Olisa Agbakoba, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), is completely peeved with the quality of judgements coming out of the judiciary in recent times especially the Supreme Court, saying their supine and questionable decisions had dealt a heavy blow on their integrity and effectiveness as the last authority in matters of disputes.
Agbakoba, a renowned human rights activist and for President of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), who spoke on Sunday, as a guest of Law Weekly, a programme on Channels Television, told his host that nobody would have thought decades ago that the apex court would degenerate so low as to issue the type of pronouncements coming out of that level of judicial officers today.
He cited the recent decision of the apex court, regarding Ahmad Lawan, Senate President, who returned to claim a ticket for the Senate in Yobe State, after a failed bid at the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in clear violation of the Electoral Act, 2022, which made it clear that nobody could aspire to two positions within an election circle.
Apart from the case, which had raised a lot of dust in legal and public circles, the erudite lawyer and activist, also revisited the case of Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, who was handed down his office in 2019, even after coming a distant fourth position in the election of that year, through the controversial decision of the Supreme Court.
Though he said the answered were clearly laid out and the issues very clear for judges that would wish to do justice, Agbakoba, who spoke on the issue of the current legal challenge being posed to the outcome of the recent presidential election by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, against the victory of Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the February 25 presidential election, said he had no confidence that the right decision would be taken to do justice to the matter, given the character of the current Supreme Court.
His words: “I’ve lost a bit of confidence in what the courts have been doing lately. There was a time you could say on the facts and the law, this is the likely outcome. Today you cannot because of all kinds of silly decisions. The most silly was that concerning the President of the Senate, who in order to become Nigeria’s President, rushed off to buy a ticket to be a presidential candidate of the APC and that means he did not take part in the senatorial elections.
“Lo and behold, he lost. He now ran back after the horse had bolted. Clearly to anybody who had any brain, including the justices of the Supreme Court might have had, and they said no, the man should be the senatorial candidate. That is the most ridiculous decision I’ve ever heard that the Supreme Court has delivered. So, that is why, of course I don’t want to talk about Imo State where everything was turned upside down. So, I don’t have the sort of confidence that I used to have in the judiciary and I’ll not be surprised if this thing goes one way or the other.
“I have the legal tools and the factual issues, so if If I put it into my computer, I know the answer it will give me. But I’m not a member of the panel. So, I don’t know if the justices will see it the way I’m seeing it. But I can tell you that from my own perspective as a lawyer of 45 years at the bar that the answers are glaringly obvious.
“But as Oliver Wendell Holmes said in the realist school of jurisprudence that it is the prophesy of what the court does in fact and nothing more pretentious that is the law. So, if you ask me, what will be the outcome of the petition, first of all, I cannot say, because it’s sub-judice, but second of all I cannot even say, because the Supreme Court is unpredictable.
“They ought to be predictable, which is now why people are now beginning to question – there’s a new school of thinking, which is saying, should the Supreme Court really be final? See what they’re causing now? Should they be final or should their decisions be subject to judicial review? It’s an argument that is now growing in judicial circles. The confidence that is eroding for people to begin to think, what’s the hell, can’t we do something to these people?
“That’s what is happening. Seven men just come out, sit down on a chair and read something and we say okay, that governor is sacked. Who are these people? It should be taken seriously. That wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. When these people come out, you fear them when you see them come out. And when they speak, they speak without fear or favour. Is it the same thing now? I don’t know!”