By: Bala Mamman
The uproar and public angst against the Supreme Court judgement which torpedo earlier lower courts judgements against some elements, most of them Senatorial aspirants, was indicative of the rot which Nigerians perceived of recent judgements of the highest court in the land.
So much has been written, virtually all of them lampooning the judgements as they effected Senate President Ahmed Lawan, Senators Akpabio, Aliero and Yahaya. The anger of Nigerians who cut across political, regional and tribal divides, reflected the feelings of Nigerians and this has opened a kind of a
Pandora’s box out of which a floodgate of oozing stench is billowing.
To the people of Kebbi state and Nigerians at large, no sense had been made of the judgement to upturn the fairness and justice of kicking both Adamu Aliero and Yahaya Abdullahi out of the race of the senatorial contest of the PDP, based entirely on the fact that the two men had flouted electoral laws by making themselves available for primaries in another party. It was as simple as that.
The lower courts which kicked them out gave reasons for their judgements and they all zeroed down to the provision of the electoral law. The reasons were beyond contest and even the supreme court’s judgement which curiously upturned them, was still not in the public domain in order to give people the right of making their legitimate assessments.
Just like Farouk Kperoge wrote soon after the supreme court’s “misadventure” it looked like, in the case of Ahmed Lawan and Bashir Machina, judgement had been for sale to the highest bidder.
Although the Supreme Court had broken all traditions by going public with a clumsy and an afterthought response in which it laughably reminded Nigerians that the Supreme Court was not a Father Christmas, Nigerians are wiser to unpopular, unjust, behind the table and unfair judgements. And in the case of the Aliero and Yahaya judgement, people became even more wiser to the antics of some judges who cared less about the fear of God and the unpalatable repercussions what they do will result into and the oddity of history that will trail them and their families.
It has now come to light, that the judgement that favored Aliero and Yahaya, was as purchasable as the Ahmed Lawan’s. In the case of Yahaya, a traditional ruler, who happened to be influential on one of the Supreme Court judges owing to township connections, prevailed on her to twist it, just because the man who stood to benefit is a subject. The Supreme Court judge made herself available and did the bidding of the first class traditional ruler by wielding her closeness to other judges to, out of the blues, conjure what will go into history as the worst “money-for-hand…) judgement ever handed out in Nigeria. No Nigeria was left in any doubt that the judgement was daylight kangaroo robbery.
The robbery was so glaring that many Nigerians believed that influence and money must have played a big part in this judgement. It just did not add up, for a judgement like this, on a case that was as open as day, to even be thinkable, to be uttered out, in a country where citizens have began to be curious and suspicious of the antics of some judges nationwide.
This judgement has stayed alright because the Supreme Court is the final arbiter. But the judgement of God is sure to follow, on those who knew of the consequences of such barefaced injustice and still went ahead to deliver it. They have eroded that chastity which the supreme courts the world over are known for. They have also taken us backwards in a nation where democracy is struggling to take
firm roots. The international community too, is watching and taking note of the travesty, reckless and suspicious judgements that have, lately, become the hallmark in Nigeria’s Supreme Court.
