First they rig the elections in order to
get the opportunity to rig the courts with judges ready to help them validate
the rigged elections- Prof Chidi Odinkalu
Four months ago, I
deepened and broadened the concept of COURTocracy and described it rightly as
the final stage of Nigeria’s Democracy (BusinesDay,25/5/23; https://muoigbo.blogspot.com/2023/05/courtocracy-final-stage-og-nigerias.html).The
tsunami from Tsammani et
al on 6/9/23, the longest judgement in Nigeria’s judicial history, which was so
exciting that it cast a sleeping-spell
on the audience, including the SANS and
petitioners, has overshadowed the happenings in the ‘lower’ realms. But
all in all, it is COURTocracy in practice and as a full Spirit
and full man, I assure all of us
that we aint seen nothing yet; it is just morning on creation day. All the parties
have tasted the sour grapes of
COURTocracy and this has led to the
strange scenario in which people who are
rejoicing on some judgements are also agonising over some judgements, and most
often, those judgements were based on the same grounds. It is the typical osondi-owendi
moment (apologies to the legendary Osita Osadebe) ,
and in tandem with the Wikerian
chart-buster: ‘as e de sweet us,
e de pain dem’( also in reverse)! And for both those who are
celebrating and those who are weeping,
the judicial system is either the best thing that happened since
creation of the world or the worst thing
that happened since the emergence of the current genre of African Leaders.
Sleeping Competition, ‘Bandits, cultists and terrorists’ Justice Akintan-Osadebe
In my award-winning treatise on the theory of COURTocracy,(
Award-winning? Yes;I gave myself the award and if you don’t like it, Go to COURT!!!) I
had argued that the advent and maturity
of COURTocracy was
because the parties, politicians, and candidates do not obey the laws of their parties, which
they made themselves, they do no abide by the laws of the country and they do
not even abide by the laws of God or the laws of the various oracles. This is because of impunity facilitated by
disdain for internal democracy, money-answereth-ALL-things
mentality, and avalanche godfathers in high places. Sure, what we have is pretend-democracy;
democracy without democrats and without democratic ethos’. My
prophetic credentials have been extolled once again, though sadly, this does
not provide money for fuel. The court has also bloodied the nose of APC in Kogi
State by upholding Natasha of PDP as the winner. This is a special case because
of the names involved and the desperate strategies deployed by Yahaya Bello to
checkmate the beautiful damsel. In Abia State, the LP household ( 2 people tweeting or X-ing
from a room) lost 3 House of Reps members. Sure, in tandem with the dictates of
the latest political philosophy in town, ‘The court has become the institution
of first resort( rather than the last). That is why electoral victors are now
advised to wait until the court speaks. The courts do not just determine who
wins, they also determine who contests
because they are now the author and finisher ( Hebrew 12:2) of
the nomination processes; they anoint
and de-anoint contestants and candidates, and even the winners, with reckless abandon’!
However, my main focus today is on the tsunami by Tsamanni. My beloved is so OBIfied that she is called the GO of the Obidient Movement in Igbo-Ukwu and even beyond. The morning after, a close family friend called to enquire of her wellbeing because he felt that the judgment had thrown her under the bus. She however explained that there were no surprises because of the indecent haste and highhandedness with which this administration decapacitated mere billboards(All eyes on the Judiciary), and the inglorious and patronising utterances by Mary Odili, which had prepared her for what was to come. And I dare add, the threat by DSS, the militarisation of Abuja, the prophecy by Pst. Kumuyi that God would redeem Nigeria through BATiocracy, the unsought advice by Pst. Adefarasin that it was time to move on and the boastful dispositions of the BATists just before the judgement. However, back to the historical September 6 judgement and I start by declaring upfront that I am not learned even though I am educated and have taught many lawyers. My knowledge of law is limited to the courses in commercial, business or mercantile law, which I took at ABU Zaria and the Chartered Institute of Bankers(London/Nigeria) examinations. As we all know, the PEPT knocked out all the reliefs( I hope I got it right) sought by the petitioners, accused the litigants of shoddy preparations, rejected most of the witnesses, and bad-mouthed the opposition lawyers, including the very senior ones. They did not even respect the lawyer named Otaokpukpu (Bone-Cracker)!
The conflicting rulings
by various tribunals have also complicated matters for non-lawyers like me.
Just after the PEPT had authoritatively ruled that certificate forgery and
nomination issues are preelection matters, another set of Judges in
other tribunals, nullified Hon Chinda’s election in Kastina State for certificate forgery and that of
Ikenga Imo on grounds of invalid nomination!
