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Tag: activism

  • Language activism (I)

    Language activism (I)

    Mankind has travelled a long and tortuous road to arrive at this current point of incontestable global dominance. The oldest fossil which has been identified as being definitely human was discovered in East Africa in 1974. Irreverently named Lucy, she lived some 3.2 million years ago, still physically and genetically different from any human being alive today but already distinct from the most advanced of our cousins, the apes. Studies on the fossil suggested that Lucy, who was hardly a metre tall, died as a result of  a fall from a tall tree on which she had, as usual, sought refuge from the routine predation from one of the large cats with which she shared her immediate neighbourhood. In other words, she was just one of the creatures investing a space from which she could extract some subsistence for one more day of a truly precarious existence. It was an existence that was devoid of any form of comfort or promise. Each day dawned and was lived through as best as it was possible. No tomorrows existed in that arid and murderously competitive environment but Lucy and her humanoid companions desperately clung to life to which no other purpose other than survival could be attached. Man evolved over the next three million years until Homo sapiens arrived on the scene to create a brave new world in which some foggy sense could be made of human existence. That human species has grown to colonise every inch of geographic space outside the stubbornly unconquerable space of the Antarctic. And has become the most decisive force on earth both for evil and for good. Man has become the ruthless apex predator to whom all other knees must bow. The result of a recent experiment shows that the most dangerous sound in the jungle is not the dreadful roar of a lion on the hunt or a tiger on the lookout for what to devour but the sound of human voices in conservation. All animals who heard that sound fled precipitously from it. On reflection, that is the most sensible course of action under those circumstances.

    Mankind is the preeminent species on earth but not because of her stark physical characteristics. Put the biggest, strongest man next to a lion if you want to test this statement. Human dominance is certainly not physical. It is mental. It proceeds from his brain. Mankind is capable of thought from which comes the strategic planning which makes it possible for him to solve all problems collectively. What makes man truly awesome however is his ability to pool his thoughts with any number of other men through his ability to communicate. That is the basis of our much vaunted exceptionalism. The dinosaurs which ruled the earth for 150 million years before the sun set on them on one cataclysmic autumn evening fifty million years ago ruled the global environment through their sheer bulk which was augmented with a little brain. They were therefore not able to craft their environment to their will. With our species, the reverse is the truth and we not only have massive brains, we can enhance the effectiveness of those brains through the process of hooking up any number of brains through the power of language. Each person anywhere can communicate with his neighbour through the medium of speech using mutually intelligible languages of which there are now just over 7,000, with more than 400 of them spoken in Nigeria, one of the most linguistically diverse spaces on earth. Each of those languages spoken on earth represents some geographical and cultural niche, none more precious nor more important than the other. You cannot or definitely should not try to separate me from my Yoruba language because by doing so you are depriving me of my cultural heritage. Not only that, my failure to pass this heritage on to my children is a tragedy and reeks of criminal negligence. If you are Yoruba and wilfully refuse to pass on that language to your children, you are guilty of some form of cultural homicide and stand condemned. I use Yoruuba as an example here for the simple reason that I am Yoruba. You can substitute whatever is your mother tongue at this point.

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    Language is of such importance to any human being that we all come to the world with the genetic endowment of language adaptability. Noam Chomsky, the globally acclaimed grandfather of modern linguistics has postulated that every child born anywhere in the world has come with his brain wired to appreciate the grammar, that is, the structure of every language spoken on earth. It is not difficult to imagine that there are many opponents of this theory if only because it puts every language on the same pedestal, a situation which is anathema to those who seek comfort in the superiority of one language over all others. Some have also argued that nature and nurture are responsible for language development and Chomsky has not acknowledged the role of nurture in this process. You can think about that.

    I am inclined to support Chomsky in this matter, not because he needs my puny support but because I encountered a version of this theory from my grandmother long before I was made aware of the existence of Professor Chomsky or his theory. My grandmother came calling when my first son was born. Although she had been dandling babies; her children, grandchildren and great grand children on her knees for more than seven decades, she was still as excited about this one as she was with all the others that came before him. As she fondled him, she spoke directly to him, welcoming him to the world in her Ilara-Mokin (Ondo State) dialect. Some wag present on that occasion pointed out to the old lady that the baby could not possibly have any understanding of that language. Fortified by the weight of her age, my grandmother explained that all babies came to the world with the capacity to understand every language. They are however only able to speak the language or languages spoken to them in their infancy. In other words, children are able to speak all languages spoken to them but lose that ability by the time they are entering puberty.

    As far as I was concerned, this theory was proved to me shortly after my grandmother exposed me to it. A friend of mine, a fellow Ijesa married an Ibo lady shortly afterwards. I mention his Ijesa antecedents because we Ijesas are rather prone to marrying across tribal and other lines (Shout out to my in-laws in Akwa Ibom) but that is not the point of this story. The point here is that this Ibo bride arrived with the ability to speak Yoruba with the fluency of a native Yoruba speaker. When I asked her which part of Yorubaland she grew up in, she assured me that she had not lived in any part of Yorubaland before her marriage. Seeing my bewilderment, she explained that she was born and bred in the North. There, she lived in close proximity with Yorubas from whom she picked up their language. They were all taught in Hausa in their primary school as well and she was as fluent in that language as she was in Yoruba and Ibo which she spoke at home. She also spoke English of course so, she had four languages in her locker without having made any effort to learn any of them. No further proof needed to support my granny’s theory which is of course related also to Chomsky. The fundamental importance of language to human development is shown by this one observation but I am sure that there are many others that can be called upon. Our brains are wired to understand every language we encounter before the age of ten or thereabouts. After that age, that window of opportunity is closed and those who wish to reopen it have to do so through the use of considerable effort, which most people are loath to do.

  • Activism must have limits

    Activism must have limits

    The word “Activism” has been sitting pretty in our political lexicon without being harassed until recently. Three triggers are responsible for my decision to sink my teeth into the rhetoric of activism. One, the 10-day protest that took place in August this year. Two, the threats by the labour unions to ground the states that have not done the needful on the recently approved minimum wage. Three, the threat by some activists to go on a protest over the detention of a lawyer activist Dele Farotimi. If you permit that these three issues can be regarded as constituting examples of activism, we can go further from there.

    But let me first give you a few examples of my own activism as a young man. I went to secondary school in Ikot Ekpene, more than 20 kilometres from my village. I sat on the frame of a bicycle while my luggage sat on the back. I did that treacherous routine for five years (1960-1964). I thought that was torture, pure punishment that only a child who felt really thirsty for education could endure. Then an interesting story started floating in our locality: the Catholic Church was about to build a secondary school for us. Joy filled my heart. I knew that children from our area will no longer have to do a long and difficult journey to get secondary school education. But my joy was short-lived because the leaders of Qua Iboe Church were up in arms against the idea. They did not want a secondary school established by the Catholics in the area.

