Democracy in Nigeria is fast
deteriorating to a level where we, as a people, have become a laughing
stock among the comity of nations. It is only in Nigeria that a court of
competent jurisdiction would make a pronouncement and the government of
the day would deliberately refuse to obey it.
The executive arm has succeeded in
arrogating to itself the powers to make and adjudicate laws, a function
constitutionally reserved for the legislative and judicial arms of
government respectively. The situation playing out in our country is
clearly making a mockery of the principle of separation of powers, as
propounded by Lord Baron de Montesquieu. Separation of powers is a
constitutional principle introduced to ensure that the three arms of
government mentioned above are not concentrated in any single body, be
it in functions, personnel or powers.
For the avoidance of doubt, the
legislative arm is the lawmaking body, the executive implements the law,
while the judiciary is saddled with the responsibility of interpreting
the law and settling of disputes whenever they arise. It is intended to
prevent the concentration of unchecked powers by providing “checks” and
“balances” to avoid “autocracy” in a democratic setting like ours.
However, it is generally believed that
the judiciary is the last hope of the common man, but when law officers
are subjected to the law itself without any recourse to fair hearing and
obvious interference from the executive arm, the common man may then
have no choice, than to look up to God or resort to self-self for
redress. Indeed, no man is above the law of the land, which is the
grundnorm. No matter how highly placed an individual may be, they must
subject themselves to the dictates and principles of the law.
Recent events in our polity particularly
in the judicial arm of government have, however, left a sour taste in
the mouth of many citizens who approach the courts on a daily basis to
seek one redress or the other. The invasion of the private residence of
some judges, by security operatives in the middle of the night, some
time ago, to the arrest and arraignment of some senior lawyers on
corruption charges and very recently, the allegation and subsequent
arraignment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen,
for alleged non-declaration of assets, clearly show the whole plot is
designed to bring the judiciary as an institution to disrepute, which in
my opinion is ill-conceived and highly despicable and should be
condemned by every right-thinking Nigerian.
The consistent interference in the
affairs of other arms of government by the executive must stop, if truly
we want to practise democracy as a country. I must say this act is
impinging seriously on the principle of separation of powers which is a
key element in any flourishing democratic society. That is not to say
the CJN cannot be prosecuted if indeed he has erred. The law remains the
law and no man is above it.
Fighting corruption is good, but it
becomes bad when it is laden with political coloration, which tends to
rubbish the whole anti-corruption framework. The fight against
corruption should be holistic and systematic in nature. We must begin to
build strong institutions as against building strong and powerful
individuals, who end up running them as emperors of some sorts, that
approach is no longer acceptable and will take us nowhere.
A constitutional democracy should be
about the rule of law. Unfortunately, the political class in the country
has so much fouled the political spaces such that no meaningful
development can take place. The rule of law must be adhered to in order
for us to build a sane society.
Undesirable and corrupt elements must be
weeded out from all the arms of government and it must be fought
without any form of bias. A member of the National Assembly, Senator
Shehu Sani, once said: “When it comes to fighting corruption in the
National Assembly and the Judiciary and in the larger Nigerian sectors,
the President uses insecticide, but when it comes to fighting corruption
within the Presidency, they use deodorants. We have a political
atmosphere where you have a saintly and angelic Presidency and a
devilish and evil society.”
There seems to be a well-orchestrated
plan by some powerful political actors within the executive arm of
government, who are bent on strangulating other arms of government into
submission, by doing their bidding at all cost. A dangerous precedent is
being set in our temple of justice system, if this ugly trend is not
quickly checked; it might come back some day to haunt us as a nation.
For me, this is politics taken too far!
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