As I just admitted, ‘I
no be loya’. However, I went into ‘confused confusion’ when
I read the comments from many learned folks on the judgement as well as the
implications of the judgement going forward.
The Chief Atikulator called the judgement a mockery
of justice; the Commander in Chief of the OBIdients saw
it as a travesty of justice, the Chief BATist described
it as a win for democracy
but Apapa( you still remember him?) gladly welcomed the judgement.
Robert Clarke, an aged master in the
game described it as the best judgement so far but got me confused later when he averred that judgements are based on law, not
on facts. Yemi Osinbajo, who has since gone off the radar described the
same judgement as a great victory
for constitutional democracy. My good friend. Liboros Oshoma declared
unequivocally that judgements are based on facts, not sentiments and
that the Supreme Court would not say anything different but Nwokobia saw the Judges
as dishonourable and accused them of descending into the arena of conflict and acting as lawyers for APC,
Tinubu and High-Neck. Monday
Ubani declared that the ruling on subpoenaed witnesses would make it IMPOSSIBLE
for any legal electoral challenge to
succeed and that the PEPT should have
said ‘something’ about INEC reneging on
its compact with Nigerian people( IREV et al). Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, expressed
concern over the rulings on witness testimonies and electronic transmission
while Kenneth Andy Okonkwo saw the 800pp
document as being contrary to law and reason! Inehbe Effiong asked a very pertinent
question: If INEC is not bound to use IREV, How can it transmit results
directly from the polling unit as stated in the act?
The Common Sense
Senator Murray Bruce believed that it would be selfish of Obi and Atiku to pursue
the case further while Reno Omokiri said Obi would never smell Aso-Rock as long
as he lived. For the Big Tent, it was an alarming judgement that
displayed scant regard for the law but PANDEF went to the extent of demanding apologies from the
litigants because of their shoddy showing at the PEPT. Paul Onwubiko was alarmed that the judgement has created the impression that the
law, rather than identify the truth, was invented and designed to favour
hardened criminals and crass manipulators,
encourage criminal mindset and satanic logic. Sonnie Ekwuwosi saw it
as an iniquitous and vulcanised judgement and once more accused the
PEPT of descending into the arena of conflict and constituted itself as the
counsel for the defendants, acted like hired assassins and decapitated the petitioners petition. Casmir Igbokwe on the other hand described it as a judicial coup that
depended on technicalities, which the
lead-judge warned against, and sustained a wobbling democracy! Kalu Okoronkwo
saw it as a judicial heist which eroded the trust Nigerians had
in the system while Chimamanda Adichie described it as shabby, shoddy and
incredibly lacking in thoughts (Grammar!) NADECO-USA sees the judgement as Illogical, especially
as it affected drugs and certificate related matters, IREV and the status of
Abuja while Shehu Sani describes Hon Lar et al from in Plateau State as one of
the most tragic and comical
rulings in this season of Judicial magic! Rahman Owonikaran, the Ag SW Chairman of PDP
averred that the judgement killed the
hope of Nigerians on future elections, just as Ikeachukwu Amaechi described the
Judiciary as undertakers of Nigeria’s democracy. Me? I no say
anything except that these judgements
appear to be suffering from CAC-Syndrome! ( CAC?
Cash-&-Carry)
Beyond blaming the
parties and politicians for the emergence of COURtocracy, I had also harped on
the failings of INEC, which ‘fails to abide by its own guidelines or by the constitution. The electoral act stipulated electronic
transmission of results and INEC assured that it was non-negotiable. INEC then
failed to do so and a court in Lagos ordered it to comply with its guidelines
but APC, which was not a party to the case, applied for leave to go on appeal.
INEC also applies different benchmarks for
similar cases in different places’. If you now recall that the electoral
transmission was a key issue at the PEPT, you know why APC protested a court
order on INEC to transmit electorally.
You also wonder why all the efforts to pass the Electoral Act of 2022 and the
nationwide jubilation that followed its passage.
Sure, it was
different strokes for different folks but the greatest challenge is the
implications for elections, electoral petitions and governance going forward.
Now, the Abujarians( indigenes of Abuja) are rumoured to be
preparing to ‘go to court’ to assert their rights to inter alia elect their
governors, 3 Senators, Reps and State Assembly
members! So how do people obtain justice where
electorates were openly threatened and the threat enforced, heads and limbs were broken, results mutilated, polling units attacked, votes openly bought,
and power acquired by people who snatch
and run with it? How POssible is it for a
petitioner to produce 176974 witnesses from the various PUs across the country?
