BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
The comments of the former National Deputy Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Bode George on the outcome of election petitions and the role of the judiciary in determining who becomes elected or not into the various elective positions have attracted divergent opinions from Nigerians of all strata.
George said recently that when the judiciary is compromised, one way or the other, in a democratic system, then democracy is dead.
The PDP chieftain, who spoke after a meeting with the Lagos State PDP elders, said conflicting and contradictory judgements coming from the judiciary are indications that the country’s democracy is shaken.
According to him, “In Nigeria, there are hundreds of judges upholding the sanctity of the judiciary. They not only give judgements but they deliver justice.
“Nigerians still believe in them. But, because of conflicting and contradictory judgements coming from a few, the belief of many Nigerians in the judiciary is understandably shaken.
“This is worrisome because if the people don’t believe in the third arm of government anymore, anarchy looms. Today, many Nigerians point to some corrupt judges who escape unscathed to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth because the system is too weak or compromised to do a proper investigation.
“We now have a situation in which courageous judges who refuse to do the bidding of ‘powers that be’ are accused of being corrupt and forced to resign.
“In many political cases, millions of people believe, and rightly so, that some judges deliver judgements, not justice.”
The PDP leader also said there are now incessant conflicting ex-parte orders from courts of coordinate jurisdiction which, according to him, many Nigerians see as a cankerworm affecting the judiciary.
“Stories of millions of dollars now fly around, especially in political cases. Sadly, some politicians now use the court as a shield and the highest political bidders are recklessly granted favourable orders.
“A few weeks ago, retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Musa Muhammad Dattijo, took the judiciary to the cleaners. Nobody could have exposed the rot in the third arm of government better than the septuagenarian jurist.
“Obviously, the unholy alliances between some politicians and judges are dangerous to our democracy. Millions of people will come out on the day of the election, queue, collect ballot papers, and cast their votes for their preferred candidates, results will be announced and everybody will jubilate only for three, five or seven judges to upturn the popular will of the people. What an affront!
“Pitiably, we now have a situation in which politicians who did not participate in party primaries are affirmed by the judiciary as the candidates because of ‘technicalities’.
“That is why Nigerians strongly believe that some members of the executive suppress and intimidate Judges, just to get favourable judgements.
“Electoral verdict should be the sole responsibility of the electorate but it has now been turned upside down. It is now the government of the judiciary, by the judiciary, for the judiciary.
“A situation where two cases of the same grounds are given different interpretations and judgments by the same Justices, you begin to wonder what has really become of our judiciary. The simple truth is that the politicians have destroyed every institution in Nigeria”
“Democracy should be about the people, exercising their fundamental human rights, not being goaded, as we are presently witnessing. Now, judges select who should be members of the House of Representatives, Senators, Governors and even the President
“What kind of electoral system are we running that all vices, electoral crimes, defects and manipulations cannot be checked before the general elections?”
George’s comment was hailed by a lawyer and social critic, Sylva Emeka who tagged it ‘a naked truth’ that must be told if Nigeria must be rescued from drifting off the tenets of democracy.
“I know many politicians and their cronies will want to eat Chief Bode George raw but I want to say that he has spoken the truth as expected from an elder statesman and a patriotic citizen who desires that our country does not sink by the activities of the politicians whose interests are what they can get out of the Nigerian project.
“Take a roll call of the election petitions cases across the country and their outcome. I’m not particular about any political party; you will believe out rightly with him that the judiciary is not helping the growth of our democracy. A situation where two cases of the same grounds are given different interpretations and judgments by the same Justices, you begin to wonder what has really become of our judiciary. The simple truth is that the politicians have destroyed every institution in Nigeria. They want to get it at all costs. That’s why if they fail at the polls, they fight dirty at the courts and with the instrument of the state actors (for those of them who have the backing) they surely have it. The common man on the streets does not know whose fault it is. That is the reason all blames are on the judiciary and I want to say, the people are right in their own way.
