When the raids were carried out in 2016, the country was seized by turmoil. It was unheard of as several senior judges, including those of the Supreme Court were arrested and their abodes searched with several dodgy documents discovered. Several months later, with the retirement of Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court and the dismissal from office of Justice O.O. Tokode of the Benin Division of the Federal High Court following recommendations from the National Judicial Council (NJC), President Muhammadu Buhari has taken a step further in his commitment to cleansing the temple of justice.
Surely, he will not be the first Nigerian leader to act on the glaring inadequacies of the judicial arm of government in relation to the dispensation of justice, particularly criminal justice. He has merely put on the front-burner of public discourse, again, what most Nigerians have, over the years, complained about without visible relief and have come to resign themselves to. Before now, the nation had to put up with the shame of letting self-confessed thieves get their preferred “justice” and with their loot intact. In many instances, the cases are so manipulated that they remain inconclusive in a manner that benefits the suspected criminals.
The pessimistic impressions that crimes were ventures worth taking had gained momentum in our national psyche. In the present scenario that the president is lamenting over, it is hampering his commitment to eliminating corrupt practices from the nation’s body polity or at least reducing it to a minimum. There must be consequence for corruption. Consequently, this administration’s focus on the judiciary is timely and we dare say effective. For instance, every corrupt case must be brought to the courts for final adjudication one way or the other. We share the President’s concerns and in particular his opinion on the role of the judiciary in the fight against corruption in our country.
We also note his remarks that it is critically important, as a sacred duty, for the judiciary to ensure that criminal justice administration is not delayed in view of the expectation of the public a section of which is beginning to see the justice system as discriminatory and skewed against the less-privileged. And this is in spite of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015.
It is worth noting therefore, that the judiciary, in reaction to this negative assessment by the people, it is out to serve, is beginning to take measures to sanitise itself. It has retired compulsorily or sacked judicial officers proven to have betrayed their oath of office. The cleansing is ongoing and we commend the leadership of that arm of government for courageously taking the bull by the horn. It is from this perspective that we laud the courage of the NJC in recommending the punishment of Justices Ademola and Tokode As that self-examination is progressing, the judges have also come out to insist that they acted on facts before them as they are not the proverbial Father Christmas.
This brings to the table the level of competence and efficiency or lack of them of the prosecutors as well as the security agencies whose duty is, primarily, to make sure that they have incontrovertible proof that the offence was actually committed by the accused persons. It is common knowledge that in most cases, the security agencies and the prosecuting authorities collude with the suspects to turn the course of justice on its head.
Going forward, more searchlight must be beamed on lawyers too. Although a couple of them are currently on trial and some have had their prestigious Senior Advocate status revoked, more of them need to be investigated as they have proven to work hand in hand with judges to obscure justice. For them, law is amoral and to that extent buying justice is legal. This is unacceptable just as we disagree with this horrendous and ignoble perception of what the rest of us know of the noble profession and urge the Nigerian Bar Association to appeal to its members to take another look at their conducts and see the urgent need to team up with the rest of the judiciary to salvage what is left of the justice system and its dispensation.
Other indicted judges can find courage to save their profession and their families from shame if they resign honourably or opt for plea bargaining instead of dragging the prestige of the judiciary in the mud while pretending to defend allegations of corruption. Especially where most of these allegations are true.
