Sooner or later, the Bola Tinubu administration will have to focus on state courts, far beyond the laudable feats of raising the pay of judicial officers and driving the financial autonomy of the judiciary. The reason is simple: at the states level, judges and magistrates are overweeningly beholden to governors and senior state officials. Many of the judges lack any sense of independence and judicial rectitude. Judgements from state courts in Rivers (Governor Siminalayi Fubara V. Nyesom Wike), in Kogi (In the heady days of the pretentious Yahaya Bello), and in Kano (The battle of the emirs) have been troubling and depressing. There are of course many other examples elsewhere in the states, examples designed to stymie justice and fair play, but in recent months and years, the Kano, Kogi and especially Rivers examples of far-fetched legal interpretations or outright perversion of justice take the biscuit.
Reforms are desperately needed to curb the malady. Nigeria’s various judicial regulatory authorities, including the National Judicial Council, Federal Judicial Service Commission, and State Judicial Service Commission, have only made a partial dent on keeping judicial appointees on the straight and narrow path. In addition, neither the Nigerian Bar Association nor the Body of Benchers has been able to aid the effort to make judicial officers models of rectitude. There is plenty of work to be done, not only in sanitising the judiciary and raising its competence level; there is also quite a lot to be done to get state judicial administrators, working by themselves or in league with state executives, to institute fairness in the administration of justice. In fact, and sadly, many state judiciaries have managed disreputably to suffuse their operations with ethnic and religious colourations.
In the months Mr Bello of Kogi State played hide-and-seek with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when they sought him, one or two state courts startled everyone with their ill-considered judgements. In Kano, the courts are stalling and playing ducks and drakes with its emirs’ stability and composure. And in Rivers, the courts forsook reason, abandoned their independence, and are playing the harlot with the executive branch. They cannot be trusted to self-regulate, regardless of what the law says. They are too far gone in their excesses and harlotry. The Tinubu administration cannot pretend that these dire problems do not exist, and he can also not attempt to dive into the quagmire and directly reform and recalibrate the judiciary. Yet, it has a duty not to leave the judiciary as it met it. Everyone knows that the third arm of government is in trouble, and is also troubling Nigerian democracy. The administration must, therefore, first empanel a group of legal experts to study the problem and get to the root of the crisis before proposing lasting remedies. Yes, Nigerians have a fair idea of what is wrong, but the panel should be able to dig deeper. Secondly, the administration should thereafter sponsor legislation, not too dissimilar to the new tax reform bills, to tackle the rot. Here it will need the help of retired but incorruptible jurists who have tracked the decay and decline in the judiciary for years, if not for decades.
Read Also: $52.88m recovered loot: U.S envoy lauds Nigeria’s doggedness
The Tinubu administration cannot afford to leave the judiciary as it is, abandoning the third arm of government to appointees who lack the intellect and character needed to preserve, promote and strengthen the judicial arm. Nigerians sneer at the tainted process of appointing judicial officers, which are sometimes carried out in flagrant disregard of competence, and sometimes to promote ethnic and religious agenda. Nigerians are exhausted with the operations of their courts, and they need to be succoured, not palliated with cosmetic changes. The National Assembly could attempt a fundamental remake of the judiciary through novel lawmaking, but lawmakers are either too distracted to pay attention to the problem or too tainted themselves to exercise both the gumption and character needed for a comprehensive overhaul. Much more, the legislature does not have the kind of courage President Tinubu summoned to back the tax reform bills to the hilt. The lawmakers seem prone to wilt in the face of the most perfunctory and tepid of challenges. That leaves only the executive branch, assuming President Tinubu can be encouraged to turn his attention to an arm of government certain to doom Nigerian democracy if it is left to its own devices.
It would be a relief if the president can be persuaded to turn his gaze upon the judiciary. Would it be certain that whatever reforms he proposed could do the job of repositioning the third arm of government? No one can tell with certainty. Hopefully, he will get it right, as he has done with the tax bills, and indeed with so many of his other policies, despite initial misgivings and hiccups. The operation of the rule of law upon which investment in any country is hinged depends on the justice system. But Nigeria has only a form of justice system; it is sadly crippled by incompetent and cowardly judicial officers. Their problem is, however, not a lack of brilliance; the problem is that in the Nigerian judiciary, often competent and courageous judges are endangered species weeded out by perverse forms of natural selection. Hopefully, the reforms, if and when they come, will repair the breaches.