    Why? Because they did not want the children converted to Catholicism. I was hopping mad. If you don’t want that, why don’t you establish a school owned and run by Qua Iboe Church? I did not care about the colour of religion but I was interested in a school in my neighbourhood. So, I kicked. My parents were staunch members of Qua Iboe Church, so was every other member of my family. I told my parents I was leaving that church in protest. They did not stop or scold me. And when the big leaders of the church learnt of my protest, they invited me for a meeting. At the meeting, I told them that I was leaving the church in protest against their opposition to the establishment of a Catholic secondary school. They tried to dissuade me, but the stubbornness in me was fully awake. I left Qua Iboe Church.

    My second story of activism took place in the 70s. As a young reporter in the Nigerian Chronicle in Calabar, I was assigned to go and do a feature article in the oil producing areas of present day Akwa Ibom State. What I saw, the high level of neglect of the area, horrified me. As a young graduate with an acute sense of right and wrong, I faithfully documented this in a series of articles which I described as “Living Hell”. After the publication of the series, I went back to the community and told the village chief that I wanted to organize the youths to mount a protest. He agreed. We blocked the access road and prevented the oil company from working. It worked. The oil company woke up and provided amenities for the community because of my activism which was, luckily for me, unknown to my employers.

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    During the protests mounted from August 1-10, I wondered why it had to last that long. It was a fair deal to have a one-day or two-day protest against the hardship that Nigerians were going through, but 10 days was obviously excessive. I knew that once it was allowed to last that long, something was likely to go wrong, seriously wrong. In every protest group, there are usually three sets of people: a) the leaders who want the goals of the protest achieved. b) the followers who share the vision of the leaders, and c) the rabble rousers and hoodlums who want nothing but action. These are the trouble-makers within the group who want an immediate impact and the destruction of public and private property; they do not mind bringing innocent children into the wahala, children who know nothing about the vision of the protest. Those are the ones who provided Russian flags to youngsters and told them to burn down anything in sight. Those are the ones and always bring madness and mayhem into activism. Those are the ones who give activism a bad name.

    For years now, the labour movements – NLC, TUC and ASUU have been in the eye of the storm for one house-keeping matter or the other. I fully support the efforts of the unions to get a better deal for working class Nigerians because it is they, the workers, that make Nigeria either tick or tumble. However, the modus operandi of some of the labour leaders leaves a lot to be desired. Some of them talk flippantly, telling us they will “ground the country” or “they will ground the economy”.

    If you ground the economy, how does the worker benefit? If you ground the economy, the factories will shut down, their revenue base will shrink and there will be job losses or pay cuts. How have they helped the workers?

    My second point of disagreement with some of the unions is their failure to accept that workers’ wages depend on productivity. Labour leaders hardly talk of productivity but it is productivity that brings revenue from which workers are paid. Without higher productivity, there cannot be higher revenue from which workers can be paid. The other point to note is that some of the unionists tend to make every agitation or activism a national event. How do you explain the fact that a problem exists in one state yet the unionists feel that for them to be seen to be successful, the impact must be nationwide? This happened when the NLC had a problem with the Imo State government. They decided to block flights from Abuja to Owerri, thus inflicting undue punishment on innocent passengers and airlines.

    The unionist must learn to limit the acreage of punishment that they must inflict on those who have offended them. On the other hand, I think they need to understand that certain activities affect workers in the short or long run. I expect them to speak out and agitate for improvement in such areas, which will eventually affect the wellbeing of workers. The four refineries have been dead for years without any serious agitation by the unions for their revival. Many federal industries such as the Ajaokuta Steel, Aluminium Smelting Plant, the Paper Mills in three states, etc. are all stone dead. Shouldn’t the labour leaders speak up about those idle industries which affect Nigerian workers? And now, the latest by the activists is the plan to mount a protest in favour of Dele Farotimi over his detention. The gentleman is said to have a criminal defamation case in a matter involving a Senior Advocate, Chief Afe Babalola. This is not a matter for protest or activism. It is purely a legal matter that only the courts can decide. Those who want to help Farotimi can do so in two ways: a) Help to secure bail for him, and b) hire for him the best lawyers that money can buy. Mounting a demonstration on this sort of matter will amount to recklessness and an abuse of power of activism even if Farotimi is an activist.

    I have watched him a few times on television and I noticed three things about him. His hair is shaggy like that of a disc jockey. He speaks eloquently and that impressed me. He was always driving his points to the border of recklessness and it was obvious that if the anchor of the programme did not restrain him, he would have put the anchor and the TV station in trouble. I haven’t read his book that is said to become a controversial best seller, but since it has become a matter for judicial attention, we will get to know sooner or later whether his activism has been conducted within the limits of the law or not or within the limits of propriety or not.

  • ‘No place for cultism, strike, activism at Naval varsity’

    The Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas has urged the new Vice Chancellor of the Admiralty University of Nigeria  (ADUN), Prof Paul Omaji, to ensure zero tolerance for immorality, indiscipline, drug abuse, cultism, activism and other vices.

    Vice Admiral Ibas, who is the visitor to the university, said its owners expect the institution to be one of the best globally as soon as possible, stressing that all necessary support would be given to the management to succeed.

    “You are expected to ensure that integrity, competence, transparency, good order, fairness, justice, academic excellence, good ethics and other virtues enshrined as core values in the code of conduct and the university law is upheld.   You will thus be expected to build a model institution that meets international standards, capable of developing the capacity of staff and students to attain their best possible potential,” he said.

    The Naval boss made the remarks during the presentation of appointment letter to the new Vice Chancellor at the Naval Headquarters, Abuja.

    He said expectations were high and urged the VC to meet them, following the guidelines provided by the institution’s Board of Trustees (BOT).

    The CNS said: “As you ponder on the way forward, rest assured that the founders and indeed, the Board of Trustees of ADUN will hand you specific key performance indicators and control measures which you will be obliged to meet and be held accountable for, periodically

    “These, among others, will enable you to institutionalise good corporate governance and internal control mechanisms to ensure probity and judicious utilisation of human, material and financial resources.

    “The founders of the university will not relent in providing the needed guidance, wherewithal and support towards evolving a university that we will all be proud of.  It is hoped that the VC will be guided by applicable laws, regulations and policies in the discharge of his responsibilities.”

    He said the new VC has the mandate to attract international and domestic support, including collaboration with reputable personalities and institutions towards enhancing standards in the university.

    He counseled the VC to employ only the most qualified workers, and the best of students to fulfil the institution’s vision.

    In his acceptance speech, Prof Omaji thanked the CNS for the appointment and pledged to carry out all the responsibilities attached to the position, consistent with the ethos of the proprietors and the business ideology of ADUN.

    He said: “I am taking this position with all the wisdom I can muster. Apart from the vision 2025, which seeks to build the university capacity to nine faculties, 81 departments, 300 programmes, 11,000 students and 778 staff in six years.

    “The vision is ‘to be internationally recognised as a university with global perspective that meets the dynamic needs of society by educating leaders, who shall value creation for the good of mankind,’” he said.

