“The judiciary I am exiting from is far from the one I voluntarily joined and desired to serve and be identified with. The institution has become something else.” – Justice Dattijo Muhammad
“Something else” is a phrase to be used for positive purposes because it shows how remarkable, unique, and extraordinary something is. It can also be used pejoratively to underscore an undesirable outcome. In the above opening quote, Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad of the Supreme Court until October 27, 2023, used it for negative purposes to draw attention to his narrative about the goings-on in the judiciary, the third estate of the realm in a democracy.
Nobody, not even the former Vice President and PDP presidential candidate in the February 25 election, Atiku Abubakar, who called the judiciary “the lost hope of the common man” captured the state of the country’s judiciary better than Justice Muhammad who after 47 years in the highly conservative bench, found opportunity while at the exit door to bare his mind. The above closing remarks sum up his frustration with the institution.
But the real reason the Supreme Court ruling of October 26, 2023, did not shock us to the marrow as it should be is because we are all guilty of compromise and inaction. We were not traumatized by the ruling because we were lazy and trying to overwork God who graciously gave us everything good, including how to confront evil when it came with its trick, but instead, we chose to relax and allow him God who has lavished us with everything to still come and do everything for us. Spoon feeding is good but has its minus, the feeder decides the quantity you get at a time. God has been spoon-feeding us and we now forget that we are not his only creation. More so, as we are not ready to do his will, why waste time with us?
There is no doubt that the devil or its agents will be eventually punished by God but certainly not on the terms of lazy lots whose actions and inaction provide the enabling environment for the devil.
Any country that allows evil should not forget that our creator is gracious and does not treat us as our guilt demands and the evil agents are also entitled to this grace and mercy.
Why should election rigging stop in Nigeria? After seven general elections since 1999, no single Nigerian is in jail or punished in any way today for election rigging. We noticed massive rigging in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and now the unprecedented 2023. In all, none of those who conducted these elections suffered any rejection from society for their poor work. Rather, they are being honoured and given more responsibilities. So, there is nothing unattractive in rigging elections. Cursing them and expecting God to sanction the curses when you have not done your bit is like expecting a victory from a game you did not prepare for.
Election rigging since 1999 has been in geometric progression. The nefarious enterprise has been steadily manured. If many Nigerian youths are today incarcerated for doing internet fraud, a.k.a. yahoo, yahoo, is election rigging not more dangerous to society? Why is nobody in that class of offense being punished? Is that not a huge indication that we as a people approve of it and are in the same bed together?
It’s possible that if we as a nation had fiercely fought election rigging from inception, other varieties of crimes would not have developed as dangerously as they did. Without the people having their desired leadership through the ballot, those who force their way to rule the people come with concomitant effects in society.
If you are not having the desired result in your company and you are not changing the management, either due to ethnic or religious sentiments, you may be daydreaming to expect a change for the better. The thing about a bad habit being adopted is that it does not just suddenly change and start being good. What Nigerians expect at times is that suddenly a sheep will start delivering goats just because some persons in the family are desirous of having goats. Things do not happen like that in a natural or artificial setting. It’s just like expecting a free and fair election in 2027 if Tinubu escapes with his grab-and-run method in 2023.
We were expecting Prof Mahmoud Yakubu as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to be rational and fair in doing his work and to conduct free, fair, and credible elections. Our high expectations may have been informed by his being a Professor but we forgot that both himself and his professorship are made in Nigeria.
We were expecting security operatives to do their job professionally, again we forgot that they were trained in Nigeria by Nigerians. And after the INEC and Security operatives had failed we turned and started expecting some miracles from the judiciary whose operatives didn’t descend from Mars but were born and brought up in a geopolitical entity called Nigeria where things are done according to the whips and caprices of some political gangsters and swashbucklers.
Thursday, October 26; 2023 will remain significant In Nigeria’s history not necessarily for anything positive and rewarding but for the indemnity and exoneration of error in our clime. Dangerous when such an act is getting the stamp of the nation’s final court.
When the exigencies of politics are taken too far at the expense of the rule of law in a country, society is jeopardized seriously. And that appears to be the junction we just arrived at in our democratic journey as a nation.
After all that has been put in the public domain whether before the court or not and the apex court sets them aside, let’s just agree that this marriage is due for review.
When a polygamous marriage reaches a level where immorality is condoned without any regard to its consequences on the general conditions of the family, it might be nice to review it to prevent catastrophic effects on the children. Any union, whether of individuals, groups, or nations that sets bad ahead of good just to hold on to power is destined for destruction.
We are presently at the junction of no return where Nigeria’s future has to be negotiated. To pretend that all is well and continue to camouflage evil is just to be postponing the devil’s day which is bound to come. We should tell ourselves the truth that this union is not working and decide when we can part in peace and remain as friends as one who once shared one parlour.
Nigeria’s disintegration is just a matter of time so the earlier the better, we deliver the baby even if it’s through cesarean but let the baby be allowed to grow and develop its own teeth.
To do that is to hold ourselves on the ground wishing to move but we cannot. Anybody, tribe, geopolitical or religious that thinks it’s benefiting from the fraud called Nigeria today is lying.
Geopolitical North which controls the political temperature of Nigeria with a population made up merely of multi-dimensional poor are living in denial. Sokoto Caliphate came into being before Dubai of the United Arab Emirates, UAE but has remained a village with the state among the three poorest in the country. Zamfara state with its rich gold mineral is recorded as the poorest in the land. BAYELSA, the state where the almighty oil originated is the poorest state in Southern Nigeria. Dubai, a desert fifty years ago, is now the World’s tourist destination.
Nigeria as the poverty capital of the World is because of the North who supplied the poverty number, yet the region has been in power 42 out of the 63 years of our nationhood.
Unethical leadership has evolved and blossomed In Nigeria to the point of the final court in the land endorsing it, not because they do not know the evil in it but due to the prevailing dangerous ethnic rivalries. Nigeria as presently structured cannot move forward unless and until the three top ethnic groups, Igbos, Yorubas, and Hausa Fulanis part ways. Putting them together with their incongruous and ill-matched shapes and ideas is the biggest political error committed by the colonial masters and made worse by successive military rulers in the country.
What Prof Mahmoud Yakubu and his INEC team did by 4 a.m. on March 1st, 2023, announcing the person Nigerians did not vote for as winner of the Presidential election conducted on February 25, 2023, and now affirmed by the nation’s apex court is just to underscore the ignoble fact that nothing is evil In Nigeria politics.
The Supreme Court says unequivocally in its ruling that a known crime reported by the accuser is no crime if the report comes late. Criminal offenses expire in Nigeria, says the Supreme Court. A thief, a murderer, or an exam cheat can walk away if the offense is reported late. By Supreme Court ruling, a regulatory body can change its rules in the middle at its discretion and it is not committing any offense.
Examiners can even after rolling out guidelines on how the exams will be conducted and the area for revision come on the day of the exams and change it without pre-information to the students. These are the far-reaching implications of what the Supreme Court did on October 26; 2023. The Apex Court also by saying that INEC is free to abandon its own guidelines on Election Day, means that a referee in a sports contest after rolling out guidelines can decide to abandon the rule of the game midway because it’s at his discretion.
These are the reasons why not a few are in agreement with ATIKU Abubakar that Nigeria’s Judiciary is now the lost hope of the common man and with Justice Dattijo Muhammad that the institution has become something else. God help us.