A couple of months ago, I did two pieces on the law and the
judiciary of our country. Those two essays pertained to the currently
suspended President of the Court of Appeal.
After all that
transpired (and are still transpiring) about Justice Ayo Salami and his
modus operandi before his suspension, I promised my good self that I
would refrain from concerning In and Out with the p’s and q’s of the
Nigerian judiciary. Perhaps I should also aver here very urgently that
the way and manner that the judiciary went into Nigeria’s forest of laws
to manufacture for ex-Governor Ibori of Delta State a peculiar
alabaster of acquittal of all charges against him at different times,
also affected my judgment and self-promise.
Of course, there are
other pertinent examples to cite to justify my turn of mind concerning
the Nigerian judiciary that everybody knows is now too corrupt to
embrace the true notion and truthfulness of dura lex sed lex (“the law
is hard, but it is the law”). I shall examine this aspect or doctrine of
our corpus iuris (“body of laws”) shortly even though I am not a
practitioner of the law.
The point I wish to present immediately
coram populo is to the effect that the Edo Gubernatorial Election
Petition Tribunal is compelling me to disagree with my principles and
their habits and traditions. The more I try to let the matter go, the
more it takes shape, in the new order of my journalistic and
philosophical mind. In any case, the media must play its role as the
fourth estate of the realm and release opinions that should enable the
people and all sufferers of incalculable and exceptionally acute
distress and injustice to find place in their environment and polity.
The
judiciary is expected to play a hugely prominent role in this respect,
but because in this country, the judiciary is turning or, better put,
the judiciary has turned itself upside down, the media, regardless of
its own inadequacies, must brace up and speak what it must speak as a
noble challenge to the new order of our judiciary–less judiciary. Im
being pessimistic about Nigeria’s judiciary? Sure. The reason, which is
not really fare-fetched, has just been ballooned into prominence by the
Edo Gubernatorial Election Petition Tribunal. But let me state, before I
am charged for contempt, that the central focus of my submission today
is the rejection of General Charles Airhiavbere’s, PDP’s gubernatorial
candidate’s petition or challenge of the Comrade-Governor’s requisite
educational qualification.
The Tribunal struck off this vital
aspect (if not the most vital) of the General’s petition/submission, we
were meant to believe, on the loose or untenable grounds of the
Tribunal’s lack of jurisdiction to entertain the specific and material
matter pertaining to the Comrade-Governor’s requisite qualification that
the electoral law allows for prospective gubernatorial candidates. The
Tribunal’s acceptance of the plea of coram non iudice tendered before it
by the Comrade–Governor’s lawyers is a decision/judgment I would
personally have appealed up to the Supreme Court (or even the ECOWAS
Court or both), if I was the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate.
I
don’t understand why the Tribunal in its wisdom, which is anything but
progressive asked (or shall we say advised?) the PDP’s candidate to go
to a High Court to pursue his case. Without wanting to admit it in open
“court”, the Tribunal clearly knew and believed that the PDP’s candidate
had a pertinent case before it, hence it asked (or advised?) him to
argue it there. Is that a cleverly deliberate and deliberately clever
way to prolong the case unnecessarily?
Let me also aver here that
if that “strong” ground of the General’s petition before the Tribunal
was acceptable to the Tribunal, the Comrade–Governor himself would
exercise his right of appeal to the highest court in the land (or to
ECOWAS Court). That would have been fair, fine and well in the spirit of
justice that would not create any upheaval in Edo State or in the land
of Nigeria. What this averment amounts to is that the PDP’s candidate
should pursue the matter to the logical end in the spirit of dum spiro
spero (“while I breathe, I hope”). He should go to further courts to
plead the coram nobis caused (deliberately?) by the Edo Tribunal. The
General must go the whole hog in the interests of our society, for the
judgment of the Edo Gubernatorial Election Tribunal as per the requisite
qualification of the Comrade-Governor is, in my view, certainly contra
boros mores (“against the best interests of society”). So the soldier
must soldier on.
Why do I say all this? Governor Oshiomhole is
presently not an ordinary citizen of Edo State and of Nigeria. He ought
to be or should be a model to be copied and to be followed by our
teeming youths, at least. If he does not know, I put it to him, his
lawyers, his party and teeming supporters that the youths’ silence that
speaks volumes (dum tacent clamant) on this matter bordering on alleged
certificate forgery is not one that is doing the ebullient Governor any
good.