  • International Day of Activism: FIDA Lagos donates to sick children at LUTH

    The Lagos State Chapter of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Nigeria, has donated gifts to sick children hospitalised at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba, Lagos.

    The gesture was part of the association’s activities to mark the United Nations’ 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.

    The event is globally marked between November 25 and December 10 every year to raise awareness about violence inflicted on women and girls across the world.

    The theme for this year is: “The  World: #HearMeToo”..

    The women lawyers during the visit, donated gift items such as toiletries, mosquito nets, provisions, cereals  to the Ward E4 also known as FIDA Children Ward at LUTH.

    Speaking during the visit, the Chairperson, FIDA Lagos, Mrs. Ngozi Ogbolu, said the gesture  has been one of the major focuses of the association because of their passion for women and children.

    “We are here to visit the children in FIDA Ward E. This is FIDA Nigeria Ward in LUTH. The visit is part of the programme to commemorate 2018 16 days of activism  tagged: Violence against Women and the Girl Child. We  added the visitation to this Ward to our programs”, she  said.

    Noticing that doctors were on strike  during the visit, Ogbolu called on the government to make health sector its priority.

    “We noticed when we came that as against previous visit, we see more children in the ward.  We are urging government to take seriously anything  that has to do with women and children and their health in particular in this country. It is not an issue to joke with because anything can happen and they owe it a duty to protect citizens’ lives.

    “So, the government should make health sector its priority, ensuring that the doctors and  other medial personnel do not go on strike”, she added.

    Also speaking during the visit, Mrs. Adero Olagbegi Fadahunsi, a member of FIDA, who facilitated the visit on behalf of the association, explained that gender-based violence has become a global pandemic and a moral affront to most women and girls.

    She said the fact that FIDA Lagos  chose to commemorate the 16 days of activism by visiting  FIDA Children’s Ward at LUTH to show their affection for  the hospitalised children, adding that the association has  passion for children, the less privileged especially its activism against gender-based violence.

     

  • Valuing Women ’s Work and Activism

    Valuing Women ’s Work and Activism

    Zohra Moosa, Executive Director, Mama Cash

    Women work hard. All day long, they are busy caring for others, creating new knowledge and ideas, solving problems, building our world, and contributing to our economies and societies in endless ways.

    Yet so much of this labour is undervalued and poorly paid. Think of the millions of domestic workers putting in long hours without job security, garment workers in exploitative sweatshops, sex workers whose work is criminalised, and informal sector workers whose work is invisible and unregulated. Patriarchal norms that devalue both women and their labour mean that the work women do, work that is necessary for our survival, is often not even seen as ‘real’ work.

    The devaluing of women’s labour is compounded by other economic injustices: in too many communities around the world, women are denied the right to inherit money or property, or to own land, amounting to a systematic transfer of assets from women to men, generation after generation. Women are also denied access to credit, to bank accounts and to financial and other literacies that would enable them to understand and make use of current economic systems. Meanwhile, the communal land and natural resources that rural and Indigenous women depend on for their livelihoods and to which they are entitled are being stolen by private corporations and complicit governments.

    The cumulative effect of these injustices is that women are denied access to the power and resources— like money and property, but also information about how economic and financial systems work—that make a dignified, self-determined life possible.

    At Mama Cash, we know that feminist activists who are taking on systemic injustices face formidable challenges. Changing deeply-rooted social norms that devalue domestic and care work, challenging factory owners that harass and fire worker activists, standing up to corporations that hire private militias to protect their interests – this is dangerous, sometimes deadly, work.

    In March 2016, feminist and environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, was murdered in Honduras. Cáceres had spent years organising her indigenous Lenca community to defend their ancestral lands against local and transnational corporations operating to exploit their territories. Cáceres was murdered because her organisation, COPINH, had been effective in stalling the construction of the Agua Zarca mega-dam.

    Indeed, women are organising worldwide, demanding their rights and not backing down in the face of repression. At Mama Cash, we support economic justice for women by putting resources directly into the hands of activists. Where others devalue them and their labour, we champion them. We do this because we know their hard work is paying off.

    Since 1983, Mama Cash has provided funding and capacity support to self-led feminist groups that are organising to secure their human rights. Over thirty years of resourcing this work has taught us that feminist activism works and that collective action is the key.

    In Pakistan’s Sindh province, the Home Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF), a Mama Cash grantee-partner, has fought for years to secure home-based workers’ labour rights. Almost 80 percent of an estimated 12 million Pakistani home-based workers are women; these ‘invisible’ workers often spend ten hours a day making garments, bangles and other accessories at home. In December 2016, through HBWWF’s work, home-based workers won their fight to receive legal recognition as workers. They can now register to access benefits, a victory in itself, and one that sets the stage for putting home-based workers’ rights on agendas in other parts of Pakistan.

    Women and Land in Zimbabwe (WLZ), another Mama Cash grantee-partner, is a women’s organisation that addresses unequal control over land and natural resources. Nearly 80 percent of Zimbabwe’s population is rural, with women cultivating an estimated 60-80 percent of agricultural output. WLZ supports women to lobby traditional leaders and local authorities to ensure equitable access to land. In recent years, WLZ has grown dramatically, from 2,000 to approximately 10,000 members, increasing women’s awareness of their land rights and the number of women owning and controlling land.

    Victories and advances like these inspire me, and I never tire of hearing about them. Indeed, they drive me to do my work at Mama Cash, helping us to play our role in bigger social change processes, including achieving economic justice for all. Our special role is to mobilise and move resources towards the visionary feminist activists and movements around the world that every day, with creativity and courage, are building a more just future for women—for all of us—worldwide.

    https://www.mamacash.org/en/en-homepage

  • Odumakin: When Activism Is Enslaved By Sinister Motives

    To say the least, I am amused, with the apparent self-contradiction by Comrade Yinka Odumakin, a veiled politician, masquerading as a social activist of the Afenifere stuff. He has just pierced himself with a sharp knife.

    In a published piece captioned “What is wrong with Buratai’s Army,” Odumakin , was on a voyage of perfidy, but truth held him back to unconsciously declare that “Less I am accused of crying wolf where there is none…, ” thus watering the substance of his arsenals as an attack dog.

    Obviously a hatchet job, Odumakin had taken scathing jabs at the Nigerian Army under the leadership of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai for executing its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through the free medical outreach programmes in host communities in Nigeria.

    I immediately sensed in him shadows of a desperate politician and ethnic chauvinist groping for cogent reasons to deliver what he presumed to be an irrecoverable punch on the institution of the Nigerian Army. In so doing, he simultaneously minced no words in expressing his veiled hatred, ethnic bigotry and aversion to the leadership of Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Therefore, the short piece was replete with confounding blunders and contradictions to a level of even confessing to the truthfulness of some of the issues he held sacrosanct as weapons to disparage the Nigerian Army. Nigerians are known for their flair for flaunting an identity far from their innermost convictions.

