This work serves as an S.O.S. (Save Our Souls) to all the parties concerned in the present political tussle in Nigeria especially the Nigerian judiciary who by the mandate of being the final arbitration authority between warring parties, will determine what happens to Nigeria in the ensuing months.
Today, like never before, Nigeria is on the precipice, being on the brink of a dangerous and uncertain situation, heavy to slip off from the shaky steep cliff of unity to an avoidable abyss of disintegration. Never before, unless during the events proceeding the civil war, had Nigeria been confronted with the type of uncertainty that presently envelop her political landscape. Never before, unless during those events that proceeded the civil war had Nigeria been so close to destruction by the political class.
It is erroneously believed that history repeats itself. No! History does not repeat itself. Human beings repeat history. In their stupidity and greed, human beings repeat history the same way some expiring Nigerian politicians in their desperate efforts to continue clinging unto power, want to plunge the country into anarchy. Worse than repeating a sordid part of Nigerian history, the vastly corrupt, kleptomaniac, nepotism-infested and inept government of President Muhammadu Buhari in addition to the failed promises of ‘Change 2015’ fluke, is uncannily being drawn to leave for Nigeria a legacy of disintegration, as it tends towards appropriating to itself, the unenviable role of being the undertaker in the demise of a country called Nigeria.
Though the last is yet to be heard about it, the controversial 2023 general elections in Nigeria has become history with a whopping N400b of Nigerian fund and some tranches of monies denominated in Dollars, Pounds Sterling and Euros from America and other owner agents in Western Europeans Countries, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) did not really fail to deliver the elections free and fair as promised many times on different occasions by the INEC Chairman, but it delivered to Nigeria the potent seed of discord and disintegration.
According to the United Nations, the 2023 general elections in Nigeria “revealed ethnic, religious and demographic fault lines in Nigeria.” Obviously, Nigeria has never gone this bad in those areas, before. Things went so bad with the elections that not until the name or nomenclature of the INEC is changed, it will henceforth be difficult for Nigerians to repose any trust in future to an electoral umpire in the country because the abbreviation ‘INEC’ has been malignantly associated with all the vices that are opposite of honesty, justice, equity, etc. while the country was under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Without knowing it, both the Executive and the Legislative arms of government in Nigeria have succeeded to accede more powers to the judicial arm of the government than they have themselves. Ordinarily, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary are supposed to be the three arms of government sharing equal powers, check-and-balancing themselves for effective joint governance. But the new found cliché of the Executive and the Legislative to anybody they feel that they offended to “Go to Court” seem to be a confirmation to the suspicion that the Judiciary has become the ‘primus inter pas’ in the joint administration of the country by the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary arms.
Without knowing what they did, both the Executive and Legislative arms of Nigerian government have confirmed their incapacitation in doing their duties and have quietly and severally acceded their statutory functions to the Judiciary, who, it now seems actually determines who governs in the States across Nigeria through State governorship electoral tribunals and as it is about to happen now in the government at the centre, the President of Federal Republic. It is on the strength and basis of this superior power unknowing conferred by the Executive and the Legislature to the Judiciary that I specifically direct this discourse to the Nigerian Judiciary to please Save Our Souls!
A moving train on top speed must of necessity get some people crushed who either unwisely or by fate jump into the rail line. Though an unfortunate occurrence if may be, this could be necessary so that the lives of thousands of the passengers of the train who could become the unfortunate victims of a train derailment may be saved at the expanse of those who as outlaws, disobey the safe distance rule away from the train track. Starting with this analogy, I should think that it will be both fair and just for the Judiciary to offend a few members of the political class and save the country from a possible and imminent disaster.
Additional this, I am sure that candid security reports must have advised the incumbent government on the present mood of Nigerians in the same way that such a security report was delivered to the government of President Goodluck Jonathan who heeded the security advice that the baboons and the monkeys were actually getting ready to split their blood on the streets of Nigeria.
