In the history of democratic elections in Nigeria, 2023 general election will stand out for many wrong reasons. It was a farce. It promised so much but delivered so little. It proved, most agonisingly, that democracy in our country has become more or less, about fulfilling all ‘righteousness’ by treating the voters to the ballot box that you can bring out on Election Day. It no longer a case of legitimacy and valid choices. That’s why 2023 elections will continue to attract firestorms of criticism even after the courts have disposed all the cases pending before them. Every country, and those entrusted with ensuring that democracy meets its lofty goals of fairness, justice and transparency, cannot escape responsibilities, because responsibilities abandoned today can come back as acute crises tomorrow. The process matters, perhaps more than the outcome.
In the same vein, words matter, especially words uttered by those who occupy key positions in the judiciary. Words can mask and distort much as they can reveal and enlighten. Words can also reveal the character flaws or personality quirks of the orator that seldom come to the surface. Which is why every word uttered by someone who occupies an important position should be carefully weighed because such words can be a window of sort into a great occasion in history. Therefore, choosing words with great care is key. It seems to me that the Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola has become a master of acerbic words, often reducing them to one-line quips. And such words can hurt.
Not for the first time though, but his hard-hitting words against those who disagree with some of the verdicts by the various election petition tribunals could pitch him against the Nigerian public. Speaking last week at the opening of the Special session of the 2023/2024 Legal year and swearing in of newly conferred Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, the CJN said the judiciary “is determined not to be overwhelmed by the sentiments of or the loud voices of the mob or crowd”. He added, “I expect every judicial officer to work very hard, be honest and courteous to litigants, witnesses and members of the Bar, and discharge all your functions”. with all the humility at your command”.
Like a man not hiding his stress, he told his audience, “even while doing this, it’s still necessary to have at the back of your minds that public opinions, sentiments or emotions can never take the place of the law in deciding the cases before you”. The law, remains the law, he said with emphasis, no matter whose interest is involved, stressing that the “strings of emotion should be severed from logic”. Nobody disagrees with His Lordship that the ‘law remains the law’, however, the trouble is that in most of the rulings in the election petitions, the judges have allowed personal interests and political pressures to take the place of the law. The CJN needs reminding of the famous Campbell’s lives of the Chief Justices which Lord Mansfield reminded those in the temple of justice to pay adequate attention to. He said, “Consider what you think justice requires, and decide accordingly. But never give your reasons; for your judgment may probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong”.
In many instances, Nigerians have seen and received with shock, how some of the Judges have defended the Respondents more than their lawyers in the election matters before them. Contrary to the contention of the CJN, in many instances, the judges have not “asked what should be asked. That is why the reputation of our judiciary is at all-time low now. Never in our political history has we witnessed such a bizarre, horrifying, embarrassing, conflicting and ‘school boy’ clerical errors, as we have seen in many court verdicts recently. The case of Kano State Governorship election stands out as most unforgivable error that has cast a cloud of shame on our judiciary. Can the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Ariwoola clean up that mess when it has equally committed similar error though not as grave as that made by the Appeal Court in the Kano case referred to? As Martin Luther King Jr said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Marcus Tullius Cicero put it more poignantly when he said, “the fundamentals of justice are that no one shall suffer wrong, and that the public good be served”.
Last week, the Labour Party complained that the Supreme Court, in the appeal filed in respect of the Presidential Election Petition Court in suit Number: SC/CV/937/2023, instead of reading the judgment filed by the party, His Lordship, Justice John Inyang Okoro proceeded to read that of PDP, SC/CV/935/2023. JSC Okoro, the Labour Party claimed, verbally stated that the decision in its appeal would abide by the judgment delivered in respect of the PDP appeal when the grounds of appeal are different. Clearly, our judiciary has come under a blanket of suspicion. Reactions against some of the decisions made at both the lower and appellate courts, have been largely condemnatory. It’s not for nothing.
In a career spanning 47 years and shaped by a resolute determination, Justice Mohammed Musa Dattijo, JSC, had in his valedictory speech, told Nigerians a strikingly candid portrait of our judiciary in the past, and its ugly present. In his words, “the judiciary I am exiting from is far from the one I voluntarily joined and desired to serve and be identified with”. The situation, he lamented, has become “something else”. Without a doubt, what we have seen in the judiciary in recent times is unusual, exceptionally out of the ordinary. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Justice Dattijo’s farewell speech was perhaps the fullest, most concretely detailed, most nuanced account yet of a retired Justice of the Supreme in recent memory ever written. It was encompassing not only in the highpoints and crises of his own career, but the gripping account of the mess that our judiciary and its officers have fallen into. If you like, call it is a treasury moments caught alive in which the incumbent Chief Justice of the highest Court in the land was not spared by him.
Justice Dattijo provided us an insight into the trouble within. Putting things in perspective, he said the journey for him was initially “calm and fulfilling” until halfway through his Supreme Court years “when turbulent cracks made it awry and askew”. When he lamented that the CJN has absolute powers, “both the final and only say to appoint 80 percent of members of the Federal Judicial Service Commission, it reflects what Lord Acton said, that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’”. For our judiciary, Justice Dattijo says it ‘is the unimaginable retrogression’. The emerging facts that our judges and Justices are seemingly becoming more partisan than politicians is a threat to our democracy. The credibility question that Nigerian judiciary is facing today is also a grim reflection of our leadership crisis that has creeped into key institutions of governance that ought to strengthen democracy. Rather than throwing mud at the voices of his perceived ‘mob’, the CJN should look into his own soul, and ask impassioned questions: what will be my legacy in history? Will it be a judiciary in tatters, or one that people will mock as the enemy of the common man, a judiciary that favours the rich and those in the corridors of power? Undoubtedly, our judiciary needs cleansing. Nigerians want a judiciary that will strengthen democracy. Before he bows out of office August next year, the CJN should endeavour to renew confidence in the judiciary so that when he retires in the next nine months as the 17th Chief Justice of Nigeria, he will look back in his years in the judiciary and the pinnacle of his judicial career without regrets. He should reflect on one of the famous quotes of Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, that the “law should be a shield for the oppressed, not a sword for the oppressors”. The law, he said should not be a technical game, but rather a living force to be applied with “wisdom and compassion”. He further advised that the law should be seen as a means of making sure that the truth is observed and that justice is done to all without fear or favour. As the outcome of the 2023 election is still in a cloud of controversy, it’s important to ask the question that Lord Denning asked, “What is the argument on the other side”? That is one of the most impactful dicta that was established in the famous case of Parker vs Parker(1953) 2 All E.R. 121. That should be the focus of our judges rather than looking for imaginary ‘mob’.