Editorial
Pray! What manner of trust does Justice Okoro and the Supreme Court want?
Justice Iyang Okoro, made a very remarkable statement on Thursday. At the end of his judgement, while leading the seven-man panel of the Supreme Court, which ended the legal challenge to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the February 25, 2023 presidential election as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on March 1, 2023, he said, the public, must learn to trust the courts.
Of course, the erudite jurist, ought to be stating the obvious. Courts are temples of justice or have been described as so. Therefore, anyone and everyone that comes to them must bow to their authority. This, of course is predicated on the assumption that judges, lawyers and other judicial officers, themselves are the priests and servants at its alter. In this wise the pronouncements of judges therefrom are supposed to be words coming direct from God. That ought to be the source and essence of the respect and nothing more.
It is like the Pope speaking ex-cathedra – when he mounts the Papal Chair of Saint Peter to make a pronouncement – the Catholic Church believes that therein lies the infallibility of the Pope – where everything issuing from his mouth in that condition, is authentic and correct teaching of the church and of God, to wit.
No true priests of Osun or Amadioha would decree the trust of the people. Their conducts and outcomes of their divinations simply speak for them. In law, it is the doctrine or dictum of res ipsa loquitur – the facts speak for themselves or what in internet technology is referred as garbage in, garbage out. In other words, you cannot plant orange and demand to reap cassava. There are so many ways to put it.
The moment it is suspected or discovered that the judgements from the courts are no longer reflective of the pristine qualities of a temple, a natural reaction follows. It is either the trust and respect they are supposed to convoke or invoke become shaky, at best or at the worst, they collapse completely and in that case, suffer the fate of the biblical salt that loses its taste, and only fit for the fire as its final destination.
Is that not what is obvious in the situation at hand? To what extent, have the pronouncements of the courts Okoro wants Nigerians to trust reflective of the voice of God that dwells in the temple of justice? That is the question that he must first answer, without which, his disenchantment at the reaction of the public goes into no issue. It is akin to eating his cake and having it or blaming the victim and not the oppressor or as it is said in Nigeria, beating a child and saying it should not cry.
It is a common saying that anything that acts in the manner of a rat would naturally attract the attention of the cat. That obviously is the case here. Over the years, the Nigerian courts have acted in manners that not only raised the suspicion of the public towards their true intendments, but reached outcomes that have dealt heavy blows to their impetus as the eyes and ears of God in the temple of justice.
It is a common dictum in law and many judges have also adumbrated so that justice must not only be done, but seen to have been done. To make the concept more reflective and understandable, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, JSC as he then was, popularly referred as the Nigerian Socrates on the bench, even expanded it to mean, justice to the accused, justice to the accuser and justice to the society.
To what extent has this been reflected in the judgements of the courts in recent years to enable them command the trust Okoro demanded of Nigerians? Consider the case in question regarding the Supreme Court itself. Could the apex court say with its full chest that it did not act as a rat that should attract the attention the cats within the Nigerian society?
This particular Supreme Court panel, which Justice Okoro presided over, holds the record today for posting the fastest judgement time in the history of Nigeria. At no time had the apex court given such a critical judgement in such a record time. Three days to prepare and read a judgement in a presidential election, is such an extraordinary feat, to say the least.
Ordinarily, that particular speed ought to earn the panel and the judges a special mention on the pages of honour for being so diligent to their call, especially in the view of the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied. Yet, did it? But was that the case? Certainly not! Why? The answer simply lies in the sequence of events that occurred before it. Many did not see the urgency that would lead to the speed in the face of the prevailing circumstances especially with the information preceding it.
The reason is simple. Outside the main substance of the presidential election and its outcome, a bigger issue had come up in its wake – the true identity of President Tinubu, a development, whose implications clearly outshone the other questions about the credibility of the election itself during the pendency of the matter.
Before then, Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had roused the interest of not only Nigerians, but indeed, the entire world with the damning issue of the depositions at the District Court of Illinois, Chicago in the US, regarding the Chicago State University (CSU), where the President claimed to have obtained the degree certificates he submitted to INEC.
At the time the admissibility of the matter was being argued at the apex court, there was another argument at a court in the US, where Atiku was again pressing the judges to order the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to release its much touted dossier on Tinubu, which he and his supporters, believed would have given a further impetus to their claims that the President was complicit in all manners of crimes, including identity theft, which made him unfit for the number one job of Nigeria he presently occupies.
It was few hours after the District Court in Detroit, reportedly denied the former VP the request to release the record before the October ending, in order to aid the Supreme Court decide on what to do that Okoro and his panel decided to move. Therein lay the suspicion! Who could actually blame anyone that believes that they were working to an answer, even if the intentions of their lordships at the SC were noble?