What should people and political parties do when security and INEC officials brazenly become agents of political parties. Has the Nigerian
constitution turned a blind eye to issues of character, integrity, perjury,
forgeries, drug-related offences, double citizenship and how can it be ruled
that a legal infraction was of no effect because it was unintentional? How can
people forced by the Tribunal to give witnesses
be expected to provide their evidence on oath within 21 days, when they
might not even been subpoenaed by then? What kind of society are we building
when government agencies refuse to abide by guidelines, which they had
voluntarily issued and promoted? Funny enough, some matters are determined on
the basis of the guideline while in some cases, the guidelines are of no effect!
Paradoxically, INEC is
not bound to prove that it did the right
thing while the person so-declared is also not bound to prove that it won. So, the strategy is just declare me the
winner! That was why INEC acted like a thief in the night(
Matthew, 24:42) by declaring the
results while we slept(Mt,13:24+). That was why the ‘winners’ sing-song
became GO To Court. INEC
has also wasted a princely sum of N300bn+ spent on technology and against all common and uncommon sense, taken us back
to days of manual operations even when its offices are automated! As it has
turned out, INEC seduced us with IREV and we allowed ourselves to be seduced(
Jeremiah,20:7); they raised our hopes to high heavens, assuring us of effective
and efficient ICT-driven process and after we had been fully suckered, they
roughly and unapologetically crashed our hopes into smithers. Will the
courts, which have been declared as the last hope of the common man, ever offer
justice, including in electoral matters, to the poor? And if the courts offer
us ONLY laws, who or what will offer us justice? However, in all these matters, the lawyers(
certainly),the judges( probably) and
their agents are the winners; they are not complaining!
As
I concluded in first treatise on
COURTocracy, we all know the right thing but while we await for that right time
to do those right things, when the ballot will determine our fate and future,
we must continue to manage and finetune
COURTocracy. After all, what
is purpose of our voting when the
judiciary determines the eventual
winners? I have therefore, as a part of my community service and
contribution to national development, designed
this ingenious method of optimising COURtocracy and it works like this;
those who want to occupy any position (because
it is their turn, because they have something or nothing to offer, because they
can do it or because their people or religion are underrepresented) should just declare themselves as occupants of the given position. The
declaration will be something like: I,
Otunba Olaniyi, Otigbuinyna1 and
Alhaji Gburugburu, D.Sc Hons, PTD 419
Special Class, convict extraordinary, serial customer of EFCC, with triple
citizenship, hereby declare myself as the President, Governor of XYZ state or Senator.
He or better she (remember the Adamawa experience) will file the declaration
with the appropriate tribunal. Others will do the same and the tribunals will
then determine the authentic occupant of the position, which will depend
on the wizardry and witchery of the lawyers, and the depth of the pocket of the
declarants!
As
usual, Nigerians who can make a joke
even about their deaths( they can mock death and joke
with their last breaths) have turned
their attention to these strange tribunal pronouncements. A thief who was caught
red-handed with the evidence( the cock he had just stollen) was discharged and acquitted because the
complainant could not provide the name of the cock, its date of birth, the name
of the parents and the maternity where it was born. A murderer was set free because he pulled the trigger unintentionally while
a fellow who drunk AND drove was
discharged because the AND no longer has any constitutional relevance. There
was also the case of Okonkwo who caught Ikeogu with his missing mkpara
and reported him to the elders. Ikeogu however visited the elders at night with
special-grade agbado and
when the case came up for hearing, they advised Okonkwo to allow Ikeogu to take care of it for him. That was after
they had asked him what those witnesses,
who saw Ikeogu stealing the item, were doing
around his house then! The only ‘but’ with this last story was when the
author stated that it was from Things Fall Apart!
Another depicted a
picture of the lady of justice, who was being wooed and who eventually who fell
flat on the ground on 6/9/23. If you recall she had been in distress and was
supported with a piece of wood all along!
I hope you have seen this Breaking News or Happening Now: a woman has
just secured an injunction stopping her husband from conducting DNA tests on
their three children because the outcome would cause her severe and
irreparable damages!!! Asuquo B(26/9/23) has also shown that the
justices are now competing for business with native doctors as they are being
consulted by desperate politicians with
cowries et al. It may also be that native doctors are now acting on behalf of
the justices!
