Ike Nnachi, Abakaliki
Professor Chidi Odinkalu has warned that the corruption and unethical practices in the Judiciary resulting in scandalous judgments present a clear and present security coexistence crisis for the country.
He stated this in an interview by SaharaTV, which was monitored by our Reporter.
He lamented that the three arms of government have in connivance with each other destroyed the integrity of the Judiciary.
He lamented a situation where the Leadership of the Judiciary and other arms of government appoint their family members and associates as judges without any complaints.
He further alleged that this is done in connivance with politicians from the Executive and Legislative arms of government who share the appointments among themselves.
He noted that politicians now appoint their wives, girlfriends and concubines as judges all in a bid to control the Judiciary.
According to him, “the implicit bargain that underwrote the respect for judges and respect for the judiciary has been destroyed.
“And that implicit bargain was that judges will uphold basic ethics of judicial decision making and that is why there’s a code of conduct for judges.
“There are things you are no supposed to do like profit for yourself and your family from judicial office. But how can a Chief Judge as Chairman of NJC appoint his son as a judge and not understand that it is actually profiting his family from judicial office and that it is prohibited by the code of conduct that he is supposed to enforce?
“When he does that, which authority is he then going to use to enforce that judicial code of conduct,” he said.
Odinkalu further asserted that as a result, the Judiciary has lost the respect it used to command in the eyes of the people.
“So the implicit bargain which says that you respect yourself and we will respect you has been destroyed by the judges, by the politicians in concert with the judges, by all of them trading and accepting money in this process and as a result, it is no longer possible to speak in the same language that we used to.
“20 years ago people spoke of judges with considerable reverence, it was an exception not to speak of judges with reverence. But today, if you speak of judges with reverence in your neighborhood people will probably stone you.”
Professor Odinkalu, a rights activist, noted that a situation whereby corrupt judges now decide who won an election portends grave danger for the country.
“Therefore the loss of judiciary’s authority means a lot in terms of its consequences to judicial cohesion and for social security and I think we have got to take that seriously.”
He noted that the installation of Governor Hope Uzodimma as governor of Imo State was a huge factor in the deterioration of security in the entire South-East.
“The way the Nigerian Judiciary is going under its present leadership has become a national security crisis. It presents us with a clear and present national security coexistence crisis.
“You have got to understand the map of this electoral outcomes. You look at Imo State since the 2020 judgment and how the South-East went south very steeply.
“The supreme court decided to make a man who came fourth the first in the governorship election.
“After that judgment, Imo State has been destroyed. Businesses in Imo State have been destroyed, the hotels are no longer recording any reasonable billeting.
“Across the three geopolitical zones, Imo West is emptied by violence, Imo North is nearly emptied by violence. So most people who are still in Imo are cramped into Owerri Senatorial zone and those who are not in Owerri have fled the state.
“The state is bleeding value, bleeding economy, bleeding everything because of one reckless and irresponsible judicial pronouncement.
“And from Imo State the rest of the South-East went downhill. Anambra which has boarder with Imo snowballed and the rest of the region deteriorated.
He therefore warned that the recent judgments removing the governors of some volatile states in the North namely Plateau, Zamfara, Kano portend greater danger for the security of the Northern region and the country.
“Imo State could be choir practice if we end up the way we are doing with the judges deciding that Kano, Zamfara and Plateau states will go to parties that clearly lost the elections in those states.
“Kano state is on the frontier between the North-East and North-West, it is historically flammable.
“In the North-East we have got two divisions of the Nigerian Army battling on our behalf for the past 10 years now to try and quieten the security exposures we’ve got there, and judges think they can play with that very easily.
“In the North-West, Zamfara State is probably the most active killing theatre we have got in the past 10 years. We have got Kaduna state not too far away from there.
“In Plateau state we have had a crisis that has consumed tens of thousands of Nigerians over there since 1994.
“Now with the insecurity exposures in these areas, the judges want to rewrite the basis of legitimate authority in these areas with no sense of the consequences, with a complete sense of irresponsibility.”
On the way forward, the former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission said the country needs a broad coalition of its citizens to fight the corruption and rascality in the system.
He said: “Lawyers are now coming up to tell you how technically accurate the judgments are and you now have Lawyers telling you about wasted votes.
“But a democracy cannot have jurisprudence that justifies the wasting of the votes of its citizens. We now have lawyers and judges telling you reasons why the votes of citizens should be wasted and the only votes that should count is the votes of corrupt judges.
“If we don’t understand that the Judiciary has now become a national security issue, we are wasting out time,” he warned.
Continuing he said: “Once we understand that, then we will try and get the coalition of citizens that will get involved in helping us put the pressure that we need to begin to turn this around.
“But without the active involvement of a broad constituency of the Nigerian citizens saying enough is enough to this madness, I don’t think we are going to get anywhere,” he added.
