I will start this report by referencing a statement by the former Chief
Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammadu Uwais on corrupt judges;
“A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok
with a dagger in a crowded street. The latter can be restrained
physically. But a corrupt judge deliberately destroys the moral foundation
of society and causes incalculable distress to individuals through abusing
his office while still being referred to as honorable.”
A revolution has been started in Nigeria with the arrest of leading judges
in a night raid last weekend for corruption. The Department of State
Securty (DSS) which led that surprising sting operation, said it was
following over seven months investigation of corruption cases against
judges. Let us recall that earlier in the year, some leading lawyers were
arrested and arraigned in various courts for acts of corruption in what is
perhaps the biggest shakedown the Nigerian judiciary has faced in its
history. For many years, most Nigerians have impotently watched as justice
gets priced beyond the reach of the ordinary Nigerian. Many have watched
as clear cases of perversion of justice with victims left to hug the
transformer while the officers in the temple of justice smile home with
their gargantuan loots. Many have watched as the judiciary waxes
conspiratorially languid in punishing many of the corrupt people that have
been hauled before it. Of course, these corrupt people with the support of
senior lawyers whose rise in the legal profession is procured mainly from
transacting with judges and being awarded cases without any care about the
interest of the nation.
It was therefore apt that Nigerians have forlornly called for the
sanitisation of the judiciary. The coming of President Buhari rekindled
the hope that the burning Nigerian chestnut could be pulled off the fire
with a thorough anti corruption war that will aim at the very roots of the
decibel. One of such obnoxious roots is the Nigerian judiciary as
Nigerians believed that any meaningful fight against corruption must start
from the judiciary where grotesque manipulation of justice has ensured the
country’s most corrupt seizes the courts and allocate justice to whosoever
pleases it. There has been the expressed wish that the judiciary could be
shaken down to the roots and only an audacious, bold, courageous action,
which only a President Buhari can do, stands to salvage the judiciary from
a valley of odium and place it on the strategic pedestal where it leads
the country’s quest for probity and accountability.
The night raid which simultaneously targeted some justices of the Federal
High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court all over the country signals
the needed cleanser citizens of an unjust, misruled and abused country
have yearned for so many years. In the raid, where seven judges of the
three levels of the court were arrested witnessed the recovery of a huge
cache of money in both local and foreign currencies in the arrested judges
residences. It was a daring signal that officers at the temple of justice
should comport to the same etiquette and moral rectitude other citizens
are required to adapt to. It was a wake up call for a judiciary that has
played deaf to the loud demand that it must sanitise its inner coves and
save itself from a largely self-inflicted atrophy.
The furore that greeted the arrest, with the fuming Nigerian Bar
Association and a motley crowd of civil rights groups issuing hasty
moratorium condemning the arrest and calling for the release of the
judges, has given way to increasing citizens support for the act that will
surely ensure that corrupt commercialisation of justice is capped. With
the clear explanations given by the DSS, which detailed why and how the
sting operation was carried out, a stunned citizenry has been let into how
bizarre wheeling and dealing have been imported into the justice system to
not only deface what should be a hallowed institution but outrightly
commercialise it to pander to the desires of the highest bidder. The
unseemly picture of judges shunting in lowly departmental stores and
across the border to collect huge bribe money to pervert justice was a
shameful indict indictment the Nigerian judiciary must live with for many
years to come. With the rampaging effects of official corruption in
Nigeria, it is not difficult to see why and how the judiciary has been
shackled and made a conquered vassal of the impudently corrupt political
class in Nigeria.
It is not as if the story of judicial corruption in Nigeria is a new tale.
It is as old as Nigerian governance but thus far, no government has
mustered the will and guts to lay bare the inner coves of the nation’s
judiciary and put a leash on the wholesale trading that has rubbished the
integrity of the Nigerian judiciary. It was even decipherable from the
reaction of the NBA, the NJC and its supporters, that the Judiciary was
almost walking away with the impression that its members are above the law
but such rude awakening as the DSS swoop will nudge it back to reality
that they are Nigerians, prone to the malaise afflicting Nigeria and
subject to the treatment for such malaise.