“Moreover, when you consider the kind of comments from the beneficiaries of the courts’ menace, you don’t need a soothsayer to tell you that all is not well with our judiciary though there are still men of integrity on the bench however, they are very few. The husband of a retired Appeal Court Justice boasted on the floor of the Senate that most of his colleagues there benefited from his influence over his wife to pervert justice.
Another serving lawmaker in the House of Representatives boasted not quite long ago that the Justices at the Supreme Court are working for his party. Now tell me, when people continue to hear these disparaging comments about our Justices and Judges and then questionable judgments are given, what do you expect to be their conclusion? So head or tail, Nigeria is in a big mess, so, Chief Bode George is right and that’s my opinion.”
A former House of Representatives member and All Progressives Congress Chieftain, Cletus Obun out rightly disagreed with both the legal practitioner and George.
Obun queried George’s place in the advancement of democracy in Nigeria having served as a military junta who believed so much in strangulating civilian rule by hanging onto power illegally by the aid of the gun and even when he metamorphosed to civilian wears, joined the political party that was full of selfishness than national interest.
“I don’t see what gave Bode George the audacity to comment on democratic matters. Bode George first of all lacks the moral standing and pedigree to discuss Nigerian democracy because if anybody has destroyed Nigerian democracy, he is one of the architects of delaying Nigeria’s democracy.
Why? Because in the days of the military, he partook in all that. Now talking about the judiciary, there must be an offer and there must be acceptance in a bribe and corruption, there must be inducement for it as well. No judge sits in his house and says go to tribunal, when you come to tribunal I will collect judgment and give to you so that you become a senator or governor or honourable member. Fundamentally, it is the parties and the political actors that have polluted the Nigerian political situation and system. In fact, the space has been overcome and overwhelmed by the deluge and desperation of some political actors who are always in the race to meet their mischievous and inordinate ambitions.
“Now if we now go to start discussing the judiciary, if in terms of constitutionally obedience to them and the rule of law, and we find a situation there’s a circumvention and impunity in the implementation of even intra party law, that is, parties don’t even obey their own constitutions which is not even done in the shrines in the villages, not even in the community justice, making their rules and regulations where you made your rules and said this is a pattern in which somebody can emerge as a candidate and you don’t even obey it and you said nobody should discuss it, if nobody should interfere with that, and that is why I don’t even agree with the Supreme Court that the emergence of a political party’s candidate is a pure effect and duty of a political party.”
Obun argued that such is detrimental to the development of our democracy.
“It’s not true because that man is going to be a Senator that is going to make laws that will affect the rest of us. So why should we not discuss him? A man would have been an ex-convict, a felon, a man who would have been sufficiently indicted even as a village head, even as a clan head, even as class monitor or a class rep in the university and he comes to run for any of these elective positions such as senate, governor or even President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and you said the rest of us should not partake in how the party brings him out.
“Maybe he was brought out as their candidate simply because he can pay the entire party members still we have 230 million Nigerians still counting and then 20 or two million members of a political party threw up a candidate that we know as a bandit or funding banditry or kidnapping and you said we should not discuss him because it’s a party affair and then we have only 14 days to deal with it in court. How can we prove a criminal case against somebody within 14 days? So, I think that’s the foundation for corruption and for the judiciary to intervene, I don’t also agree that they should choose for us our leaders but we should not even give the judiciary the opportunity to even partake in that process by the kind of things that we do as politicians and political parties in the selection of our candidates whose influence and performance are going to impact on the entire citizenry.
“Whether you are a political party member or not, the decisions taken either in the senate or house of assembly are going to affect you. So if laws are going to affect me, then I must have a say about who should be my house of assembly member and who should be my senator. It is therefore wrong for anybody to heap it all on the judiciary when the judiciary itself is only a victim of the invitation by the politicians and the political parties. That is my position. Whosoever is going to condemn the judiciary as we are condemning the parliamentarians today should realise they are all products of the people and not the other way round. They didn’t create the voters, the voters created them and the society equally created the judiciary,” he said.
A Kano state-born retired director from the federal civil service who pleaded anonymity said, “Going by the inconsistent pronouncements coming out of the judiciary, it is obvious to align with Chief Bode George. What we have seen and heard from the judiciary about how they are determining election petition cases clearly shows that justice, or the lack of it, in the electoral and judicial processes can lead to unrest and anarchy.