In search of a rancor-free political philosophy, evolving generations of social scientists have contributed their ideas were to ending imperfect socio-political lives of human beings as they interact with one another in the society.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the English materialist and political philosopher advocated absolute sovereignty as the only type of government that could resolve problems caused by the selfishness of human beings. The theory was named after him as the Hobbesian Theory.
But I hold a contrary opinion and have actually made this opinion known in some of my earlier works like “The Successful Trend of Community Policing Across Nigeria,” Part One and Part Two, published in The Kaleidoscope Archives on 8th February, 2021 and 4th March, 2021 respectively. Another of my work in which this view has been expressed is “Abdulrasheed Maina and Travesty of Natural Justice in Nigeria”, published in The Kaleidoscope Archives on 28th November, 2021. This week’s work adds up to that series as it deals with work a similar matter.
In my proposition of what I call the ‘Ideal State’ as opposed to the ‘Hobbesian State’ proposed by Thomas Hobbes, I opined that the ’Ideal State’ represent the truest form of democracy wherefore the rights of the government to be is directly earned from the rights of the people who jointly hold a superior mandate with which they put the government in power. This process is articulated in what I call the Sociological Hierarchy of Law. The Sociological Hierarchy of Law as identified by me which gives impetus to the concept of the ‘Ideal State’ recognizes the following as the four components upon which the laws of any society must be hinged in the order of their superiority to each other. These are:
- Natural laws
- The Rule of Law
- The People
- The Government
The above presupposes that for justice to be dispensed and seen to be dispensed, the government (The Executives, the Legislature, and the Judiciary) as the custodians of the law, must be responsive to the superior powers of the people and the people must abide to this justice equitably dispensed in the rule of law. The rule of law too, must be in accordance with natural justice which is the starting point of all systems of justice administration.
Before we go further on this, let us pick up a relevant idea from what I call the Anthropological Origin of Law in human societies. My concept of the Anthropological Origin of Law, recognizes that all laws made by man derive origin from the many norms of men practiced overtime and these norms later translate into traditions and customs commonly accepted by groups of people for some expedient reasons as uniform and set standards of conduct necessary to maintain peace, harmony and order in their communities. From these set standards of conducts, laws are articulated in black and white, written and approved by people to guide themselves in their relationships with one another.
Quoting from the work, “Abdulrasheed Maina and Travesty of Natural Justice in Nigeria “, I wrote, “Great countries have risen around the world from the debris of fallen nations because such great countries aligned their justice administration systems in obedience with fixed natural principles and laws upon which the foundation of the universe is hinged, while the failed nations, because of their penchant for travesty of natural laws evidenced in the wrong applications of their laws and blatant neglect of the common aspirations the people”.
In that judgment delivered in the Abdulrasheed Maina case, I had argued that the judgment was travesty of natural justice since the punishment meted out to the offender, for some weird reason of what human law calls technicalities, did not address the gross injustice to both the Nigerian State and the pensioners, many of whom lost their lives as a result of the calculated and deliberate conducts of the accused. For this reason, it will be both dangerous to the Nigerian legal system and possibly cause redundancy in the development of the Nigerian jurisprudence law (which is supposed to capture the evolving consciousness of the people including their new attitudes and impunity towards flouting established laws and order) to be able to respond accordingly and ensure the development of the society to which the law is the gate-keeper.
I reasoned that sustainable justice which should reasonably rest the nerves of both the Plaintiff and the Respondent should necessarily be seen to redress specific injuries done to identifiable persons or groups of persons even if the relief and prayers sought by the plaintiff/applicants do not fully and generally articulate those specific persons or group of persons and circumstances. In my opinion, the question of locus standi, though necessary in bringing the attention of the law to breaches in the society, should not preclude the anticipation of similar or closely related future conditions since every judgment that is delivered by a Court of competent jurisdiction serves as precedential legal pronouncement for future references. In this regard, the law has the primary application, not only for keeping and maintaining peace and order in the society but also as a guide to the future conducts of people in that society. Because of this, the law becomes a veritable instrument for the reformation of the society with the Jurists as potential agents of reformation.
