This tale of judicial pillow-talk in a country in crisis is the symptom that announces the disease, the theme of the present conversation. It is important to underscore the point that the constitutional guarantee of fair hearing, which underpins the judicial enterprise, assumes a judiciary that is competent, fair, impartial and willing to stand up for its independence and integrity. This guarantee, as the Supreme Court made clear in the case of Ariori v. Elemo, cannot be waived by individual litigants or expropriated by the state. The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations has also made it clear in Lubuto v. Zambia that a state cannot plead poverty to excuse itself from the obligations of maintaining a functional and credible judiciary. These principles assume, however, that the state is the actor. Increasingly, it is possible for the state to outsource the role of frustrating the guarantee of fair trial to actors who can be at once non-state and also embedded in the state.

A Profession in Crisis; A Country in Trouble
The crises of the legal-judicial systems and of the Nigerian condition are mutually inter-dependent. It is impossible to discuss Nigeria’s judicial system or understand what ails it outside an understanding of the wider context of what ails the country. In many ways, the former is a symptom of the latter.

Let me begin with a brief insight into the former. Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, in remarks credited to him at the awards dinner of the Nigerian Lawyers Association in New York on 20 November 2010, said that “today, many judges (in Nigeria) can be bought for two a penny.” Any assertion of judicial corruption is corrosive; to couple that with the clear suggestion of a Bench crooked because it is cheap is more than doubly so. But credible claims of judicial corruption go much farther back. In his paper, “Morality, Integrity and Ethics in the Practice of Law in Nigeria: Myth or Reality?”, to the 3rd SPA Ajibade & Co. Law Business Luncheon on 25 November 2010 in Lagos, Yemi Candide-Johnson, SAN, complained about the tyranny of the “urgency of (short term pecuniary) profit” at the Bar, lamented “the collapse of judicial integrity”,10 and rightly concluded that: “there is, therefore, considerable agreement amongst the leaders of our profession that the reputation of our law practice is low”,11 an “adverse characterization (that) does immense discredit to the superlative capacity of many hidden lights in this profession”.

On March7, 2011, the now rested NEXT Newspaper ran a story captioned: “Supreme Court Judges Took Bribes to Validate Yar’Adua/Jonathan Election”, citing leaked diplomatic cables filed by the former US Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Sanders, and crediting then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, as her source. Rising from its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Awka, Anambra State, in February 2011, the NBA acknowledged the “decay in the Judiciary” and “the hydra-headed problem of corruption that has bedeviled that arm of government in recent times.” Cover story of Newswatch Magazine of 21 February, was “Judiciary on Trial: Dubious Judgments Threaten 2011 Elections.” Twelve years later, it all sounds much worse than déjà vu all over again. Around the same time in 2011, by the way, the country was polarized by controversy over the Sokoto State governorship election petition and the resulting allegations of corruption traded between the two senior-most judicial figures in the country, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the President of the Court of Appeal are already well advertised. In the wake of that, the PCA was summarily relieved of his position. The then Chief Justice served out his term under a cloud. Of the four Chief Justices since then (excluding the current one), two have been relieved of their positions under tremendous cloud of impropriety and of incapacity by the judiciary to defend or assert its independence.

Since Nigeria returned to elective government in 1999, courts have increasingly become the sites of decision making on who gets to rule the country. This has become the norm since 2007.

As I have written elsewhere: Of 1,490 seats contested federally and in the states in 2019 (excluding the CT Area Council ballots), the courts decided 805 (54.02%). This is higher than just over 45% recorded in 2015 and 51% recorded in 2011, but lower than the high of 86.35% from the nadir of 2007. So, by 2019, Mahmood Yakubu’s INEC had bled all the confidence that Attahiru Jega, his predecessor, had built in the electoral process. In 2023, he shamelessly pulverised what was left of it. Already in 2023, it looks very much like the number of election petitions relative to contested offices is closer to what it was in 2007.What emerges from this brief excursion into the not-too-distant past is that Nigerian politics has descended into a farce facilitated by lawyers and judges.

Even at the most elite levels, perceptions about lawyers and judges are very unflattering. Lawyers and judges are perceived as lacking in values and character, cheap, and for sale. It is important to point out that the authors of these views are themselves senior insiders in the profession, thus it is not easy to dismiss them as uninformed or envious. But even if they were not insiders in the profession and senior ones at that, it would still be difficult to dismiss these if they came from court users who are not lawyers because those are the people who often have to be told to fork out the money with which the members of the legal profession will be bought.

The problem, of course, goes beyond a conspiracy of lawyers, judges, and politicians. The police are also a major part of this conspiracy. They are the oldest institution in Nigeria, the biggest employer of labour in the country and the one that define the impressions of the people about their government. Speaking about law enforcement, a 2010 report on the Nigeria Police Force summarized the situation as follows: officers commit summary executions, participate in large-scale killings, and undertake the mass burials of victims in shallow graves.

The NPF routinely relies on torture as its principal means of investigation and maintains designated chambers, instruments, and personnel for this purpose in most police stations. Rape and sexual violence against female detainees and suspects is not unusual, with police attempting to cause suffering, inflict punishment, or coerce compliance by subjugating the victims. Policing in Nigeria is also characterized by pervasive corruption, such as diverting police resources for personal protection or enrichment in a variety of police-for-hire arrangements; harassment and intimidation of victims; and the destruction of evidence, including the bodies of victims of extrajudicial executions. Officers routinely practice extortion on members of the public at roadblocks and on public highways.

To be continued tomorrow.