“It seems the independence of the judiciary is being compromised, otherwise how can we explain inconsistencies in a single judgement? They have all the time to adjourn to the next day to continue their work rather than rush, make mistakes or issue contradictory statements.
“Indeed we can conclude that there is a heavy hand of external power in influencing who emerges winner in the various petitions.
“On which institutions do I, in all sincerity, believe have a chunk of blame in what is happening in Nigeria’s political environment, the judiciary of course? They are the last hope of the common man and if it is threatened by external influence, how can justice be achieved? Let me make reference to the judgement of the Kano State Elections Petition Tribunal of September 20, 2023 which sacked the governor. It sparked reactions across the state among the loyalists of simple citizens who treat politics with a commitment surpassed only by their commitment to their faith.
“We saw celebrations and protests from the winners and losers as well as the resultant loss of lives and properties. The judiciary could have saved us from these losses, even if it was one life. The magic or miracle that can upturn that decisive and landmark judgment is what every keen observer anxiously waits to see.
“In order to prevent reoccurrence Nigeria must cleanse the polity of corrupt elements from the politicians, to the judiciary and down to the electorate.”
“The problem with our political class and so-called elder statesmen is that they only rise up to complain when any decision does not favour them”, says Johnbosco Ayuba, a social and political commentator.
“No judge sits in his house and says go to tribunal, when you come to tribunal I will collect judgment and give to you so that you become a senator or governor or honourable member. Fundamentally, it is the parties and the political actors that have polluted the Nigerian political situation and system”
Ayuba said the sanctity of courts in Nigeria, including the Supreme Court had since been destroyed particularly during the former President Buhari’s administration.
“Our courts lost their sanctity the day the Buhari administration launched an unwarranted attack on the judiciary and ended up forcefully removing the then Chief Justice of the Federation, Walter Onoghen and planted a stooge as his replacement. It was under this CJN that our courts became the stock market and the highest bidder takes home judgment not justice. We all saw what happened in one of the state’s gubernatorial election petitions where a non-candidate who contested election by error and came fourth was declared winner at the Supreme Court by the CJN. What about the gestapo attacks on some of the Justices the politicians believed still had integrity, what this present administration is doing is to comprehensively bury the judiciary and you know when they achieve this, anarchy will be installed. That’s what Bode George meant and I totally agree with him.”
Spokesman of the ObiDatti Campaign Organisation, Tanko Yunusa, in his response said, “The ruling from the Appeal Courts shows lack of consistency in our jurisprudence and that of course creates a lot of apprehension and uncertainty within the elect and then the electoral. Although, the elected officers feel as if they have been able to get a higher ground as against their opponents, the perception is that, most of our judges have been more or less corrupted in a way. Of course, these are allegations since we have never had a proof but then they say that the Friday that will be good will begin to see from a Wednesday and it’s showing those indices that there are chances of the conspiracy happening within the politicians and then the judiciary.
“These of course may have been the reason why Chief Bode George alluded to this particular fact, so, for me the issue of inconsistency is sad enough for our political process. Take a look at the issue that we took to court where we proved beyond reasonable doubt that we have a Certified True Copy of 8880 blurred result we got from INEC but of course the Appeal Court in its own wisdom said that we actually generated those CTC even though INEC did not deny it. But here, in other cases you find out that the same Appeal Court in a different case of the same matter will accept those CTC in order to favour a particular candidate. That is an inconsistency and that is not good for our democracy.
“Also, there are issues that relate to pre and post elections or during election which of course is exactly the case in Kano State and that of Peter Obi where we were told that our case in terms of forgery, in terms of certificate racketeering, in terms of forfeiture of $460,000 and at the same time the qualification of the office holder all those things were pre-election matters to a point that the judges were angry and we’re almost ridiculing what we did but here, Appeal Court has affirmed another candidate in a pre-election matter. So you see the level of inconsistency. I will agree totally that this will not only create anarchy but will create a lot of distortions beyond reasonable doubt and it will affect our democratic process.”