Three days to prepare and deliver a judgement was incredible in Nigeria simplicita! It even got curiouser with the pronouncements of the Okoro panel proper. Who told Okoro and his men that what Nigerians and indeed the world were looking for was to hear their mastery of the law as was showcased during that judgement on Thursday? No! Nigerians and the world were looking out for answers to clear questions.
Who won the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria? If you agree with INEC that it is Tinubu, how? All Atiku, Peter Obi, his counterpart at the Labour Party (LP), their supporters and indeed a groundswell of the public wanted was a glean into the real and entire contents of the Independent Results Viewing (IReV) Portal of INEC that showed the images of women in the bathrooms or eagles chasing their preys.
They also wanted a credible judicial scrutiny of the contents of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which Atiku and Obi actually got from INEC itself after such a tortuous process, so as to ascertain to prove to Nigerians that Tinubu truly won the election. Did their lordships provide the answers as required of them? Were they supposed to and if yes, what response were they expecting if they did not? In other words, having provided what the public needed in the breach rather than substance, how then do they want to get the trust?
Today, the critical questions trailing Tinubu’s true identity remains in the public domain – in the back and forth dingdong of speculation – no thanks to the reticence of the courts to settle it finally. Even before the likes of Yinka Odumakin, a member of the inner circle of Tinubu’s empire, affirmed that his real name is Yekini Amoda Ogunlere from Iragbiji in Osun State, many of his close associates had cried out and pointed in that direction like a crying baby would point in the direction of the mother.
Coming back from the US court, Atiku et al, had equally pointed in the same direction in the allegation that Tinubu’s depositions on oath to the INEC as required by law are untrue as the certificate he presented from the CSU was forged. But instead of delving into the matter to affirm the veracity of the document or denounce it, Nigerians were offered loads and loads of law. In the end like the Gordian knot, Tinubu’s identity remains a mystery.
Yet, Okoro, demands the trust of the people? From where will it come? Trust is neither hawked in Balogun or Dugbe markets, nor is it a common commodity like the fura the Fulani woman sells at Kaduna Central Market nor the okpa the Nkanu women carry around on their heads at Ogbete Market in Enugu. Trust comes from integrity and integrity comes from demonstrable evidence of constructive human behaviours over time. It is not forced, it is earned!
This was the essence of Justice Musa Muhammad Dattijo, JSC, made on Friday during his valedictory speech to mark his retirement from the apex court, when he told his colleagues: “My lords, distinguished invitees, ladies and gentlemen, it is obvious that the judiciary I am exiting from is far from the one l voluntarily joined and desired to serve and be identified with. The institution has become something else. Nobody could have put it better. And surely, his indictment was a tip of the iceberg.
Olisa Agbakoba, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), did a follow-up on Monday, when, while endorsing all the former SCJ said, only to add that by describing the apex court as toxic, stressing the dictatorship tendency at the highest court in the land.
Hear him: Out of the three arms of government – the executive, the legislature and the judicature, the most undemocratic is actually the judiciary. The huge amount that budgeted for the judiciary is not reflecting in the welfare of the judges because there is a mafia there. I know of judges who have passed on as matter of critical illnesses. On the budget, we have to have a democratic process, whereby the funding is spread and not just retained.
“Do you know that when a Supreme Court judge retires, he leaves his house to nowhere. The only person who gets a house in the Supreme Court, is actually the CJN. He has a choice of two houses, one in Abuja and probably one in his home state. And sometimes this runs into billions. So, that is part of why the situation in the Supreme Court has become so toxic.”
So, if Okoro et al and those before him who took a similar route in deciding on such critical matters were content in skirting around the issues by dishing out trailer-loads of law in place of answering simple questions, they might as well hold on to their law, while the people hold on to their trust. They could decree Tinubu as President of Nigeria. They have the powers to do so, as they have demonstrated. What they do not have powers to do is command public trust. That is left to Nigerians to give – to those deserving of it! Chikena!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
-
Columns4 weeks agoDear General Gowon: That apology you’re running from is your nemesis
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Terrorists strike Ibadan again! Abduct ex-Minister’s sister, twin children
-
Columns3 weeks agoSee Tinubu’s terrible damage on Option A4 and its precious memories
-
News4 days agoBREAKING: Troops rescue wife of kidnapped General! *Terrorists flee scene
-
News2 weeks agoEmeka Ike: I’ll make example of Lere Olayinka for prying into my privacy
-
News4 weeks agoCooking gas inches N2,000 per kg price *We fear the worst – marketers
-
News3 weeks agoBREAKING: All clear for Jonathan! Ex-President eligible to run in 2027 – court
-
News3 weeks agoBREAKING: Like Hayatu-Deen, Amaechi rejects ADC primaries, as total fraud!