    When I perused Odumakin’s piece, his image as the last don of this clan of reprehensible characters assailed my senses as the sole motivation for his baseless umbrage. The writer knows beyond doubt that the speculated news about soldiers of the “Operation Python Dance II” inoculating school children in parts of Nigeria with vaccines infused with the deadly Monkey Pox virus is a mere rumour, patently false and unfounded.

    Also, Odumakin knows the peddlers are miscreants, which antagonizing politicians have deployed against the Federal Government under the Buhari Presidency to discredit the Army. He knows, the Nigerian Army has not stepped into any school or community to administer free medication without the consent of relevant authorities, as attested by the presence of government officials and traditional rulers at the flag-off of the programme by “Operation Python Dance II,” or “Operation Crocodile Smile II.”

    I can bet to high heavens that Odumakin has no evidence or proof of any reported incident of death arising from any medication by the Army in any of the places it has been administered. Yet, he elected upon himself to add strength to the tantalizing wind, flesh up the wild and destructive rumour tales by enthusing a confirmation and rehearse of the speculations as;

    “The rumour mongers of course succeeded because the Nigerian state already lost credibility with the people. The idea of medical mission by the military is not totally alien.”

    The exposition by Odumakin confirms the current deliberate attempts to put Nigeria in disarray. More than anything else, his plot to destroy the reputation of the Nigerian Army by lending credence to a rumour is visible, hence Odumakin admits that the Army’s free medical programmes is not strange to the people. And so, by any stretch of imagination, Buratai’s Army, as he puts it, could not have launched it because it was handed an agenda of depopulating some regions as he claimed.

    And he was right in the sense that the Nigerian Army under General Buratai had undertaken these CSR projects as far back as 2015 when he assumed office as the COAS. No one raised eyebrows and the CSR projects have extended beyond Medicare to cover water, roads and electricity projects across Nigeria.

    These are facts on the fingertips of every Nigerian, Odumakin inclusive. But bolstered by the desperation to deliver on the assignment of executing a selfish and ethnic political agenda, handed down to him by his pay masters, he dramatized the artificial panic scenarios created by the rumours, shamelessly in these comic words; “I saw a woman scaling a fence that even men will have difficulty climbing in order to get hold of her child.” But the writer failed to notify Nigerians further whether the panicked woman who scaled a fence sustained a broken rib or leg and which hospital admitted her.

    Somewhat petulant and resisting the aura of truth, as reflected in subsisting realities, Odumakin confessed he was motivated to drop his lines after watching General Buratai’s advertisement of his proposed “empowerment programme for internally displaced persons,” “on Channels TV on Saturday.” And his pedestrian reasoning for condemning the advert hinged on the inaccessibility of IDPs to television sets and so, “This advert is therefore not for them.”

    Yes, the advert is not for them! But he missed the point that the advert is meant for demonic souls like him and the other agents, experts and specialists in rumour peddling. It is meant to forestall concocted tales on the Nigerian Army to the effect that it has again sneaked into IDPs camps to dish out “poisoned items or cash,” to hapless victims of armed internal conflicts.

    I am the least surprised that Odumakin would remember the selfless and humanitarian services rendered to IDPs from time immemorial by the Nigerian Army. They treated the wounded in camps, offered them a share of their loaf of bread, and operated makeshift schools, where soldiers spared time out of their tight schedules to teach children of IDPs in camps.

    Then, Odumakin never questioned whether soldiers have become teachers or the loaves of bread were poisoned. But himself and the group/ organization he represents never perceived these humanitarian crisis as worthy of intervention by rendering assistance. When soldiers camped repentant insurgents; de-radicalized and de-militarized terrorists with a new orientation and absorbed them into the sane society, Odumakin and buddies never questioned whether soldiers have become psychologists.

    When soldiers pushed by the passion of humanity, stretched themselves to rescue trapped victims of kidnappers in the Niger Delta, free of charge, they were not queried for usurping the responsibilities of civil security. That’s the extent of hypocrisy in us, which is actively and relentlessly promoted by the likes of Odumakin.

    So, he was indiscernibly piqued with General Buratai’s appearance on BBC “Hard Talk” programme; forgetting in his peevish idiosyncrasies that aside being the COAS, General Buratai doubles as the leader of the Counter-Insurgency Operations in Nigeria. Consequently, he owes eager Nigerians a sacred obligation to once in a while explain the progress, challenges and developments concerning the counter-insurgency operations in the country.

    If America’s Secretary of States, Mr. Rex Tillerson admits that fighting insurgency across the globe is beyond the sound of weapons on the battlefield alone, as propaganda is also key, I cannot understand Odumakin’s failure to decode the dynamics.

    But to embellish clannish and selfish sentiments to appear as a patriotic national cause, the writer cleverly encased it in political ambitions of the military/Army, with stale historical allusions. I cannot buy the idea that yesterday’s coup history, would dictate today’s signals for a coup just because the Army has decided to be selfless and humane to the people they serve or use the media as a counter-terrorism strategy. Coups generally are unfashionable in any part of the world, as democracy has triumphed defiantly even in Nigeria.

    The Nigerian Army, particularly under the watch of General Buratai has not only consistently pledged subordination to civil authority and defended Nigeria’s democracy, but soldiers have been re-oriented, re-professionalized and disciplined. It explains why the Nigerian Army especially has excelled in all its assignments, observing the best practices of professionalism, upholding human rights and sticking religiously to rules of engagements in all assignments.

    The Nigerian Army’s current leadership’s aversion to coups is not in doubt. Some elements in the country, which Odumakin strikes as one believes everything in Nigeria, must be tied to politics and the feeling becomes more overt when they fail to clinch appointments in patronage. These were the same forces which wanted a military coup in Nigeria and sprouted a rumour to this effect.

    They allegedly had their names penned down for juicy appointments, as PR Managers and so on, before the Army leadership by Gen. Buratai thwarted this obnoxious plan by issuing a rebuttal statement and placed soldiers on secret surveillance. And still pained by this frustration, they think, extracting their pound of flesh against the Army Chief is to haul any balderdash at him or the Army, whether real or imagined. It cannot work!

    The Nigerian Army is adamantly professionalized, as attested by the global encomiums poured on them. It is not a fluke, but a product of careful assessments by independent international bodies and governments.

    I agree that accusations can surface from time to time. It’s normal and no one has the capacity to restrain anybody from cooking allegations against the Army. But several probe panels and independent civil society organizations have proven such accusations as a farce and vindicated the Nigerian Army. The ongoing Presidential Probe Panel is almost left with no job to do, as the accusers of the Nigerian Army of crimes against humanity are refusing to step out to substantiate their claims. Amnesty International (AI), a leading crusader in this direction has declined appearance too.

    I believe, Odumakin is less informed or deliberately malicious for personal reasons. We have seen situations where the Army bent backwards to accept unprovoked armed attacks on them, without reprisal reactions, as recently recorded in Abia state in the build-up to the commencement of the “Operation Python Dance II.”