The Tribunal’s technical rejection of his number one
opponent’s case of alleged certificate forgery against him, is something
that Mr. Adams Aliyu (or Aliu) Oshiomhole should not allow on the mere
grounds of technicality. Or is the allegation of General Airhiavbere
right and correct in every particular and material way? Speak, Comrade,
speak! The world (yours, mine and others’, including your party’s and
teeming supporters’) will not come to an end if you do so. After all,
while there’s life, there’s hope (dum vita est spes et). Now the
Tribunal said that the alleged certificate forgery petition against our
comrade–gentleman Governor should be seen as a pre-election matter.
Was
the Tribunal telling us that it would condone examination and
certificate cheats who would gain pre-election advantage that they ought
not to or should not at all gain? In Nigerian Universities, at least,
as at today, screenings of certificates of students happen every now and
then at the points of entry, any time before the graduation of students
(and even after their graduation once there is need to revisit earlier
screening exercises).
What message was the Tribunal sending to the
youths and potential and current University cheats with its dodgy
judgment? Let us for the purpose of argument accept that our
once-upon-a-time, that is, our pre-election oratorical and loquacious
Governor, did not forge any certificate or that he did not hoodwink INEC
to accept an abnormal certificate, what would stop an open Tribunal
committed to truth, fact, morality and justice, all rolled into one, to
test the veracities of the documents/arguments he would present and the
counter ones from his opponent?
I find it strange that our
Governor of glamour and ornaments in speech and gubernatorial decorum
has suddenly become glum. Or is my observation off the mark? By the way,
I have said this little to my Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) friends.
The good news is that the glossy comrade is changing tactic for once.
We all should wait for the final bomb that will send the equally
taciturn General and his battalion of some new electoral gladiators
scampering hither and thither for cover that may elude them. After all,
in the present day Nigerian judicial system, as already indicated above,
there is nothing any longer like dura lex sed lex. I am not a
psephologist, although I am currently engaging myself in an enterprise
on and a study of the pattern of election-rigging in Nigeria. It has
three phases: the pre-election rigging phase; the election-in-progress
rigging phase, and the post-election rigging phase. The “case” the
Tribunal struck out definitely, in my journalistic, literary,
philosophical, critical and common-sensical perspectives belongs to the
pre-election rigging phase. The Tribunal ought to have heard it in full
to determine the merit or otherwise of the General’s postulations, and
on the legal grounds on which they are erected.
Last lines. Please
join us, Primate Olabayo and I, to say full and steady prayers for Lady
Patience Jonathan. What we are seeing is not looking too good. Your
joining us in prayers will assist in a mighty way to postpone or banish
that which shall be postponed or banished. In the name of the Father, of
the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we pray. Amen.
Edo election tribunal and Nigeria’s judiciary-less judiciary (2)
AS far as this matter of the Edo gubernatorial election
petition is concerned, In and Out must be humble enough to do justice to
the dramatis personae, which must include the judiciary itself. But
this justice can only be dispensed with all our united powers, that is
coniunctis viribus. The media, the plaintiff and defence, and the public
at large, including our traditional institutions should harp on the
need to do undiluted justice on this matter. Cui bono? (“Who stands to
gain?”). The masses and their friends, and our fatherland.
Indeed,
for the sake of posterity, and of our dear, dear fatherland we must for
once, in our part of Nigeria, let the ruling on the alleged certificate
forgery petition against the Comrade-Governor enhance our thoughts on
the need for civic and political justice. De bono et malo (“Come what
may”), we must endeavour to use this petition to rescue justice, noble
and fertile justice, from the jaws of curious justice. The Nigerian
judiciary must not only give justice; it must also be seen to be giving
justice that is not dubious at all times. Unfortunately, this country
has for quite sometime, beginning some decades back, been witnessing
justice without tastes. In fact, the motto of the Nigerian judiciary
now seems to be something likes this: “There’s no accounting for tastes”
(De gustibus non est disputandum). If not, why this now famous phrase
quoted time after time in mockery of the Nigerian judiciary: “Sentenced
but not convicted”? Why this famous phrase which now famously belonged
to the Nigerian judicial lexicon and jargon?
