Until recently, Nigerians had a modicum of respect for their country’s judiciary. They believed, rightly or wrongly, in the universal axiom that the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. The belief, of course, was anchored on the presupposition that the courts exist to do justice, to resolve disputes, and to maintain the rule of law.
As an arm of government, the judiciary, traditionally, plays three primary functions. It is the dispenser of justice, the protector of the rights of the people, and the guardian of the Constitution of the state. It is on the strength of the foregoing that those who feel aggrieved or wronged usually anchor their frustrations or disappointments on the judiciary in the hope that it will ensure that justice is served at all times and in every circumstance.
However, at no time in the history of the country has the confidence reposed in the judiciary by the people got so badly eroded than during the last electoral cycle. It was the time the judiciary in Nigeria fell from Olympian heights. It was the period the courts in our shores lost their halo. The judiciary, far from giving the people the reason to be hopeful of a just and equitable society, turned itself into an affliction. It became the most dreaded institution of government for the very wrong reasons.
We got a foretaste of this during the primary elections for selection of candidates for various elective offices in the last election cycle. It was the period that our courts awarded victory to aspirants who did not partake in party primaries. Many were pronounced candidates for the elections simply on the strength of their privileged state in society. They did not have to go through the mills of electoral competition to get returned as candidates. We saw how judgments that were anchored on nothing graced both the bar and the bench.
But then, the aberration that has become the norm in the land did not quite dawn on the people until the 2023 general election took place. After the provocative election results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerians had every reason to go berserk. Their hopes and dreams faced the danger of being drowned by the hawks that have been preying on Nigeria. The people had the option of calling the bluff of the hawks. They could have gone for a showdown. But they did not do so because they had hoped that the judiciary would come to the rescue, that it would intervene on the side of justice whenever and wherever the rule of law came under threat. But all the expectations dissipated into thin air. They faded like vows made in the wine.
What demonstrates this state of anomie most poignantly in Nigeria today is the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. The outcome of the election, it has been said time and time again, was everything it ought not to be. It was the mother of all violations. It subjected the country to a most grievous assault and murdered its hope for a better tomorrow. But what drove the final nail into the coffin of Nigeria was the connivance and duplicity of the judiciary in all this. In that election, victory was procured by every means possible. The actions and inactions of the players, including the electoral commission, violated not only the law but also the Constitution. But the ultimate violation was the concurrence of the judiciary. It insulated itself from the people’s outcry and aligned instead with the chicanery that took place. It was at this time that we came face to face with a judiciary that circumvented the provisions of Section 134 of the Constitution, which says that for a candidate to be declared winner in a presidential election, he must win “not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states and the Federal Capital Territory.” In order to ensure that the country persists in iniquity, justices of both the Presidential Election Petitions Court and the Supreme Court ruled that Abuja, the federal capital, has no special status and should, therefore, be treated like a state of the federation. That pronouncement, whatever it is worth, was dodgy. It neither addressed the letter or spirit of the Constitution. It was just a case of taking language on a long holiday. It is the kind of judgment you get in a clime where the rule of law has taken flight. Those who have rendered our laws and the Constitution impotent have to come up with an interpretation that will suit their grand master plan. This embarrassing display by the Nigerian judiciary has become a blot in our judicial firmament. Such a perverse interpretation of the Constitution is a red flag for Nigeria. It is laden with ominous foreboding.
Going by the way the Nigerian judiciary has conducted itself in recent months, it is evident that it has failed in its cardinal objectives. It has been unable to do justice to matters brought before it for adjudication. The failure is brazen and calculated. It is borne out of lack of will. It is a product of corruption. The consequence of this is that the courts have failed to resolve disputes brought before them. If anything, they have exacerbated the already tense situation. This is what the courts did in the case of Plateau State where election results were recklessly upturned to achieve a predetermined objective. By its action, the judiciary has practically taken over the job of conducting elections and declaring results. It has rendered the electoral commission redundant. The impunity is too telling to be overlooked.
To manoeuvre the crooked bend that it has constructed, the judiciary has chosen to toy with the laws of the land. Even though its duty is to interpret the law and get the executive to enforce the laws, the judiciary has chosen instead to see to the violation of the law and the Constitution. Indeed, the Nigerian judiciary has become an embarrassment to constitutional democracy and the rule of law. When a country’s judiciary becomes complicit in the destruction and erosion of values that promote justice, equity and fairness, that country is on the highway to self-destruction.
Going by what the people have been through in the last one year or so, Nigeria can pass for a nightmare. It is a country of doomed voyagers and dazed survivors. Much more sadly, it is a country without an independent judiciary that can look injustice in the face and condemn it to the gallows.