From the DSS account itself, it is easy to preen that the body that should
discipline and moderate the indiscretions and nuances of judicial
officials, the National Judicial Council (NJC) has been derelict in
sanitising an arm of government that had gained widespread notoriety for
marketing justice to the highest bidder. Perhaps, the NJC was powerless
because it thought that it has separate ethics governing the judiciary
that are not subject to the laws of the land. Its approach to dealing with
malfeasance in the judiciary is to recommend analgesics for a cancer
patient. This laissez-faire approach has rather led to a worsening of the
corruption in the judiciary and worsened its perception by the Nigerian
public. According to the DSS, the cases of corruption against the
arrested judges were reported to the NJC seven months ago but the body had
rather issued a slap on the wrist for the judges and allowed the judiciary
to sink further into the abyss of corruption. It may be understandable
that the NJC does not adjudicate on cases of criminality against judges
but it displayed a poor appreciation of the problem by pretending it can
but it ended up covering a huge pile of rot in the process.
With the DSS raid however, an elated nation that has impotently rued the
increasing criminalization of the temple of justice over the years, heaved
a sigh of relief that indeed a Daniel has come to judgment. The poor whose
hopes for justice has percolated in the face of multi-billion Naira
trading for justice must have heaved a sigh of relief that his remedy is
nigh. The vision of a judiciary that will not trade justice for sacks of
dollars, Euros, Pounds and Naira is a refreshing experience for citizens
of a country that have lived for many decades, internalising only corrupt
ways of doing things, including procuring justice. Who will not like a
system where he will go to court and get justice without trading with an
appointed middleman that will name the price for the envisaged justice he
hopes to get? Who will not be elated going before a judge who has already
named the price for the justice he came to seek for? The biggest casualty
in this remains the judiciary which must work hard to regain the
confidence of Nigerians. Such confidence is needed to secure an
egalitarian society where no man is oppressed.
It is noteworthy that such bodies like the NBA, with its own thick layer
of wheeler-dealer lawyers and some groups initially wanted to create
artificial immunity for the arrested judges. Judges are subject to the
same laws they interpret and as such, are not immune from arrest and
prosecution for criminal and corrupt acts. They are not above the law and
their conduct is not beyond reproach. That they stand in the temple of
justice does not give them more privileges than other citizens. Perhaps
the NBA realised this late but then, it is heart warming that we have this
case to make other judges know that they cannot bestialise the temple of
justice and walk away free. For years, we have seen judges and some
lawyers live very flattering and opulent lives, not on their salaries or
legal earnings but from the proceeds of corruption. In the sequel, the
justice system has suffered irreparable harm while the poor citizenry bear
the brunt. Sure, there are honest and impeccable judges that try to live
straight and honest lives but like in every other sector, the visage of
swash-buckling, nouveau-riche judges, obscenely displaying wealth is sure
to dampen their morale and serve as demoraliser to their struggle to live
true to their callings. Now that the weeds are about to be pulled off, the
good seed in the ration’s bench will have tremendous opportunity to
flower; to the glory of the country’s judiciary.
As citizens of a country where justice had been cannibalised and sold to
the highest bidder, we have a binding duty to support the present effort
to cleanse and fumigate the judiciary. Unquantifiable is the gain a
corrupt-free judiciary can do to a country’s growth. But then, we still
have a duty to urge the present regime to go deeper in this cleansing
effort. Many more judges at the federal level are very corrupt and of
course, many judges at the state judiciary are as corrupt as their federal
counterparts and must be equally probed, taken in and prosecuted. As the
Buhari government has shown, there should be no tolerance for sacred cows.
The government and its security agencies must beam the searchlights on
judges that sat on the various election tribunals. There is a sustained
impression that the country’s election tribunals are merely dubious
trading points where politicians with burning ambitions, purchase
favourable rulings from acquiescing judges which eventually give them
power over gargantuan state resources. The DSS or any other security
agency must probe judges that have sat at these tribunals if we will
achieve our desire fir a filth-free judiciary where justice goes to the
just.
All said, the DSS raid on allegedly corrupt judges is quite in order. It
is a welcome development. It is timely. It is laudable. It serves very
exciting notice that our judiciary could be rescued from the pith of
decay. It gives hope that the present anti corruption war will go a long
way in rescuing the soul of a lost nation. It gives hope for the Nigerians
masses not only that all Nigerians are equal but that every Nigerian is
answerable to the law. It is a fundamental imperative for placing the
country on a sound moral pedestal for a long journey in nation recovery.
Peter Claver Oparah
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com