Let me make it
clearly and abundantly obvious that I am not saying (and I have not
said) that our Comrade-Governor is guilty of certificate forgery as
General Charles Airhiavbere alleged in his petition. What I am saying
(and have said), which needs reiteration here is that such a grave
allegation now in the open consciousness of the masses and that of the
teeming supporters of Mr. Adams Aliyu (or Aliu) Oshiomhole needed (and
still needs) to be tackled on its merit or lack of it in open “ court”.
The
Edo election tribunal ought to be that open” court” of first instance.
Rather than striking it out, the tribunal ought to have accepted the
petitioner’s plea to hear it. Unless there was more to it, Mr.
Oshiomhole himself ought to or should have allowed it to be taken, heard
and addressed squarely there and then. Unless I am suffering from a
deception of vision (deceptio visus), I don’t see how the High Court,
which the Edo tribunal has asked or advised the petitioner to go to
argue his case of alleged certificate forgery against the
Comrade-Governor, can decide the matter expeditiously and Dei Gratia
(“By the grace of God”).
For one thing, the Nigerian judiciary as
it currently is, is God-less and has no direct access to the Divinity.
But I have heard from two reporters covering the tribunal’s proceedings
that the petitioner has appealed the ruling, as I posited here in my
first instalment. It is gratifying and gladdening that he has done so.
But let me aver here and now, as follows: until the present Chief
Justice of Nigeria sets machinery in motion to cleanse and revolutionise
the judiciary, nothing tangible may happen positively for the
petitioner. But I like his choice, which is to choose the lesser of two
evils (de duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum). Certainly, going on
appeal rather than going to a High Court is the lesser of two evils. I
don’t know the grounds of the appeal and the legal foundation on which
it is being erected. But it is worth a try. After all, there are still
some angels in the judiciary. Am I contradicting myself? Don’t put any
blame on me. Nigeria itself is full of countless contradictions.
A
few days ago, University of Benin off-loaded (pardon this phrase) 146
or so “students” who allegedly forged certificates to gain admission
into its portals. Many of the alleged cheats were in their final
academic session. How they beat the system to get that far is anybody’s
guess. But evil always somehow inevitably meets its waterloo that must
halt and apprehend it. Of course, in an institution headed by a
Vice-Chancellor who one day posterity shall remember with a wholesome
and welcome nostalgia as “The Oshodin of UNIBEN”, no certificate forger
can escape the furnace of justice. Did UNIBEN need to wait for a High
Court of our judiciary-less judiciary to terminate rightly the
“studentship” of the fake students?
A role model such as the
Comrade-Governor is to teeming students in the land should not be seen
or heard to be an exam or a certificate cheat. If gold should rust, what
will iron do? But any human-being can go off board or do wrong anytime
or once in a while. We can and will understand if this is the case in
the current circumstance. But the Comrade-Governor must speak up, and if
the masses and their friends desire it, he then can resign with full or
un-full benefits as the masses and their friends who once-upon-a-time
saw and accepted him as their idol may so deem fit to say. But that is
if our Governor-in-the-news thinks the petitioner is right and admits it
ianuis clausis (“behind closed doors”) with his commissioners and
party’s top echelon(s). If not, justice then must take its full course. I
believe that this ought to be so, for justice is the heart and soul and
nerves and brain of any nation and of any institution including our
current judiciary-less judiciary. When justice dies, everything dies.
Not
long ago, there was a report that the President or so of Hungary
plagiarised his doctoral thesis. This happened well before an election
which he won to be the President of his country. He has since quit
office via the open and transparent door of resignation. This is part of
the responsibilities and hallmarks of a responsible leader. Accept your
error and move on, dear Comrade, if truly you have erred. After all,
humanum est errare (“to err is human”). Don’t wait for the die to be
cast in the Court of Appeal.
Now
let me quote a text message from an ardent reader of this column who
initially did not quite see eye-to-eye with me when I began to let my
pen speak on this matter: “Re-Edo election tribunal…. I didn’t know
before now that the allegation by the General against Oshiomhole’s
victory was as grievous as certificate forgery! And that your judiciary,
the last hope, should be condoning IMPURITY! I am disappointed with the
failure of the judiciary to COMPEL the Governor to produce whichever
certificate is in dispute. Lanre Oseni.”