    My candid advice to Odumakin and coy is that they are free to hate the Buhari Presidency to any length. But he has no liberty to extend to the limits of attempting to discredit the Nigerian Army, with infantile speculations. He lives on politicians and thinks everyone in government should invite him for lunch. But today, there is a new order in Nigeria and he must discard the old mentality to be at peace with his soul.

    In recent times, the likes of Yinka Odumakin have demonstrated a penchant for selective interpretations of our laws and its applications as it suit their debased thoughts to push illegitimate gains. We shall therefore not allow him to dance naked on the graves of our founding fathers by allowing these tissues of falsehood to settle down anywhere near sane minds.

    No amount of blackmail can intimidate the Nigerian Army and its leadership under General Buratai from protecting and defending the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Odumakins can again mask to try a new style another day; but the one of today under activism is sinister. It has become stale and useless.
    Odeh is a public affairs analyst and contributed this piece from No19 Anthony Enahoro Street, Utako, Abuja.

  • Judicial activism in Africa

    The expression “judicial activism” is from contemporary American politics where legal interpretation of its constitution can have ramifying and fundamental impact on its society and politics. For example after years of segregation, the American Supreme Court in a landmark decision came out with the judgement that there cannot be separate and equal education as it concerns black and white schools maintained at public expense. It was this kind of decision that forced public schools to desegregate. Although during the colonial phase of Nigerian history, there was a colour bar in hospitals and housing as well as salaries, this remained largely legally unchallenged. There were European/white hospitals and blacks as recent as the 1950s could not lodge in Broad Street Hotel in Lagos and Hill Station Hotel in Jos. There were different salaries for African and European workers doing the same thing. The various GRA (Government Reserved Areas) where only whites lived, ostensibly to shield them from African diseases, ensured physical separation of races. In Kenya, the Congo, central and Southern Africa where there were white settlers, separation or apartheid was the practice.  This was also the case in Algeria where close to three million French men had settled. There is no legal record  saying this  separation even though unacceptable, was challenged systematically until the 1950s when  the wind of change was gathering pace and becoming an hurricane as remarked by Sir Harold Macmillan a British Prime Minister of the time.

    The point I am making is that political change took place as a result of direct action or what Kwame Nkrumah called “positive action”, by nationalists either through political protests and or armed pressure. In other words, one can say that the idea of judicial activism is alien to African colonial history and even to contemporary politics until recently.

    The recent decision to annul and invalidate the presidential election in Kenya won by President Uhuru Kenyatta has drawn attention to the role of the judiciary in Africa. It should be recalled that this is the second time Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga are squaring against each other politically. In 2013 Kenyatta won a highly and hotly contested election which eventually eventuated into violence when Odinga rejected the result. There is no difference ideologically between the two of them. The National Super Alliance (NASA) led by  Raila Odinga and the Jubilee Party, a reincarnation of the old Kenya National African Union (KANU) led by Uhuru  Kenyatta are  centrist parties politically speaking. Their difference like in most African countries is rooted in ethnic difference between Odinga, a Luo and Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. These are the two major ethnic groups in the country. Uhuru is the son of the founding President of Kenya, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta who along with Raila’s father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, formed the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and Raila’s father was made the Vice President. They eventually fell out because after some years, Oginga Odinga also wanted to be president. Kenya to begin with would never have been independent but for the rebellion of the Kikuyu who bore the burden of British settlerism following the expropriation of their land for British settlers in the 1920s after the First World. The Mau Mau ((Kenya Land and Freedom army or KFLA 1952 -1960) uprising forced the British to realize that Kenya was not going to be a settler colony. Without the moderating hand of Jomo Kenyatta, an anthropologist and author of a scholarly book, “Facing Mount Kenya” there would have been more bloodshed in Kenya before the British finally conceded independence to Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta.  Jomo Kenyatta was President from 1964 to 1978 when he died. He was succeeded by Daniel Arap Moi a member of a small Kalenjin tribe who was Jomo Kenyatta’s Vice President and he remained in power till 2013. He was succeeded by a Kikuyu Mwai Kibaki who remained in power till 2013 and again replaced by another Kikuyu the younger Kenyatta in 2013. In all this musical political chairs, the Luo the second largest ethnic group has always been worsted in the contest for power. Any unnecessarily ambitious Luo during the time of Kenyatta and after was not tolerated and for example the ambitious, affable and handsome young minister, Tom Mboya a Luo was mysteriously assassinated on July 5, 1969 within the first few years of independence and this sent a warning to anyone who might raise his hand against the dominant force of the ethnic status quo.

    This is the background against which to see the current struggle for power in Kenya between the Kikuyu and the Luo. Politics in Africa is a matter of numbers and the Kikuyus have the numbers. When in August, the 72-year old Raila Odinga lost to 62-year old Uhuru Kenyatta in a presidential election judged by international observers coming from the West, the Commonwealth and African Union, it was felt Kenya had overcome its monster of disputed elections. But Odinga protested the outcome and rather than asking his supporters to go on the streets, he went to the Supreme Court to challenge the validity of the election process.  Surprisingly, the court in a split decision along ethnic lines invalidated the election and called for another election within 60 days.

    This outcome has been welcomed by the opposition. The president accepted the judgement but deprecated it. He even called members of the judiciary “crooks” who had been bought over by “Jews and homosexuals”. This is really an unfortunate development. Raila Odinga while welcoming the judgement called unrealistically for the dismissal of the Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The cancelled election cost Kenya $500 million. This is a lot of money in a poor country. The logistics of holding another election in 60 days involving printing of new ballot papers remain daunting. It is therefore almost axiomatic that the result of a new election may not be different from the old one.

    The question to ask is whether the judicial decision has been worth it and whether it has met the yardstick of legal wisdom and sagacity in view of the fact that the decision was based not on grounds of actual rigging and intent of rigging but on the grounds of lack of compliance with transmission of results electronically from wards to collating centre. It will be a tragedy if the re-run were to terminate in violence costing thousands of lives as it was in 2013.

    Some commentators have commended the judicial decision in Kenya and asked other African courts to learn from it. What happened in Kenya is not new to us in Nigeria. Results of elections have been changed at local, gubernatorial, House of Representative and senatorial levels but not at the presidential levels.  In the United States, Al Gore went to court to dispute the narrow win of George Bush in 2000 presidential election after the political shenanigans in Florida where Bush’s younger brother was governor but in the interest of the country and democracy, he withdrew the challenge so that the USA was not plunged into a constitutional crisis.

    In 1999 in a similar situation and to hasten the departure of the military from power, Chief Olu Falae withdrew his case in the Supreme Court challenging Olusegun Obasanjo’s election. In 2003, 2007 and 2011, President Muhammadu Buhari challenged unsuccessfully the elections of his opponents. Even if there were grounds for annulling the elections of his opponents, the Supreme Court upheld the outcome of the elections. These decisions were the right and sagacious decisions if only to save our country from political uncertainty and violence.

