Occasionally, the Nigerian political god is alive to its responsibility. Whenever that happens, it exposes the secrets that Nigeria’s ruining class would want sealed. During the trial of late Chief MKO Abiola before Justice Senlong in Wuse, yours sincerely was witness to a bail hearing where the learned justice in a moment of cheer agreed to look into bail after parleying with his colleagues in “Sokoto, Maiduguri and other places”. In a beer parlour, it would have sounded like a joke, but not in a court of law and at such a sensitive trial.
Sitting behind lawyers in court and as a failed law student, yours sincerely did not find the obiter funny and drew the attention of one of the younger lawyers to the flip. It was taken up immediately and if memory serves me right, Justice Senlong had to recuse himself from the trial. Although it is a worn cliché, the judiciary remains the final hope in any case with the law.
It is in line with this that the valedictory session of the 9th National Assembly could not have passed as a non-event. There is still this unsettled theory of the shelf life of the national legislature. The 9th Assembly kept sitting long after Muhammadu Buhari’s administration signed off on May 29. The acts and events they embarked upon during that period are subject to judicial interpretation. Could they have been sitting and passing legislation if either Atiku Abubakar or Peter Obi had been declared winners of the last presidential election?
It is now statute barred as nobody queried the act while it lasted. In the end, a new assembly is in session, and has selected its house officers for both chambers. The 9th National Assembly was anything but the people’s assembly. Its leader, Ahmad Lawan never told anyone he intended to run a people-oriented legislature. He was satisfied to have history record him leading a rubberstamp assembly and he delivered on that policy.
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Not once did that assembly take the sides of the people in its decisions. It was the assembly of ‘off your mike senator’. The one in whose chambers witnesses were slumping for fun. By and large, it was the lapdog of the regime, unquestioningly approving whatever the presidency wanted.
Its high point was the amended NDIC Act, hurriedly signed by Buhari in the last days of his Aso Rock residency. A sentient president would have not left the assent of bills till the last minute, but Buhari did and in the process reportedly endorsed a doctored NDIC Act. The last time such a legislative subterfuge took place was under Anyim Pius Anyim and Ghali Umar Na’Abba. In the fake law signed by Buhari, the prerogative of choosing the head of the NDIC was taken from the president and vested in the CBN governor. It’s a classic case of placing the cart before the horse.
The god of politics exposed the underhand dealings that led to controversial judgments that favoured at least two ranking members of the 10th Assembly. Rochas Okorocha, Ahmad Lawan and Godswill Akpabio all threw their hat in the presidential ring. It meant they were giving up their senatorial seats in a big gamble in which they became losers. For that reason, Okorocha is not returning to the Senate. It could have been ditto for Lawan and Akpabio except for a curious judicial decision, a judicial abracadabra that is as confusing as it sounds. It was practically impossible for a presidential aspirant to vie for a senatorial seat at the same time. So how did Akpabio and Lawan manage to eat their cake and still have it?
Okorocha alluded to that magic at the valedictory speech that is still shocking the world. Exhuming a half-buried corpse, Okorocha expressed his surprise when he addressed Lawan saying his coming back is another chapter in the political book, because “I was there in the field with you running for president. I never knew how you were able to meander and return, next time you must teach me how to do that…”
Feeling a little flustered, Lawan responded, “it was a torturous process. We had to go through the courts. I didn’t even appeal”. Okorocha continued to insist that he would love to be a student of the Lawan/Akpabio school of hocus that retained their seats against all odds.
And as if fate would partially answer the question, Adamu Muhammad Bulkachuwa the ranking senator representing Bauchi North provided more than an explanation into how these deals are done, ostensibly outside official sessions. A retired diplomat who is married to Zainab Bulkachuwa, the first ever female to head the Court of Appeal, Bulkachuwa left very little to interpretation as the true valedictorian of the 9th Assembly.
After expressing disappointment with those he had helped into political office back in Bauchi but who never showed appreciation, he explained that he crossed the floor just to fulfill his vow to decimate the ruling APC in his home state and that he proudly fulfilled that promise.
He was not done with his short but impactful valedictory. Hear him, “I look at faces in this chamber whom (sic) had come to me and sought for my help when my wife was the president of the court of appeal and I am…” But a jittery Lawan would not let the elder statesman finish his confession insisting that his statement could be open to ambiguity. Lawal’s interjection was that “this kind of insinuation would mean that there was favour and there was the rest of it, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Bulkachuwa was not about to be shut up and he concluded his discourse by saying how he “must thank particularly my wife whose freedom and independence I encroached upon while she was in office. And she has been very tolerant and accepted my encroachment and extended her help to my colleagues.”
While Lawan continued to try to shut up the senator, it gave fillip to something that most watchers of judicial pronouncements especially on electoral matters have feared. That is, that most judgments are irrational, sometimes analogous to natural justice and even logic.
Bulkachuwa’s confession, which he has now tried to retract, becomes the first statement from someone close to a judicial officer explaining how these controversial judgments are procured. As the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa’s brief included constituting electoral tribunals and adjudicating on electoral matters involving politicians vying for legislative offices. Although she has retired from the judiciary, the big question is whether she had used her offices to help her husband’s friends in the legislature.
Whatever way one looks at his speech, this is its import. It would not appear that any bleach in the political washroom would wash away this insinuation. The import of this is not lost on even the Nigerian Bar Association. It has called for the arrest, trial and prosecution of the senator. It should also have called for a review of all the judgments delivered during the tenure of Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa. That is the only way the stain that the valedictory speech of her husband has stamped on the not-so-trustworthy image of the Nigerian judiciary, especially on electoral matters. That is what the National Judicial Council, NJC must do and quickly too.