As social scientists who understudy and analyze the premeditating factors behind the actions of people in order to present formidable defense in their favour (this function monitors as well as tracks the behavioral patterns of people as they respond to social stimuli) lawyers, being truly learned as they are supposed to be, are more disposed than anybody else in other professions to effectively guide a society through the path of peaceful evolution of that society. The fact that a good lawyer knows something about everything is the reason why some immodest, crocked but brilliant lawyers use their knowledge of the intricate structure of the society for self-aggrandizement.
But the danger is that when lawyers fail in their gate-keeping functions of ensuring the peaceful evolution of society, the next and only alternative of a violent revolution becomes imperative. I had discussed this issue exhaustively in one of my books titled “A History of Revolutions: Remote and Immediate Causes in Analytical Perspectives”. We shall see how all these elaborations apply to today’s discourse as we go on.
One of the immediate causes of violent revolutions around the world is the failure of the legal system (The Rule of Law) in thriving situations of Executive recklessness. My observation is that when The Rule of Law (number two in the Sociological Hierarchy of Law) and the government (number four in the Sociological Hierarchy of law) fail in their natural duties to organize and gate-keep an equitable society, the mantle falls on the people (number three in the Sociological Hierarchy of the Law) as the supreme custodians of the power they have vested on The Rule of Law and The Government to reenact natural justice (number one in the Sociological Hierarchy of Law) in order to save both themselves and the society. As we go deeper into the discourse, let us confirm the reason why Nigerian Jurists as social scientists must quickly come to the rescue and save Nigeria from disintegration as a result of the failure of the 2023 elections.
By the way, what is sociology? Who is a sociologist and what are the functions of a social scientist? Sociology is the study of society, human social interaction and the rules and processes (laws) that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups and institutions. Who is a sociologist? A sociologist is a social scientist versed in the knowledge of the society, human social interaction and the rules and processes that bind and separate people, not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups and institutions.
Reformist legal luminaries around the world have always been the closest social scientists to the organic human society. Accordingly, they have had the greatest impact to the evolution of the socio-political behavior of man around the world. There are many of such people who have passed through Nigeria as Nigerians like Hon. Justice (Chief) Samuel Obakayode ‘Kayode’ Eso, CON, CFR (Sept. 18th 1925 – 16th Nov. 2012) the prominent Nigerian jurist who served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
But I will call the readers’ attention (for reasons I will later explain) to a spectacular human being that once lived in Great Britain. He was called Lord Denning. Alfred Thompson ‘Tom’ Denning, Baron Denning, OM, PC, DL (23rd January 1899 – 5th March, 1999), simply address as Lord Denning (Master of the Rolls between 1962 – 1982) was a British legal luminary with a superb sense of justice spiced in his trademark humors so much so that the society he lived in did not feel the pains of the long effective, legal knife with which he pierced injustice, opened it up and healed it with justice. Lord Denning anesthetized the recalcitrant being called injustice with his sense of humor, opened it, and applied the soothing balm of truth to it, healing it with justice.
Why am I specifically discussing the activities of Lord Denning in Britain? I am talking about Lord Denning because most remarkably, the humongous edifice and framework called the British legal system does not survive on any document called the Constitution of the Empire of Great Britain. This is to say that in line with the altruistic conducts of the founding fathers of law in the British Empire, Lord Denning and his legal forebears anchored their lives’ works on the concept of precedential judgments. This is exceptional tenacity in the application of law. It is interesting to know that where no precedents existed to cite from, Lord Denning and his colleagues, in selfless humility and total commitment to the future of their country, created the precedents that are still cited in Great Britain till this day. Do many of Nigerians jurists believe in the future of the country as to forgo their pecuniary interests and create for her a future worthy of a great country?.
