2.
That grimly summarises the crisis of perception facing justice delivery in Nigeria. It may yet have grave consequences for peace, particularly if the judiciary is no longer perceived as the hallowed last resort of the common man. Besides, genuine peace is a natural extension of justice.
The Police, charged with crime control, are corrupt. The judiciary, charged with meting out state sanctions for crime, is not above board. It appears an eerie scenario, where official crime sits in judgment over unofficial crime. That, for Nigeria, is damning and unflattering.
Still, both institutions have reacted rather defensively, dismissing the damning verdict as more of a past trend, that did not take into account the heroics of their present leadership, and therefore skewed against them.
That might well be. True, the present Police leadership has become rather activist on cracking down on malfeasance. Aside from Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris’s campaigns, Lagos State Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, has made his telephone numbers a public property, all in brave attempts to nab itching fingers, among the Police ranks.
But tried as they have, the image of the Police as haven of petty bribes and brazen extortion appears well cemented, given the past notoriety of its troopers and its present negative body language to any clean-up. A notorious example is the umpteenth racketeering in bails for lowly and humble citizens. Bail is supposed to be free. Even posters in police stations say so. But whoever, among these most vulnerable citizens, get it so? So, the Police leadership must do much more.
But the real tragedy, as far as sleaze, perceived or real goes, is the Judiciary. Once upon a time, the judiciary was so revered a famous play, The Incorruptible Judge was part of the school curriculum, for children’s literature. Not any more! Indeed, before he died, Justice Kayode Esho, an epitome of brilliance and character if ever there was one, already warned of smart Alecs he called “billionaire judges”.
Yet, both the Bench and the Bar, from their often obdurate reactions when graft in the judiciary is raised, don’t seem to know what the fuss is all about. From reports, even the most senior of lawyers seem more concerned about willy-nilly winning cases, than pursuing the path of justice — and if cash is needed to oil that wheel, so be it!
On the Bench, there appears a ready relay of rogue judges, ready to betray their solemn oath, if the money is right. The additional tragedy is that these judges are most times not unknown among their peers; and have somewhat cut a brazen cash-for-injustice niche, which has catapulted their worth obscenely beyond their earnings. These judges could well be the tiny minority as the National Judicial Commission (NJC) always insists. But they sure have done an excellent near-total tarring of their once-immaculate profession.
Both Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen and the NJC don’t seem to realise the grave danger the judiciary has put itself. Their reaction is always the same: defensive and technical. It’s scandalous that any judicial body worth its breath would ask indicted judges to keep sitting in their courts. Yet, that’s what this CJN and his NJC did, before good sense ultimately prevailed — even then, the harm had been done, with the stand hinged on the technicality that the judges had not been formally charged! Don’t these grey wigs have a sense of moral outrage?
That is why the public often perceives the judicial authorities as struggling hard to defend the indefensible, in an annoying posture of judicial esprit de corps, rather than attacking the rot with the seriousness it deserves.
The NJC, under CJN Aloysius Katsina-Alu had a moral collapse, the way it handled the Justice Ayo Salami matter, in collusion with the Jonathan Presidency. Now, the NJC, under CJN Onnoghen, is having a moral collapse, resisting a Buhari Presidency bent on cleaning up a rotten Judiciary. At least, that is the negative public perception, now supported by these disturbing NBS, UNODC findings.
But the greatest tragedy for the embattled Judiciary, under CJN Onnoghen, is that it is even, no matter how remote, linked to sleaze.
Like Caesar’s wife, the Judiciary must not only be above board, it must clearly be seen to be so. The present Judiciary has not passed this strict test. That is the sad significance of the two damning reports.
That is why CJN Onnoghen should quit treating a digital crisis with analogue tactics, if he hopes to bequeath any judiciary worth its name to his successors.