    Legal purists may dispute the wisdom of political imperative in judicial decisions at the highest level of a country but the overall interest of the country must always prevail. This is not a call for electoral brigandage and deliberate crime but when as in the case of Kenya, no such grounds were established, it would have been prudent for the judiciary to make haste slowly. This is particularly the case in African countries where there is evidence of corruption in many courts including the highest courts as it is the case in our country as can be seen in recent exposures of corruption in Nigerian courts.

  • El-Rufai needs politics, not activism

    El-Rufai needs politics, not activism

    Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State has deliberately and complacently, if not self-righteously, marched briskly into another controversy. The politician and technocrat seems built for controversy than for anything else. This time he has got himself embroiled in a religious dispute over whether the state can legislate religious practice, particularly by licensing preaching. He has therefore forwarded an executive bill to the state legislature setting out among other guidelines how preachers may be licensed and the conditions under which they can preach. The bill is expected to replace a military edict on the same subject promulgated in 1984. But confronted by a horde of anti-regulation sceptics, the governor has simply shrugged his shoulders and soldiered on. The bill is not new anyway, he says, because it had existed under a different guise under a past military government.

    The motive for generating the bill is sound. Kaduna State has a reputation for religious volatility, a disturbing reputation forged more than three decades ago and sustained by episodic bloodletting on a scale rivalled only by the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency. If the state ever witnessed ethnic disturbances, it was only because it had first manifested as religious schisms perpetrated through Nigeria’s ethnic fault lines. And if there is some peace and quietude at the moment, it is simply to the extent that the volcano has not reached its eruption temperature. Indigenes of Kaduna have learnt to live with the fear of indiscriminate flare-ups, even as they have gradually and quietly resigned themselves to segregated living. So, it is not out of place for the crusading Mallam el-Rufai to attempt what he sees through his often utopian prism as a permanent solution.

    The bill, now more widely referred to as Gov. el-Rufai’s preaching bill, pitches constitutionalists against peaceniks, with the latter, because of their distaste for armed conflict, seeing nothing wrong in enforcing controls on religious groups in the state. No one can accurately determine at the moment which group is gaining the upper hand, the peaceniks or constitutionalists. And it is not clear whether even among the state’s or country’s religions the bill is popular. On the surface, however, some argue, the bill appears to target extremist Muslim preachers. But underneath, warn some Christian leaders, the bill targets and stymies the evangelical underpinnings of Jesus Christ’s mandate to his followers. For many constitutionalists, the bill is so fraught with problems that it is virtually dead on arrival. According to them, the bill stands on very shaky constitutional grounds, though no one can guess how the state’s lawmakers view the bill: whether with wary eyes, or with indifference, or with approving glances. To say the bill is controversial is, therefore, an understatement.

    What is certain is that while Gov. el-Rufai has modified the 1984 military-inspired edict on the same subject, he has not appeared to examine why it failed and was abandoned. Mechanically speaking, both Christianity and Islam have been accommodated in the preaching bill in terms of ensuring representation, not necessarily fairness, in licensing preachers. However, no matter how well they are structured and sensibly constituted, the registration panels, which shut out other religions but the largest two, may find some difficulties in capturing, acknowledging and sanctioning the various doctrinal differences acceptable to the state. Indeed, left to the Christian panel , for instance, it is hard to see them in the 15th or 16th century approving Martin Luther’s radical and reformist ministry had he applied for a licence. More, had Jesus Christ lived in Mallam el-Rufai’s Kaduna, not only would he spurn the licensing requirement, his application would most certainly be turned down if he sought one.

    There are incontestable moral grounds for the bill. As many other countries battling terrorism have shown, it may indeed be reckless to pretend that some regulations are not necessary to put a lid on extremism. They are. The problem is how it should be done, and whether they should even come as laws which stand the risk of conflicting with the constitution. The many bitter religious cum ethnic battles Kaduna State has fought — perhaps more than any other state — may offer sound pretext for regulation. For a state that appears eternally poised on the edge of religious conflagration, the governor may indeed be right and sensible to look and think proactively in anticipating religious conflicts and proffering solutions to either pre-empt or respond to them firmly.

    However, it is doubtful whether the solution lies in more regulation or lawmaking. The 1984 edict fell into abeyance for reasons the governor should not find too difficult to fathom. Chief among the reasons is that anywhere in the world, it is extremely difficult to regulate religion outside the laws and the constitution, especially in a democracy with a liberal constitution. Even in authoritarian climes, the regulation of religions eventually collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. Should the Kaduna State House of Assembly pass the preaching bill, there is little doubt that enforcement, insensitively and unwisely conferred on Sharia and Customary courts, would be so controversial and problematic that it would be challenged successfully in higher courts. There is also little doubt that once enforcement appears skewed, that itself would raise an avalanche of complaints and allegations of bias against the governor, his team and the enforcers. The preaching bill, notwithstanding the laudable task it hopes to undertake, is really a needless piece of legislation whose drawbacks cannot be mitigated by the governor’s boldness or altruism.

    What is even worse is that the governor himself lacks the tact to sell the bill. Whether during his service at the federal level as Minister of the Federal Capital City (FCT) or as governor, Mallam el-Rufai has not been able to transcend his messianic disposition. He speaks combatively with a disturbing cocksureness that grates on the nerves of those who disagree with him. Very often his cost-benefit analyses are skewed in favour of the benefit side, and his manner of implementation peremptory and unfeeling. He regards himself a technocrat, and the country agrees with him. But he is now a politician who must manage his technocratic ways with the suavity of a principled politician. Mallam el-Rufai has not been able to do this. In fact, for a governor who adjudged the Shiites guilty of crime even before investigations had been carried out into the December 2015 Zaria clash between the Nigerian Army and some members of the Islamic Movement, it is difficult to imagine he can be trusted to show strict as opposed to benevolent neutrality when religions clash, or when those who oppose his rules and regulations test the might of the state.

    So far, whether on the matter of this preaching bill or the bulldozing of properties, or that of relating with his critics such as Senator Shehu Sani, Mallam el-Rufai has neither spoken nor acted as a politician or a democrat. Reacting to those who opposed the preaching bill, he had said: “But what I found out is that the elite have one weapon, and that is religion, and it is sad. But, unfortunately for them, they have not studied me. If anyone had studied my career at FCT, he would have known that playing religious card would fail all the time, because the moment you play that card, I know you are an adversary that needs to be put down and I will not look back until I am done with you.” Yet, he rode on the wings of the change momentum during the 2015 elections and won, partly because of the popular disenchantment with the Goodluck Jonathan government. He will be sailing near the wind to think he has secured the right to talk down to the people and force laws on them before he has been able to persuade them.

    Some of his bills, including the preaching bill, may be sensible in a few parts, and the motives pure, but he needs the wisdom of a sage and the patience of a true liberal and tested politician to govern a complex and eternally agitated state like Kaduna. He should go on to cap these attributes, should he prove capable of acquiring them, with the verbal forbearance of many of his northern role models. Given his general proclivity and the abrasive manner he ran the FCT with the connivance of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, he will need extraordinary and herculean effort to reclaim himself from his former set ways. That prospect is sadly a little far-fetched.