The beauty of taking judgments from legal precedents is that they set irrevocable standards which must either be adhered to or improved on by consecutive generations of jurists as more citizens as sensitized for the principle of social safety consciousness in their relationships with one another as the concept of social safety generally improves. But in Nigeria some jurists of the lower and upper Courts have been known to tamper with precedential judgments of the Courts and even Constitutional provisions of the law either through dubious interpretations or by setting them aside as it suited their whims and caprices.
In the 2023 Presidential Electoral Tribunal, the stage is set for the adjudicating Justices to either re-enact or set aside several precedential judgments which viewed the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, as a ‘primus inter pas’ in regards to the 36 other States in the Federal Republic where a presidential aspirant must secure not less than 25% of the total votes cast in order to be declared as the President-Elect. I have had to study some of the judgments delivered by Lord Denning vis-a-vis the existing social condition in Britain at the time and I found out that unless in such cases where there were emerging social issues which needed to be addressed to ensure that conduct of people align with the growing demand of the society towards perfections old value systems as were maintained since the emergence of the British Empire, were preserved.
Does the present social condition in Nigeria demand that the erstwhile precedential judgment of the Supreme Court which clearly and unambiguously defined the status of the FCT as an adjunct to the other States in Nigeria, being also the sine qua non requirement for declaring an aspirant as the President-Elect demand that such precedential judgment be set aside in favour of an INEC-supervised heist of an electoral mandate during an exercise described by international observers as scenes of crimes perpetuated across Nigeria?
In Nigeria some judges divinely presented with opportunities to inscribe their footprints on the sands of time messed up the opportunities. They sacrificed what would have been their contributions to legal jurisprudence in Nigeria on the altar of legal technicalities. When substantive, unambiguous and clearly defined issues of law (which actually are breaches in human social relationships) are jettisoned in the altar of legal technicalities, then there is bound to be confusion and anarchy in the society. There will also be minimum respect for the rule of the law. For example, if you allow a thief who you are sure stole your fowl to go free because you did not catch him eating the fowl, in no time, some people will walk into other people houses, openly steal their wives in their presence and go free from prosecution because they had hidden those women in the places only them can access.
The above analogy is my lay man’s understanding of what ‘legal technicalities’ means. It is an irony of law that the application of ‘legal technicalities’ in addressing matters in Nigerian Courts take the first consideration before the ancient, legendary and almighty Rule of Evidence which only requires irrefutable proof from he who alleges like the man whose stolen wife is actually missing from his house.
Meanwhile all eyes are on the distinguished Justices of the Abuja High Court constituting the members of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal and most probably, their Lordships in the apex Court, the Supreme Court of ultimate legal jurisdiction in Nigeria, to do the needful. As Nigerians wait patiently to know the Court judgment on what will be the most celebrated, most sensational and most sensitive electoral tribunal judgment in Nigeria, the judiciary seem to be the last hope for the survival of democracy in the country when the judgment of the tribunal reflects the aspirations of Nigerians as expressed in their franchise willingly and freely given to the man they chose to usher in a brand new country of their common dreams.
Finally, since the issues discussed in the Part One and Part Two of “The Successful Trend of Community Policing Across Nigeria” and “Abdulrasheed Maina and Travesty of Natural Justice in Nigeria” is still relevant and also apply to this week’s discourse, let me end the discourse with a paragraph from the later work, thus, “Through popular and mass verdict, the ‘Ideal State’ powered and delivered by the people, ‘rights’ the ‘wrongs’ of constituted governments who may have fallen short of people’s expectation from their governments as exemplified in the case of citizen Maina versus the Federal Republic of Nigeria…… if a constituted government must prevent a mass movement that may seek to replace it with the ‘Ideal State’, it must maintain the synchronicity in the administration of justice which is established and must run without contradicting itself across the four components of the Sociological Hierarchy of Law”, as founded in the Anthropological Origin of Law wherefore laws articulated in black and white for any human society must align with the accepted norms and value systems of that society.
ABUCHI OBIORA
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