Anybody who loves justice
must shudder at the ruling of the tribunal on this matter of alleged
certificate forgery, which borders on pre-election rigging, I repeat and
repeat and repeat. But why I am truly interested in this matter?
Answer: Ducit amor patriae (“Love of country guides me”). For what
legacy will our children’s or youths’ models and heroes leave for them,
after all said and done? All men of honour must be prepared to stand for
the fatherland whose positive values we must at all times protect. We
must imbibe the lesson of duke et decorum est pro patria mori (“there’s
no greater honour than to die for one’s country”.) Does our
judiciary-less judiciary want us to have anything to do with this
lesson? All great Nigerian students and true friends of the masses are
waiting to imbibe this lesson, whether Nigeria’s judiciary-less
judiciary is committed to its import or not.
And
do I dislike the Comrade-Governor? No. Do I have any problem or any
quarrel with him? No. And is the General, the petitioner my friend? No.
Am I a politician? No. And am I a judge? No. Who am I? I am a humble
Nigerian Tribune columnist, critic and writer committed to attacking
pre-election abnormalities, election-in-progress ailments and
post-election stench and rottenness in the Nigerian polity. The state of
Denmark is rotten. Nigeria is that state of Denmark, O Hamlet!
Edo election tribunal and Nigeria’s judiciary-less judiciary (3)
UNLESS further events compel me to have a re-think and a
review of proceedings, this is the last part of the subject-matter under
focus. And it is my wish to hop-step-and-jump to the
post-election-rigging phase which I adumbrated earlier in the first two
parts. I am skipping, deliberately, the second phase of
election-in-progress-rigging, which is part of the petition of the
General which the tribunal is yet to hear and rule on in favour of or
against either party.
But
before I dwell on the last phase of election-rigging, Nigerian style, I
must compel readers to go back a little time and recall the case and
matter of “Toronto” Salau Buhari, a once-upon-a-time Speaker of
Nigeria’s House of Representatives during the first term of Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. When Mallam or Alhaji Buhari “Torontoed”
the PDP and Nigeria and became, unlawfully, the Speaker of Parliament
of the central legislators, he did the rightly and honourably wonderful
thing by quitting his endearing post. Today he is in a political limbo,
but I must continue to remember him and President Obasanjo for the
timely display of the needful thing, the needful honour of resignation,
rather than dragging the matter of the allegation to needless legal acts
of gymnastics. President Obasanjo was sympathetic then to the cause and
course of honour, and allowed “Toronto” Buhari to go. Clearly, the
General and President from Owuland proved to Nigerians that he and the
“Toronto” Speaker were not (and still are not) eiusdem farinae (“birds
of a feather”).
One
would expect the political advisers, friends, executive cabinet members
of the Edo State Government and House of Assembly and leaders of the
ACN, locally and nationally, to prevail on the Comrade- Governor to
throw in the towel if truly their gubernatorial candidate did not,
before the last gubernatorial election, possess the requisite and
pertinent academic qualification and certificate allowed for the post of
Governor. It is needless stubbornly to drag the case.
The tax
payers of Edo State who are suffering from the pangs and pains of
excessive and over-burdened taxation should be saved the further burden
of allowing their money to be wasted on needless litigation. Or is the
erstwhile Labour hero and model wasting his own money to prosecute the
case? In any case, my simple advice to the inner circle and
torch-bearers of ACN is to look at the proof (ecce signum) and take
appropriate steps in the interest of righteous justice on behalf of the
good and over-taxed workers and people of Edo State. They should not
allow the petition of alleged certificate forgery against Mr. Adams
Aliyu (or Aliu) Oshiomhole to go the full distance. Or they have
absolute faith and confidence (fide et fiducia), for obvious reasons, on
Nigeria’s judiciary-less judiciary?
Those who of late have seen
the Governor ceaselessly on television have wondered if the amiable
orator ever again rouse to positive action students, hawkers and
Okada-riders, many of whom are genuinely academically certificated? And
I wonder how students and academics in Edo State’s tertiary
institutions are feeling now. The remover and appointer of
Vice-Chancellors is truly in the news! Fiat lux (“Let there be light”)
of righteous justice in Edo State, after all said and done.
