- The CJN says lack of political will makes the judiciary lag in convicting corrupting officials, and we agree
Which arm of government is to blame for the delays that attend high-profile cases of corruption in the country: the executive or the judicial arm? Whilst President Muhammadu Buhari believes the judiciary is to blame, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, blames it all on lack of political will on the part of the executive arm.
President Buhari bared his mind on the issue on November 23 at the flag-off of the 2015 All Nigeria Judges’ Conference in Abuja, when he told his audience that more than ever before, “allegations of judicial corruption have become more strident and frequent.” The president, who was represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the occasion, accused corrupt lawyers and judges of sabotaging his efforts to recover stolen assets; by extension, they are the ones stalling the anti-corruption war.
Justice Mohammed fought back about a week later, saying, instead, that lack of political will (on the part of the executive) is a major setback in the prosecution of high-profile corruption cases in the country. The CJN said in a statement by his media aide, Mr. Ahuraka Isah, during a meeting with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), alongside other Justices of the Supreme Court and the heads of federal courts that: “Experience within the judiciary shows that there is an abject lack of political will to prosecute some of those cases pending before our various courts, almost a decade in some instances. It is not because there are no special courts, but mostly for reasons of political expedience and other ancillary considerations.”
Both the president and the CJN are right. This is clear even from some of the president’s observations as to why corruption cases linger interminably, when he observed that delays and sometimes inaction on some of these cases are “consequences of shoddy investigation”; a function that falls under the purview of the executive. Indeed, we have seen instances of complicity on both sides in many of the cases of corruption involving highly placed Nigerians. There are many instances too where lawyers used delay tactics in the trial process such that many of such cases do not advance beyond the preliminary stages years after the cases started.
However, rather than trade blames, both the president and the CJN have a duty to ensure that justice does not travel at a snail’s speed. It is heartwarming that both of them have made useful suggestions on how to make the country’s judicial arm much more effective and relevant. The judiciary must, on its part, look inward and deal with the scourge of corrupt practices, real or perceived, within the system. A situation where some judges allegedly became billionaires overnight merely by handling election cases cannot be allowed to continue if the impartiality and integrity of the judiciary is to be protected. The judiciary must, in essence, be prepared to sanitise itself, to rid it of the bad elements soiling its image.
Judges, as the president said, should not hesitate to punish lawyers and litigants who deliberately delay trials, even as the judicial officers should revisit reports of previous reform panels on how to improve legal practice in the country. A good point that President Buhari also made is that the Supreme Court, as a very busy court, should focus on key constitutional issues and not be bogged down by interlocutory matters.
The Federal Government too must be ready to invest heavily on its prosecutors to reduce the incidence of shoddy investigation and other unethical practices that make those handling high-profile cases lose the cases that they ordinarily should win. It should ensure financial independence for the judiciary like the legislature and the executive arms, so that judges and the wheel of justice generally would not be slowed down by lack of funds. The judiciary is too crucial to the democratic process and should therefore not be imperiled in any way.
