Holy hypocrisy

That sums up the EU, US and UK uproar over Onnoghen’s suspension

Viewed from the value perspective, the “international community’s” uproar, over the suspension of Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Samuel Onnoghen, over potential and damaging graft charges, is nothing but holy hypocrisy.

This is simply because, even by the West’s trumpeted domestic ethos, no sitting Chief Justice would survive the resultant blizzard of public anger. That is why the European Union (EU), United States and United Kingdom’s due process-sans-the-undergirding-values gallery play is, quite frankly, baffling.

That goes back to the very basics. Law governs every government. That is the very fundament of democracy. In popular legal parlance, that it is rule of law (not of arbitrary power that drives democracy); and its operational charter is due process. But all that is trite. Any one that comes to party, in a democracy, must come with that golden spoon.

But that is only the surface. Undergirding law are critical values – rectitude, honesty, decency, integrity, probity. These moral fundaments clothe the law with its nobility; and compel obedience, at the risk of dire societal sanctions. That shapes the lawful-lawless divide; and explains why society abhors criminality, for its own sanity.

You cannot, therefore, rupture these basic fundaments and still plead the rapture of “due process”.  That would amount to cynical mockery of the law. That, more or less, is the stench from Onnoghen scandal. But that thick stench appears to have escaped the otherwise sharp nostrils of the “international community”, by their rushed, and clearly not well thought out stand on the matter.

But even before delving into the Onnoghen misconduct, a peep into the centrality of the Judiciary to polite society; and how the sacred position of its head, in this case the CJN, drives it all.

The Judiciary is an awesome class, certified in their knowledge of law; but also clothed with Immanuel Kant-like rigour, in presumed character. That is why they are the closest to God himself in a secular polity; and why having examined the extant laws, and demonstrated squeaky clean hands, they can sentence fellow citizens to death; and the state has no option but to execute that sentence. The CJN is the ultra-sacred symbol of that grim majesty, its holiest-of-holies, such that even a dot, on his immaculate essence, could undermine that sacred system, and bring it crashing down, with disastrous consequences.

But back to the specific Onnoghen scandal, now morphing into a peculiar judicial mess. The troubled CJN, now suspended, is charged with grievous non-asset declaration, in contravention of the Code of Conduct and Tribunal Act CAP Laws of the Federation 2004.  Pre-trial, His Lordship reportedly claimed to “forget”; and adduced it all to a “mistake”.

But at the point of arraignment, his lawyers, among them the most Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), decided to ratchet up procedural technicality to block justice; and shield the embattled CJN from entering a formal plea.

Earlier, on January 15, perhaps knowing what was coming his way, CJN Onnoghen, then with full powers, had postponed, indefinitely, the 88th statutory meeting of the National Judicial Commission (NJC). He thus aborted any chance of NJC telling him to vacate its chair, and aborted a key procedural window to unhorse him, at least temporarily, to face trial and clear his name – or pay for his alleged crime. That not only established manifest bad faith, it also pointed to a sinister subversion of the “due process” the CJN, by his oath of office, swore to uphold.

Incidentally, NJC lies at the heart of the CJN’s lawyers’ judicial filibustering, apparently to shield Nigeria’s No. 1 judicial officer from justice – a most profound irony that would plague Nigeria’s Judiciary, long after the Onnoghen mess is disposed of. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s judicial universe buzzed with frenetic orders, one from a High Court, another from the National Industrial Court (NIC), of all courts, and the final one from the Court of Appeal – all aimed at “preserving the judiciary”. The saving grace though is that the Court of Appeal has refused to stop the CCT trial; and asked the CJN to go stand it, pending the resolution of his substantive prayers.

This then was the situation, more or less, when President Muhammadu Buhari, thrusting a CCT interim order to that effect, “suspended” the CJN; and announced the next-in-line, Supreme Court Justice Tanko Mohammed, in his place.

Now, let’s cut to the chase. The CCT order is clearly controversial, not because it is any less a court order, in the process of a trial; but because it fishes in waters where the Constitution didn’t make any specific provision. The Constitution states how the CJN can be removed – by the president, armed with two-thirds Senate majority. But it didn’t say how the CJN can be suspended.

Now, let’s even read motives. On the suspension, lobbies have accused the president of resorting to self-help – and, to be sure, there is a grain of merit in that charge. But the same lobby has been funereally quiet on the CJN camp’s ruthless manipulation of procedural technicality, to keep a fatally damaged CJN in office, with all his overpowering stench.

If the CJN camp’s manoeuvre had stood, Justice Onnoghen – by their “due process” – would, by now, still be sitting pretty. The NJC, by CJN’s clever tricks, had become hors de combat, hobbled by a drowning chief priest who has not only profaned his shrine but is determined to take down his god with him. Can you trust Bukola Saraki’s Senate to do patriotic duty, and not abuse public trust for personal or class gain? Hardly! So, Onnoghen and confederates, like the Roman Nero, would still have been fiddling with procedure, while the Judiciary burns to ashes, fuelled by public disdain.

So, to be stark: self-help just trumped self-help. But while the one attempted to further encase judicial decadence, via the abuse of procedure, the other is shock therapy to jolt the decadent system straight. It is nothing but doctrine of necessity, to make due process serve justice, not procedural mammon.

Those are the finer points the “international community” didn’t avail themselves of, before rushing into a judgment. For Nigeria, the result would have been sure perdition. He who wears the shoe knows where it pinches.

But perhaps the most naïve part of it all is their linkage of the CJN scandal to the election.  To start with, the CJN is no electoral chief. The court’s role is secondary. True, with the usual pre-election sabre rattling, there could be general fears over the election and putative dispute of its outcome. But be that as it may, there is no certainty the courts would play the deciding role in validating the results. Still, even with that possibility, couldn’t a mortally compromised CJN be easy game for an unscrupulous executive determined to have its way?

That leads this editorial to exactly where it started: values. Were this crisis in the United States, the EU countries and the UK, the CJN would have quietly and shame-facedly resigned. Were it to happen in Japan, and much of Asia, he would have committed honourable suicide. In China, he probably would have been summarily tried and, if found guilty, shot at the stakes.

So, why does the “international community” hee-haw on these settled values – because Nigeria is in Africa, where anything goes? A damaged CJN is blight to due process; and a danger to polite society. That is the issue.