As Justice was left in the lurch

–    Oh, come off it, you know I don’t do birthdays. I was born in the night!

–    Who cares about your birthday when Africans are walking tall all over the world for the second time in four years?

–    Oh, sorryI don’t get the gist.

–    You would get the gist when it comes to the man you call President Jones.

–    Ouch, that is supposed to hurt, but tell me why are black people walking tall, has the UN finally agreed to pay reparation for 400 years of slavery?

–    Repa..wetin?Don’t you know we were celebrating the second mandate of an African as World President?

–    Really? When did the elections hold?

–    Don’t tell me you have not been with Barack masticating meat.

–    Mitt, not meat.

–    The same.

–    Thank God Barack is not a Naija?

–    What about that?

–    In Naija they would’ve denied him for not being full-blooded Naija.

–    The world has changed, an Ondo man, late Justice AkinolaAguda was the first ethnic chief judge of Botswana,concurrently serving the Lesotho appeal court.LawanGwadabe once headed the Gambian Army;General Maxwell Kobe was Chief of Staff in Sierra Leone.

–    How come a Nigerian married to another Nigerian was stood up from being sworn in as a Judge because she is only married to an Abian?

–    Ha, that one, its the federal character principle.

–    Oh, really.

–    The FCC Act is not yet amended. The assembly wants to make every village a state. Go and persuade the Irrational Assembly to amend the constitution.

–    Forget that matter, this principle is archaic, unfair and unjust. A married woman automatically assumes the origin of her husband;every immigration lawyer knows this, even in international law. It’s a federation, or is it only Lagos that knows this?

–    Explain that to me.

–    Lateef Jakande was a governor of the state…

–    Yes.

–    Stop interrupting, he is a Kwaran;commissioner Tunji Bello is from Kogi State;OpeyemiBamidele recently resigned from Fashola’s cabinet;he is from Ekiti State. Nobody raised an eyebrow over their appointments.Nobody called the documents they signed void because they are not ‘indigenes’.

–    Eh…no, they were performing legitimate duties. But those were political appointments. You are mixing things up; we are talking about the judiciary, the last hope of the common man. Certainly, milord the lady must err on the side of caution.

–    Last hope is now hope betrayed; he who comes to equity must come with clean hands?

–    There was a petition.

–    By who? The petitioner is higher than the state government that appointed her? Its pure retrogression.

–    How?

–    I’ll tell you how. And I’ll rely on facts to demonstrate that this decision has no legal precedent or rational standing. Recently,Abia named its justice ministry after Justice Kalu Anya. Anya once served as Chief Justice of Borno State and served Benue too. Lagos State has yet to run Justice Nwaka out of the bench for not being a Lagosian.

–    Exceptions.

–    Really, exceptions?Milord Mary Odili now sits in the court of appeal, an Imo woman married to a Rivers man and served meritoriously in Rivers without complain.

–    That is why I said there might be extraneous circumstances in this case.

–    Any circumstance not known to the public is circumstantial, a nullity. It’s the shameful ‘indigene’ and ‘settler’ dichotomy creeping into the judiciary. It is an explosive politics.

–    The Sinnate has asked the Chief Justice to do the right thing.

–    You all know that the sinnate cannot order the CJN around. Besides, a resolution, as we have been told even by those forced to eat their words is only persuasive.

–    Instead of wasting your saliva like this, you should send a private bill to the assembly for the amendment of this FCC Act and with luck; it may pass faster than the FOI Act. I hope you know you have that right.

–    I have the right to agitate for this to be done first.

–    Do so and stop soiling my celebratory mood.

–    This is a serious issue you are trivializing. It may one day affect your own wife, your sister or children.

–    When we reach the bridge we’ll cross it.

–    Nonsense, they have removed the bridge after crossing it. You should be concerned. Every woman of goodwill should be concerned. They should protest, send petitions to the CJN, to the presidency, call their governors, male lawyers, female lawyers,…anything to remedy this injustice. That woman does not deserve to be punished twice. First she lost her state to marriage, now she is losing her promotion to an archaic law.

–    Maybe you’ve not heard?

–    That…?

–    She’s related to a big sinnator.

–    I don’t care; justice should apply blindly to sinnators, rebels and the rest of us. This impasse took us back to Stone Age.

–    Sorry o, didn’t know you left there. Abeg, inject strong bass guitar and drums ojare…this uprising will bring out the beast in us….this….Oh, NEPA!