Continued from last edition
These are very weighty allegations the authorities must investigate to ensure justice must not only be done but must be seen to have been done.
Whatever the veracity of Peterside’s claims, it is clear that Wike made repeated attempts to see former Chief Justice, Mahmud Mohammed, during the pendency of the case.
Mohammed’s media aide, Ahuruka Isa, issued a statement denying that his principal ever received Wike in his office but admitted that Wike visited twice without “prior appointments”.
Isa explained that when Wike visited the first time, Mohammed was away in Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj; and on the second occasion, he was at a meeting of the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC) interviewing candidates shortlisted for the rank of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).
Otti cries foul
Alex Otti, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the same election in Abia State, said: “There are many things that need to be changed in our electoral process.
“We have a long way to go because a situation where somebody won an election clearly and it is awarded to somebody else should not even happen at all.
“We also think that the way and manner the Supreme Court affirmed all the elections were not proper. If you have watched the trends of their judgments in recent time, they affirmed every election.
“However, we have accepted the judgment of the Supreme Court, even if we do not agree with them. They are the highest court in the land and I believe that in their wisdom, they have given the judgment the way they understood it.”
In Akwa Ibom State, it is pretty much the same story if the report of Sahara Reporters, an online publication, citing a source in the Akwa Ibom State government is to be believed.
The unnamed source informed Sahara Reporters about an alleged shady deal Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, and his predecessor, Godswill Akpabio, made with justices of the Supreme Court prior to their judgment on February 3, 2015 validating the governorship election using as go-between a justice from the state whose elevation to the Supreme Court was facilitated by Akpabio a few years back.
Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, told Sahara Reporters: “The Supreme Court decision that upheld the dubious and fraudulent elections that took place in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia States has sent a dangerous signal to the political landscape and at once put a question mark on the anti-corruption project of Buhari’s administration.
“I was stunned into disbelief that the Supreme Court should in one fell swoop render nugatory all the tribunal and Appeal Court rulings with respect to Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Abia States without thinking about the bizarre consequences of such unilateral actions in the body polity.
“The fight against corruption, whether political corruption or economic corruption, remains the focal point of this government. A friend tells me that political corruption is more dangerous than economic corruption.
“If we are able to reduce corruption in Nigeria by 80 per cent, Price Waterhouse Coppers says the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will hit $2 trillion by 2030.
“If we kill corruption in Nigeria, commerce and business alone can build our economy even without oil.”
When asked about these unfathomable judgments by a mix of Nigerian and foreign audience during a trip to Europe, Buhari wisely refrained from a kneejerk response but instead said he would comment after proper briefing by his Attorney General., Abubakar Malami.
It appears that he has not just received the advice he desired but that a plan may have been formulated to cleanse the judicial Aegean stable going by the focused moves of both the EFCC and DSS to ensure a Daniel comes to judgment.
It is cheery that after due representation, the acting chief justice and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) are now on the same page with the executive to ensure that a once revered institution of the courts regains its halo.
It is hoped that the next substantive chief justice shall join in this effort to cleanse our judiciary.
A good starting point would be to defenestrate any and every election petition case where a link to corruptive influence has been demonstrated.
If there are any links between indicted judicial officers to any controversial judgment, then the “issues in the election tribunals and the ensuing appeals” should be revisited to ensure there is no miscarriage of justice.
At the moment we may not have all the facts or the full details of what transpired between the panel of justices and the parties or their intermediaries.
However, the insight gained from the public feud between Katsina-Alu and Salami over alleged moves for pre-agreement on the judgment to be delivered on an appeal filed by Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) Sokoto State governorship candidate in 2011, Maigari Dingyadi, against Governor Aliyu Wammako of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opened the eyes to how judgments at those levels can be manipulated or procured.
Way out of the mess
The weight of allegations and invidiousness of ‘election robbery’ and independent probe canvassed by aggrieved parties in the three states offer a chance of restitution and cleaning up the judicial.
This step will help discourage people from resorting to “self help, violence and all forms of illegality and barbarity in the quest for power,” as Amadu Attai, Akwa Ibom State APC chairman, complained on February 6, 2016.
This is in line with the intervention of Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, who had cautioned on the dangers of denying the people justice.
