Nigeria Content Online

Events have
occurred in the third estate about which it is as difficult to speak,
as it is to remain silent. While the movement of the president of the
Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, to the Supreme Court may have been
halted by the National Judicial Council, in the fallout from his
rejection of the ‘promotion’, a can of judicial worms has been opened.

Certainly the
explanation given by PCA Salami for the lack of love between himself
and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, namely that he
resisted the CJN’s attempt to influence the composition of the panel to
hear the Sokoto gubernatorial appeal and/or its outcome cannot be swept
under the carpet. The reported decision of the NJC mandating former
PCA, Justice Umaru Abdullahi, to intervene in the matter may settle the
personal difficulties which have arisen between the two protagonists,
but it is not only personal feelings that have been injured.

PCA Salami’s
assertion that CJN Katsina-Alu (who allegedly ascribed his desire to
influence the Sokoto decision to the concerns of the Sultan of Sokoto)
eventually had his own way by dint of simply hijacking the case to the
Supreme Court and having the matter decided as he wished there, raises
frightening implications for the administration of justice in general
and any adjudication arising from the coming elections in particular.

It is too late
now, to protest that the judiciary should not wash its dirty linen in
public for fear of losing the people’s confidence or, as the NJC put
it, undermining the integrity of the judiciary. The truth is that
public confidence is already shot to pieces, and when the stench of
unwashed linen is strong enough to reach public nostrils, secret
laundering may not be enough to convince nose-holding citizens that any
cleansing has really taken place.

What is more, the
constitutional amendment, which made the Supreme Court the final court
for gubernatorial election petitions, was already a slap on the face of
judicial integrity. It can hardly be denied that the move to prevent
the Court of Appeal having the last say in non-presidential election
petitions arose directly from of lack of confidence in the quality of
decisions emanating from that court at a time when the Supreme Court
was riding high in public estimation because of its decision which
allowed Atiku Abubakar to contest the 2007 presidential elections, and
Rotimi Amaechi’s case over the Peoples Democratic Party gubernatorial
primaries in Rivers State among others.

Now it is the
Court of Appeal that is riding high with the fickle public because the
INEC-declared winners of the governorship elections in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti
and Osun States have all been removed by its decisions.

The stock, clichéd
response to such developments are platitudes about how ‘the judiciary
is the last hope of the common man’, as though the gubernatorial
gladiators were indeed ‘common men’, or as though – even if they truly
represented the hopes and aspirations of the common people as expressed
in votes cast – the judiciary could do anything to realise the common
people’s hopes without the costly mobilisation needed to bring those
aspirations to judicial notice.

What this chopping
and changing from preferring one court to the other really says is that
our judicial institutions have dwindled into personal fiefdoms in which
the public can have confidence (or not) only on the basis of whichever
personality is in charge. This is as unfair to the majority of men and
women who make up those institutions as it is to the Nigerian people
who – not having their judges selected on the basis of their political
views, or their position on hot-button issues as for example in the
United States of America – are entitled to repose confidence in any
judge before whom matters are brought for adjudication, expecting that
appellate courts will intervene only to correct lower courts’ errors of
law or fact, not because they want to achieve political goals or serve
the interests of persons – no matter how highly placed – who are
outside the judiciary.

Even if the
elections were conducted perfectly (and we are far from certain that
they will be perfect) litigation is likely to ensue. When that happens,
Nigerians will expect Attahiru Jega’s Independent National Electoral
Commission not to play the same role that Maurice Iwu’s INEC played in
regard to election petitions that arose from the 2007 elections, where,
instead of remaining an impartial umpire, INEC descended as a combatant
into the arena of contest, defending results that were not just false,
but ridiculously so in situations where even political parties would
blush to defend them.

Uprightness and
transparency by INEC in declaring results and its response to any
post-election litigation may limit the scope for any impure judicial
actions, yet Nigerians are entitled to feel aggrieved that we must now
suspect that there might be such impurity. However, against a
background of such suspicions, the ‘common man’ had better think on. He
may put a modicum (or huge great dollops) of hope in INEC or the
judiciary. But divine intervention apart, his last hope is, and has
always been, his strong right arm.