The war for and against COURTocracy has gone beyond our shores and is raging especially in the US where the judiciary protects democracy and good governance( in Nigeria, it is mostly the other way). By a uncanny twist of fate, everything about BAT, at least since his teenage years upwards started in the US: forfeiture, certificate, identity theft, perjury . These will also most likely end in the US because it is unimaginable that the US judiciary will be a part of this opacity.. However this CSU dingdong is getting curiouser and curiouser . On 22/3. Judge Maldonado ordered the stay of an order earlier given by Jeffery Gilbert ( 6/9/23)ordering Chicago State University to release the academic details of BAT. This is because the Chief BATist argued that the release of such documents would cause severe and irreparable damage to him.
Was he not the one saying Go To Court? How can he now beg the court NOT to do the needful? They thought that the court was limited to Nigeria! Let’s how the US system can tolerate all these magomago, which they cannot tolerate at home. If they dealt with TRUMPU, and Bidens son how can they cover up the Chief Priest of BATiocracy We await to see the elasticity of their tolerance for such shenanigans outside US. Chicago State University, which appears to have been used to such controversies is once more on trial. By the way, how can one who boldly displayed his certification by INEC be reluctant to display the CSU certification, which was a prelude to that from INEC?
Meanwhile, and despite of all efforts to dim the movement, all eyes are still on the
judiciary. Justice Chukwudifu Oputa had declared with juristic finality
that everything comes to a halt when the judge ( and the judiciary) is corrupt because if the legislature
is corrupt, you go to the judiciary for
redress; if the executive is corrupt, you go to the judiciary for remedy (but)
if the judiciary is corrupt, where do you go from there? God whom you do not see? To history which is
past? Or to the future which hasn’t
come? This is in tandem with the question
which the Psalmist asked the judges of his days How much longer
will you give unjust judgments and uphold the prestige of the wicked? (Psalm82:2-4). Zecharia also reminded the Judges of their
responsibilities: ‘These are the things you must do: Administer fair judgement
conducive for peace; do not love perjury( Zecharia, 8: 16-17). As if he
had us in mind, he even warned against perjury!
As I was tidying up this piece, fire gutted some parts of the supreme court. I hope this is an ordinary fire but even then, we have been assured that it will not adversely affect the process of COURTocracy. It also reminded me of the fire that finished Igbosere High Court in 2020. Some mischief-makers even reproduced one of the key headlines of those days about how some court papers related to BAT & Alfa Beta were burnt in the inferno, trying to create the impression that the papers were burnt at Supreme Court! Nigerians!!!
Anyway, COURTocracy is
progressing and being finetuned and… we aint seen nothing yet!
A season of celebrations
Times are hard and
Nigerians have NEVER had it so rough but life must go on. However, some of us still have enough reasons
to be grateful to God and I join in
sharing their joys. After all, we are admonished to rejoice with those who
rejoice( Romans,12:15) Azeez Adepoju,who described himself as a career
pump attendant and who was in 2004 described as the most illiterate, successfully
defended his PhD thesis on14/9/23 and thus qualifies to be addressed as Azeez
Adepoju, PhD, Business Administration, from Olabisi Onabanjo University. To the
glory of God, I was the lead supervisor. In the picture above, he is flanked by
Professor Oladele, the External Examiner and the son of man. My daughter (actually my niece) Munachi
‘Uzoahia’ Muo, made the family proud as she emerged the best graduating science student at Lagos
State Senior Model College Ojo for the
last academic session. We wish the
medical-doctor to be success in her future endeavours and also congratulate the
proud parents, Francisco and Lois Muo.
Azzez et al
Munachi
Egwuonwu Nwaogalanya et al
I also wish to felicitate with my senior friend (there are levels of friends!) Nze PE Egwuonwu who, on Saturday 23/9/23, received the St Thomas Moore Medal from the Archbishop of Lagos. This is in recognition of his commitment to the Catholic Church, including being a role model to the upcoming generations. PE Egwuonwu, a highly principled and humble gentleman has been my friend for the past three decades, a friendship that started when he was the CEO of ADIC Insurance PLC. I also rejoice with Ebele Nwaogalanya Umeweni who was installed as the 3rd Ide of Umuezemuli, Igboukwu on 4/8/23. He is flanked by Prof MC Muo & the son of man. As I rejoice with him, I also wish to remind him that the bigger the head, the bigger the headache! As we are rejoicing with them, may our own celebrations continue to flow
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Excellent Read as Usual.
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