Will
Nigeria’s judiciary-less judiciary allow it? We all who were grown up
and sensible enough in 1979 still remember vividly the electoral, or,
better put, the post-electoral math of twelve-two-third that rigged
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, diabolically, out of the Presidency. Some legal
pundits have informed me that, that Supreme Court’s ruling or judgment
is not citable in the annals of Nigeria’s jurisprudence maybe primarily
on account of its indefensible jurisprudential logic. Recently, the late
President Musa Yar’Adua faulted the electoral irregularities that won
him the Presidency. But our judiciary-less judiciary gave consent to
them. What I am trying to say, and in fact saying, is that our
judiciary, the supposed bastion of our righteous justice has, over time,
been turned into an instrument of post-election-rigging in Nigeria. By
the way, why truly is Justice Salami suffering what he is suffering
today? This question shall remain answer-less pro tempore because it is
still sensitively hot in court. And I don’t wish to have any hot bath in
the hot river of contempt which our judiciary-less judiciary may wish
for me. Yet, we must state and re-state it that our judiciary, our
expected Fidei Defensor (“Defender of the Faith”) of justice in the land
has disappointed us time after time on matters of electoral justice.
At
few weeks back, a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) who, as we say, did
not catch a glimpse of my brake-light in college, I mean secondary
school, informed me with great and lawful glee that he is a conqueror of
money. He, according to him, at the time he broached the subject, had
made above N300m on prosecuting election matters. He said this amount
was even small when placed side by side other lawyers and SANs (I am
withholding their names) who had made more than billions of naira on
election cases. Of course, some of the judges who are aware of what the
lawyers make, millions- and billions–wise, and who deliver their rulings
and judgments cannot be left out of this nice way of millions-or
billions-making.
Many a judge obviously becomes a bosom pal
(fides Achaetes) of an election petitioner or his/her opponent. He or
she who cares, can research or investigate this claim or allegation as
the EFCC is currently doing, I hear. But such a researcher or
investigator must look to the end (finem respice) for such an
irreversible research or investigation, like the current exercise I have
embarked on by doing this series, is risky, very risky. He or she who
cares must watch his or her back. But I say: fiat iustitia ruat caelcum
(“let justice be done though the heavens fall”.). We must say no to
post-election-rigging via our judiciary-less judiciary.
O
Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of yester-years!
How your party faithful and top echelon(s) sold you away! How they sold
you away to your untoward end! How your victory was post-election rigged
via your own men and people who connived with the gap-toothed master of
dribbles and Nigeria’s judiciary-less judiciary to do you in!
In a
way, Edo State’s PDP (and PDP national as well) are re-enacting the
electoral pattern and joke of 1992 that unleashed today’s tragedies in
our polity. If you disagree with this simple and humble averment, how do
you sincerely, in your true Christian or Muslim or spiritual heart,
explain the “Punic treachery” that is the lot of General Charles
Airhiavbere today? Why the Punic war that his party has carried or is
carrying on with him post-gubernatorial Edo State election? The General
is obviously now bearing a double cross (fides Punica), but all men, all
persons, including media practitioners of truth and decency must stand
for light fide et amore (“by faith and love”). If you cannot, say
nothing and send me no text messages or e-mails of abuse and insult of
no consequence to my conviction that is ever ready to yield to a
superior perspective. You simply must hold your tongue (Favete linguis).
I conjure you.
The essay ends, but grant me the indulgence to
ACKNOWLEDGE two remarkably pertinent text messages: (1) Sir, your
articles on Edo gubernatorial election makes so much sense to the
majority of Edo youths, elders and other well meaning Nigerians. Please I
look forward to the concluding parts. Though I can’t afford papers
daily, I have set aside money to buy Tribune on Mondays henceforth. Omoh
Odihiri”; (2)” My big brother, Tony, your write-up about Edo tribunal
is very right. God will bless you and your family. Amen
+23480332535536.”
My thanks go to numerous others I cannot quote
on this matter. I enjoyed your text messages and phone calls, even from
detractors, who abused and insulted me for obvious reasons. It is not
easy and funny to be a columnist. It is no joke at all - at all, at all,
and at all.
Last
lines: You can’t reach In and Out on phone for sometime. The penner is
outside the shores of the Nigerian Tribune until further notice. But the
penner’s lyre will not cease its notes. Thanks, readers dear for your
understanding.
NigerianTribune
