COLLATERAL VICTIMS: THE JUDICIARY

The Nigerian judiciary cannot remedy the situation, it has instead become a part of the problem, and the Nigerian people have ceased seeing it as being a refuge for either the weak or the poor…

One of the very first things that the current hegemony did was to subjugate the judiciary. To be sure, there is nothing new in the Nigeria State – another word for the Nigerian Presidency – keeping the judiciary under its control. That is the standard fare. But this is different. The new hegemony is not contented with the old style of remote control of the judiciary by influencing its decisions, it wants to dictate to the bench. The removal of Onnoghen must be viewed through this prism.

With the loss of power by the PDP, and the movement of most of its old merchants into the APC, coupled with the corruptive presence of Tinubu in the APC, something had to give in the judiciary. Armed robbers are not spirits, and the judges serving on the benches of our different courts are parts of the Nigerian systems. The knowledge of the damages a judiciary gone rogue could do, was not lost on the new hegemony, and with the removal of a viable opposition and an independent press, a brutal war was waged against the remnants of the PDP’s influence on the bench. It was a most corrupt war against judicial corruption, and it ended with the judiciary captured, and Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko unlawfully ensconced in the office of the CJN.

During the reign of Raji Fashola as the governor of Lagos, a new word entered the legal lexicon amongst litigation lawyers: “Fashola’s Date.” Tinubu’s franchise was consolidating power in those days, and the boundaries of citizenship rights were shrinking, as the extremely feudalistic policies of the hegemony began to take hold. The phenomenon was characterised by an adjournment of cases against Lagos State to dates when the court would not be sitting. Several cases taken before the courts challenging the worst excesses of the state suffered untold adjournment and many aggrieved citizens were frustrated into abandoning their claims. It is nigh on impossible to get social justice in a Lagos court; the progressive partners in the APC partnership.

The Nigerian judiciary cannot remedy the situation, it has instead become a part of the problem, and the Nigerian people have ceased seeing it as being a refuge for either the weak or the poor.

In the new hegemony created by the wedlock of the CPC and the ACN, a most dangerous entity has been birthed. The instinctive impunity of the Fulani feudalists has been welded to the criminal genius and lawlessness of the Jagaban political dynasty, and pure tyranny reigns today in Nigeria.

Those who pretended to corruptly fight tyranny as they looted the commonwealth have aligned with those who always viewed the commonwealth and its riches as their own inheritance. What we have feared the most has overtaken us.

The perfect storm is here with us.

Excerpted from – Imperatives of the Nigerian Revolution (Published May 2021)

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COLLATERAL VICTIMS: THE JUDICIARY

WHY NOW? – Silence no Longer an Option

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COLLATERAL VICTIMS: THE JUDICIARY

The Nigerian judiciary cannot remedy the situation, it has instead become a part of the problem, and the Nigerian people have ceased seeing it as being a refuge for either the weak or the poor…

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WHY NOW? – Silence no Longer an Option

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Download “Do Not Die In Their War”