    Rather than initiate bills seeking to regulate contentious religious matters, the governor should explore other means of managing religious disagreements and containing extremism in the state. The 1984 edict did not work under the military; there is no reason to think an improved law based on that edict will work now or in the near future. Mallam el-Rufai has done little to persuade the state of the necessity for and relevance of the preaching bill; his reputation as a gadfly and his impetuousness stand in the way of sound and modernising politicking. He needs to change first before changing Kaduna. His task, as he acknowledges, is made doubly difficult by the prevailing economic crisis. He should, therefore, find no difficulty in understanding that the mood of the moment does not favour his flighty lawmaking adventures, nor does the edginess of the people condone the imperiousness of his messianic predilection. Since he has begun to recognise that managing FCT was a cakewalk compared with governing a state, he should be optimistic that that epiphany may yet help transform him into a more robust politician than the militician he had schooled himself to become since the Obasanjo presidency.

  • Limits of social media activism

    It a recent training for some student journalists in Lagos, award-winning journalist Tolu Ogunlesi wondered how journalism was practiced in the pre-internet period. His question was informed by the ease with which writers now source for information and share their thoughts through various digital platforms.

    I shared with him and the participants how journalists had to go to libraries to check old newspaper cuttings for background information, dictate stories word for word when analogue telephones failed to go through and be at the mercy of few local prints and broadcast organisations.

    Thanks to technology, communication is now done with much ease with various platforms available to share information at a click to a global audience.

    Unfortunately, the unrestrained freedom to communicate is being abused with some ‘citizen journalists’ sharing false information and sometimes indulging in baseless criticism.

    Much as there was genuine cause for concern over the section of the proposed bill on electronic fraud that stipulated a seven-year jail term for who intentionally publishes slanderous messages about government electronically, it cannot be totally faulted based on what the electronic space has become.

    What it sought to punish before it was deleted following public outcry was “anyone who intentionally propagates false information that could threaten the security of the country or capable of inciting the general public against the government through electronic message shall be guilty of an offence.”

    I agree that the law could be misused by intolerant government officials, but a situation where some people under the cover of freedom of expression resort to misinforming the public through sharing of false information that can threaten the security and peace of the country is not tenable.

    The electronic platforms have become a haven for all manners of writers who have the least regard for the right of the person they are writing on to fair hearing. Unsubstantiated allegations against government officials and others are widely circulated with malicious intentions.

    While people should be free to hold the government accountable through alternative media like the online platforms, it should be done within the limits of the law and code of conduct for journalists.

    We don’t have to like government officials, but in the words of Charles Prestwich Scot, facts are supposed to be sacred and comments free.

    Social media writers can afford to rejoice over the deletion of the controversial section of the bill but they have to realise the need to exercise the freedom to publish with due sense of responsibility.

    For public officers who have been used to being reported by the traditional media only, they have to come to terms with the new reality of multiple options to beam the searchlight on their activities.

    More than ever before, government activities will come under intense scrutiny and appointees should be ready to speak up when necessary instead of getting unnecessarily agitated over some criticisms.

  • One year of judicial activism

    One year of judicial activism

    The first woman Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Aloma Mariam  Mukhtar is one year old in office today. In this report, Eric Ikhilae examines her efforts at restoring public confidence in the judiciary.

     

    The judiciary, many believe, sunk to its lowest following the face-off between former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Aloysius Katsina-Alu and suspended President of the Court of Appeal (PCA) Justice Ayo Isa Salami. At the root of the altercation were perceived corruption and unethical conduct in the judiciary.

    This explains the scepticism that greeted the assumption of office of Justice Dahiru Musdapher, who succeeded Justice Katsina-Alu as the CJN.

    To an extent, Justice Musdapher, in his short tenure, tried to cleanse the judiciary through some policies, the most prominent being the reform measures he suggested in his recommendations to the National Assembly on the aspects of the Constitution that should be reviewed to aid efficiency in justice delivery.

    Many were, however, unhappy when his tenure ended before the legislature could act on his recommendations. Most people had nursed the fear of a possible return to the era of a directionless, indolent and corruption-infested judiciary; knowing that continuity in public policies’ implementation is alien to public administration in the country.

    This has, however, not been the case since Justice Musdapher’s successor Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar mounted the saddle.

    Before assuming office, she acknowledged the rot in the system. When, she appeared before the senate for screening on July 11 last year, Justice Mukhtar admitted that the temple of justice had been desecrated by some elements. She was responding to questions from the senators on the state of the judiciary. She vowed to reverse the trend.

    “As at now, it is very bad and I am saddened by it. I will try. I don’t want to sound like a broken record. I will try to make sure that the confidence reposed in the Judiciary, as it was before, is returned. I will try to ensure that the bad eggs that are there are flushed out,” she said. Justice Mukhtar assured that “there will be a cleansing by the National Judicial Council (NJC) based on petitions. It is sad that the ordinary man on the street thinks and feels that he cannot get justice. This is because of the situation we find ourselves. I will ensure that this perception changes.” While she was making pledges before the Legislature, those who knew her, were quick to describe her as “a no-nonsense woman, who is firm and lives by her words.”

    A year into her tenure (having assumed office on July 16, 2012) things seem to be looking up in the judiciary. Justice Mukhtar appears to be matching her words with actions. Discipline seems to be finding its way back to the system.

    This no doubt could be attributed to her three-pronged approach to sanitising the judiciary, which seems to be gaining ground. The first is her resolve to ensure prompt treatment, by the National Judicial Council (NJC), of petitions against judicial officers.

    The second is the yearly NJC’s Nigeria’s Judicial Performance Evaluation Report (NJPER) while the third is the newly introduced practice direction for all courts. The practice direction is specifically intended to fast-track trials of offences involving terrorism, rape, kidnapping, corruption, money laundering, human trafficking and related cases.

    What was almost becoming a taboo in the judiciary happened in quick succession on her assumption of office. Petitions against judges wer,e before now, left to rot with the NJC.

    Justice Mukhtar said on May 13, this year in Lagos, at a two-day workshop organised by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Action Group, with the theme: “The rule of law- the bedrock for sustainable democracy,” that she inherited 139 petitions.

    Within few weeks they were treated and 106 were considered vexatious or baseless, with only 33 considered worthy of attention.

    She added that 198 fresh petitions have been filed since she got into office. They have equally been treated, with 150 found to be frivolous, 15 are awaiting responses from judges while 21 were slated for consideration.

    On November 5, 2012, Justice Mukhtar decided to defer the swearing-in of Justice Ifeoma Jombo-Ofor elevated with other 11 justices to the Court of Appeal, on the ground that a petition was pending against her, with allegations that Justice Jombo-Ofor had laid claim to two states of origin in her career.

    Despite the public outcry that greeted her decision, Justice Mukhtar insisted on due process of law, pointing to the provision of Paragraph 2 of Part II of the Federal Character Commission (Establishment) Act Subsidiary Legislation, which states that “a married woman shall continue to lay claim to her state of origin for the purpose of implementation of the Federal Character Formulae at the national level.”

