Some court adjudications, the last bastion of social hope for the average citizen, are so right on the mark that one can shriek with delight and exclaim like Shakespeare’s Shylock that indeed, a Daniel has come to judgment! On another hand, some are so incredible they can make one hiss and spit in disgust and exclaim that indeed, the law is such an ass! On a third hand, there are some judgements that are so bizarre they leave everyone’s mouth agape for the first five minutes. Then, the words start rolling out in gabbles as people go ‘gabble, gabble, judgement, gabble, bizarre gabble, gabble …’ The whole world, err, country is gabbling right now about the judgement of some seven hundred thousand Naira handed down against someone alleged to have pilfered over twenty billion Naira. It has me fair whistling now, and I tell you, I don’t whistle easily; I do it through the nose. That is also how I speak English.
Now, if we remember anything about Shylock, it is the fact that the man was difficult to please. First, he drew a contract so tight that literally required that his debtor would not be able to wriggle out of it without shedding some of his precious blood. Next, he wound his daughter up in a domestic wreath so carefully woven with starvation that the poor girl could not legally get out of it without resorting to elopement. And that was what she did, with his lucre and diamonds. And that had him crying for his daughter and, yes, his lucre too. In the midst of his woes, he remembered a very comforting thought: the contract he had drawn up would at least give him the much needed respite of being able to obtain a pint of blood or two, just for the satisfaction of seeing someone shed some blood. The judge said yes, he was entitled, and so he enthused ‘… A Daniel come to judgement!’ Why am I giving you this long story in its entire height and breadth? I honestly don’t know except perhaps to give you the background of how Daniel, the biblical prophet, came to be associated with Judge Advocacy Duties (JAD).
Good judgements are getting increasingly rare in Nigeria, perhaps because good judges are getting increasingly rare. Good judges are getting increasingly rare because, let’s face it, there aren’t many Daniels around anymore. (Don’t get me wrong; there are many people called Daniel but obviously, they are not necessarily judges.) So, good people are getting increasingly rare in Nigeria. Just to buttress that last point, I heard the other day that a couple in this country employed a supposed house girl; only to find the next day that their house had been swept clean of both goods and girl while they were at work. In English, this means that the girl disappeared with all their worldly goods before the good people came back from work the next day. What dangerous times we live in.
And how’s this for a horror story? Someone recounted how the commercial vehicle he travelled in was waylaid on a Nigerian highway by the Nigerian highwaymen who demanded everything everyone had. After the robbers left, everyone was relieved to find that the only things they lost were material things, all that is, except one person who had cleverly quipped to the highway men that all fingers were not equal, that was why he could not give more than he did. They then made his fingers equal with their cutlass. I tell you, things are so bad in the country now you do not go around testing your wit against anybody’s anyhow. Now, where was I?
Ok, like I said, everyone is gabbling about that judgement. People are wondering how on earth anyone can be said to embezzle something in the region of twenty billion Naira, and the court hands down a judgement that finds him guilty but awards only seven hundred and something thousand naira against him? That judgement stinks. It is laughable. It will encourage us all to steal and damn the consequences. That’s as good as throwing the judiciary into the dustbin of history like a discarded appendix.
To start with, it has us all wondering what the role of the judiciary is in this world. I had always thought the judiciary was supposed to serve the purpose of arbitrating between two contending sides such as my dog and I. If I fulfil my contract of feeding, sheltering and clothing it (I brush his coat, don’t I?), then he should please bark to assure me he can guard the house. Now, when, rather than bark, he prefers to lick visitors’ feet, I have the right to call in the courts, don’t I?
The judiciary should mediate between ‘We the People’ and anyone who decides he/she wants to go buy Italian villas adorned with swimming pools with the hard earned money of pensioners. We should expect the judiciary to hang such people for us by going after him/her, guns blazing and daggers drawn, on the side of The People against the corroding insect.
But that’s just silly us talking. We must have thought we were in this normal country where everything runs as it should. Instead, we find ourselves in another country where the abnormal is not only common place but quite the norm because ‘friend, this is Nigeria’. Come, it is only in Nigeria that one can loot any number of billions and all you get is a tweak of your nose and a playful twist of your earlobe by the equally playful court. It is only in Nigeria that a major airport can be put in total darkness on the orders of a minion while his superiors are literally in the dark about it all. And all we do about these things is grumble silently.
Really, I don’t begin to know the role of the judiciary any more, given their antecedents. Together with the police and the press, the judiciary is supposed to work for the progress and good of the society by punishing the bad and rewarding the good. Now, all that the judgement has done is show that the judiciary is crumbling. So, should these courts continue to adjudicate for us or should we look for another?
Perhaps, we should look out for some wise men in our midst and set them up with all the paraphernalia of office without the wig, for I am beginning to suspect that wig. Just look at the colour. Ugh! That’s right, let us look for some hard-nosed, white-haired wise men who would come to judgements with only one thing on their mind: the good of the society. Forget your school-trained judges: they seem to be more preoccupied with wanting to be like the politicians – interested only in filling their offshore accounts that cannot be traced and which they will never spend. Believe me, I know; there are too many examples of Nigerians who did not spend theirs. Forget the law also: it is an ass anyway.
Look, I believe that people are really not interested in the law being an ass any longer in Nigeria. The sanctity of the law is the progress and sanity of the society. I therefore recommend that the country should reject that judgement and ask that it be reviewed. It is too bizarre to believe. Indeed, one should not even let it stay in the records because someday, if the Martians succeed in colonising the earth and they come across that judgement, it will give a very bad image of the country and leave a sour taste in their mouths, if they have any.