He insisted that “the country is being affected by the burden of untreated justice, and that social injustice could only thrive for a while …. Where justice appears to be lost, a higher order of restitution takes over.”
Soyinka’s declaration is encapsulated in the observation of John F. Kennedy that “those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
It is in our collective interest that the three branches of government cooperate in revisiting the highlighted cases and not make the people to see the judiciary as the institution that makes peaceful change of guards impossible in the polity.
By the straitjacket affirmation of elections, candidates would lose confidence that electoral perfidy by opponents can be reversed through the courts; creating a scenario whereby the more popular candidates would not restrain their supporters from self help, leading to elections being settled by brawn and bullets.
The reputation of the court as the last hope of the common man must be restored to foster belief that citizens can get justice when their rights or privileges are under threat.
Can the Nigerian judiciary be said to be faithfully playing this role today? The answer is unlikely to be in the affirmative, going by the Oji case study.
Seeing that justice is done
There is a very good reason that the ability of the judiciary to play the role of a dispassionate arbiter and impartial dispenser of justice should not be compromised, in reality or perception.
The putative impartiality of that arm of government is the very core of every modern society. It is important that “justice should not only be done but be seen to be done” in every instance without regard to whose ox is gored.
The sustenance of citizens’ confidence in the justice system as a common refuge for all – in line with the maxim, “nobody is above the law or below it” – is crucial for a peaceful society, more so in a fragile one such as ours.
The position of all judicial officers is greatly hampered by public perception of widespread sleaze. It is difficult for an upright judge to deliver a judgment without allusions to compromise.
We need to save incorruptible judges from such slur by urgently weeding out the bad eggs.
Cleansing the Aegean stable
The genie has escaped from the bottle, exploding the myth of the insulation of the judiciary at all levels from the debilitation of corruption, considering:
- The fallout between a former chief justice and former Court of Appeal president.
- The EFCC probe report that went viral.
- Tainted election tribunals’ rulings in many cases across the country, especially the Supreme Court judgments regarding Abia, Akwa Ibom, and Rivers.
- The recurring case of Oji, culminating in the retirement of one justice of the Court of Appeal, leaving a cloud of suspicion of members of the panel that sat on the case, and
- The arraignment of some justices of the Supreme Court and others.
Certainly, this state of affairs in the temple of justice is unacceptable at any time and is even less so under the watch of an avowed anti-corruption administration.
We need to embark on a wholesale reform of the judiciary, to weed out corrupt judicial officers, introduce robust checks and balances, and restore credibility to that institution.
Citizens themselves must raise their voices towards this objective and, together with the civil society organisations, push to compel the authorities to act, and act now.
Calls for prompt investigation of the judgments in the cases in Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Abia States, and Arochukwu/Ohafia Federal Constituency should be acted upon.
Judges who have soiled their hands should face the full wrath of the law along with their co-conspirators.
Those who falsified election results, mutilated result sheets or perjured should not be left out. Perpetrators of election rigging have committed crimes and must be treated as criminals.
We should take a cue from the response of the American government to the challenge to its constitutional order following the Watergate scandal, especially the Saturday Night Massacre on October 20, 1973 when Richard Nixon directed Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, and Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, to dismiss Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, for daring to investigate him.
Both men refused to carry out the directive and resigned from office.
The government then strengthened the statutes by introducing the Independent Counsel Act of 1978 that created the Office of the Independent Council (OIC), which is not subject to the control of the president or any other official of the executive branch.
Another fallout from Watergate was the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, a federal law that requires mandatory public disclosure of the financial and employment history of public officials and their immediate family.
It also created restrictions on lobbying by public officials for a set period after leaving public office.
The statute establishing the watchdog over judicial officers, the Nigerian Judicial Commission (NJC), should be made fully independent from the headship of the courts vested in the chief justice.
The NJC has too much room for cronyism and sympathy when professional colleagues alone decide the fate of their members.
A rejig of the NJC and its composition with professionals of diverse backgrounds would give people more confidence and assurance of objective outcomes in the pursuit of complaints against the courts or their officers.
We must pass legislation to restrain spouses of justices from lobbying or influencing members of the bench in view of the Wike revelations.
If we recall Ken Starr’s relentless investigation and indictment of former United States President, Bill Clinton, over the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the 1990s, no public officer should be so exalted as to be beyond reproach for his/her actions or inactions in office.