    The NJC, under her leadership, eventually ensured that Justice Jombo-Ofor got sworn-in as a Court of Appeal Justice on the slot of Anambra State rather than her husband’s state – Abia.

    The NJC, under her, took a bold step when on February 28, this year, it recommended the compulsory retirement of Justice Charles Archibong of the Federal High Court and Justice Thomas .D. Naron of the High Court of Justice, Plateau State.

    The council also set up a ‘fact-finding’ committee to investigate the allegations against Justice Abubakar Talba of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in respect of the Police Pension case involving John Yakubu Yusuf.

    On April 26, this year, upon receiving the report of the fact-finding committee, the NJC suspended Justice Talba from office for 12 months without pay, sequel to the council’s findings that he did not exercise his discretion judicially and judiciously with regard to the sentences he passed on Yusuf, who was convicted for stealing N1.3 billion meant for the payment of pension and gratuities of retired policemen.

    Also, the NJC, after treating petitions against Justice Okechukwu Okeke of the Federal High Court, Lagos, issued a serious warning, before he retired from service on May 18, 2013.

    Many petitions are still being considered, among which is that involving the former Chief Judge of the FCT, Justice Lawal Gummi.

    The cleaning effort is not limited to judicial officers.

    With the hindsight of experience, Justice Mukhtar knows the havoc some of the supporting staff are capable of causing in the justice delivery system.

    This, she noted, at a workshop held on June 17 in Abuja by the National Judicial Institute (NJI) for librarians working in the judiciary.

    At the event, the CJN expressed her determination to extend the ongoing sanitisation in the judiciary to support staff.

    “Let me quickly add that the fight against corruption in the judiciary is not only targeted at judicial officers, but also against any member of staff of the judiciary who finds luxury or convenience in engaging in corrupt practices or in any other unwholesome conduct.

    “It is a notorious fact that this category of workers has in the past caused leakages of judgments written by judges, which were yet to be delivered. Litigants’ applications are at times not filed in their case files thereby denying the judges from acting on them.

    “Some of them midwife between the litigants and the judges in the sale of judgment, or provide information to litigants on how some judges can be approached to compromise his or her judgment. All these they do for fee at the expense of judiciary integrity and image,” the CJN said.

    True to her words, a few days later, the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) announced the dismissal of five support staff of Supreme Court workers and one from the Court of Appeal of Abuja division. They were found to have leaked the judgment in the case of Senator Alphonsus Igbeke vs Lady Margery Okadigbo before it was delivered on May 31, 2013.

    The FJSC did not stop at that, it also requested the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to further investigate and possibly prosecute Igbeke and one Collins Okechukwu for allegedly aiding and abetting the leakage.

    There have been many cases of leaked judgments in the apex court and even in the lower courts before now, but the dismissal was the first time such incidence would be investigated with the culprits apprehended and punished.

    This development, no doubt, will serve as a deterrence to this category of workers.

    To combat indolence among judges, the CJN has also devised a means of monitoring their performance. This, she said, was in conformity with the civil service rule, in which any worker who is rated poor or unproductive on performance evaluation could be asked to give way for good hands to take his or her place.

    She said the need to monitor judges’ performance stemmed from complaints, by stakeholders, particularly the NBA about the attitudes of judges to work in recent time.

    “Many will leave their work and travel for days abroad. This is why I insisted they must obtain approval before traveling abroad. Until this directive, I never thought things were all that bad, because some of the judges will be seeking for permission to travel abroad while the courts are in session, despite the six weeks holiday they are entitled to in a year.

    “These are part of the reasons the NJC undertakes performance evaluation from time to time, both at the trial and appellate courts, to determine productivity of the judges and their courts in the states and the Federal Capital Territory.”

    The CJN spoke on May 17 , while receiving analysed copies of NJC’s “Nigeria’s Judicial Performance Report (2008-2011)” submitted by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS).

    She said the report would aid planning and easy decision making by the NJC.

    The CJN said it was absurd to observe that some judges couldn’t even deliver up to two judgments in a quarter.

    ‘’We are now thinking of looking at the performance evaluation of the judges for the purpose of discipline. If a judge cannot deliver three to four judgments in a year, there is no use keeping him on the bench other than to be shown his or her way out’’.

    Under this scheme, the NJC sends out its monitoring team to all the superior courts – Court of Appeal, Federal and state High Courts, National Industrial Court, Customary and the Sharia Courts of Appeal – which engages in periodic collation of data on the numbers of cases – civil, criminal and motions – assigned to each court. The team also gathers data on the number of these cases disposed off and those pending at the end of each quarter.

    The same NJC’s committee on performance evaluation maintains a data bank which also contain information on the performance of individual judicial officer.

    The report generated by the monitoring team shows, among others, the manner in which the cases were disposed off; whether they were cases decided on the merit or they were struck out as non-contested cases. Judges are rated based on the cases disposed on merit.

    By this arrangement, judges would be more apt to effectively and expeditiously prosecute cases in their courts in order to register a minimum of four judgment in a year.

    Another means devised by the CJN, directed against undue delay in justice administration, is the introduction of new practice direction for courts.

    Already, the CJN is working with Chief Judges of states’ High Courts, the Abuja High Court, the Federal High Court and presiding Justices of the various divisions of the Court of Appeal, to put in place an efficient system that will eliminate delays in criminal trials.

    The intention is to produce a model practice direction for all courts to fast-track trials of offences involving terrorism, rape, kidnapping, corruption, money laundering, human trafficking and related matters.

    In what may yet turn out to be her biggest achievement, Justice Mukhtar also hopes to extended the practice direction to the Supreme Court.

    This is to ensure that while the Judiciary awaits the Legislature to effect the necessary constitutional amendment, it should, in the mean time, put in place administrative measures to achieve the much needed judicial reform for quick dispensation of justice.

    Observers are of the view that much as the CJN should be commended for her efforts at ensuring a corruption free and efficient judicial system was in place, she must understand the need carry all stakeholders along.

    This, they said, requires that she takes steps to ensure that other stakeholders buy into her objectives and plans, with a view to ensuring that the changes being introduced become a culture when she vacates office.

    “We should not see all this as her own alone. Everyone, who desires a judicial system that we will all be proud of; a system that will dispense justice without being influenced; a system that will always be unbiased, we must all buy into this woman’s reform ideas, a lawyer, Christopher Nnamdi said.

    Others also suggested that the reform efforts should include capacity building for judicial officers and their support staff; deployment of modern work tools, particularly information and communication technology (ICT); review of the appointment process for judges to allow more openness and public participation.

    There is also the argument that an enhanced funding for the sector would also be of immense benefit.

    The ultimate wish of all however, is the realisation of a judicial system that serves to dispense justice no matter whose interest is at stake; a system that is blind to external manipulations and serves the good of all irrespective of who is on the saddle.