This is good news, but…

The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mr Justice Walter Onnoghen, has taken the first judicial steps towards making the judiciary strong pillars of the anti-graft war. No, I am not falling over myself. Not yet. But I recognise what he said at the swearing in of the new batch of senior advocates of Nigeria last week as evidence that the head of the third arm of government has given some serious thoughts to the role of the judiciary in the successful prosecution of the war by the anti-graft bodies. 

I picked the following points from his address published by the Daily Trust of September 19. One, he said he directed all the heads of courts in the country to designate one or two courts in their jurisdiction as special courts for the hearing and speedy determination of corruption and financial crimes cases. Two, he said that an anti-corruption cases trial monitoring committee would be set up at the next meeting of the National Judicial Council to monitor such cases and ensure that the judges behave properly like the servants of the law. Third, he said he had directed all heads of the courts, for which read, judges, to clamp down on lawyers who resort to delaying tactics in criminal matters before them.

And then Onnoghen said: “We are under no illusion that the fight against corruption would be an easy one, as we are already aware that when you fight corruption, corruption fights back, but we are determined to win it.”

Splendid. 

Read that quotation again and what would strike you as it struck me, is that for the first time in this anti-graft war the judiciary has been brought into the battle field. I welcome the development and I do so with my heart in my mouth. I have repeatedly argued here and elsewhere that the judiciary holds the key to the successful prosecution of the war. 

So far, its overall record has been, if you would permit me to repeat myself, patchy at best and woeful at worst. Some judges have out rightly benefitted from the war and thus undermined it. They have soiled the temple of justice with their soiled fingers. No war is ever won when the commanders and the foot soldiers sabotage it by putting their personal interests above their professional responsibilities and service to their country. There is no denying the fact such judges have done much to damage the reputation of our judges, impugned the integrity of the judiciary and the anti-graft agencies and protected the corrupt rich from being held responsible for their breaching the laws of the land.

As much as I welcome this, and I see it as a positive development in the war that has been going on virtually for ever with results that have never quite impressed the Nigerian public, I am experienced enough to know that such pronouncements do not in themselves amount to much more than something a little higher than a hill of beans. There is something missing here; and that is why I am inclined to moderate my support for the steps the CJN is taking. They do not have the backing of the law. They are administrative steps in the right direction, all right, but with the backing of the law they would not rescue the war from the rut in which it is stuck.

Some knowledgeable Nigerians had suggested times without number that the courts as they are, cannot adequately handle the anti-graft cases. I think the CJN too has acknowledged that. We need special courts, they argued, empowered by law to hear those cases speedily and determine them one way or the other.

 The CJN’s decision to permit all the heads of the courts to designate two courts under their jurisdiction as special courts to hear corruption and financial crimes cases does not just cut it. It seems to me like the half-way house we do not need. The anti-corruption courts must be created by an act of parliament with properly defined powers and procedure. The law should set the time limit for the hearing and determination of corruption and financial crimes cases. It is the only way to go if the judiciary must be made to wield its own bazooka in the anti-corruption war.

What worries the Nigerian public and the international community about the anti-corruption and financial crimes war is this: The dockets of the various courts up and down the land are filled with high profile cases. They have been gathering dust since the first set of our state governors ended their tenure in 2007. Their cases have never been heard, let alone determined. And the former governors fingered by Nuhu Ribadu as welcome guests in EFCC guest houses, have gone on to higher things as movers and shakers without stain. The Nigerian public feels hurt about this.

As I see it, the chances that their cases would be heard and determined soon are slimmer than merely slim. We might as well drink kunu or beer and wait for Godot. Crooked lawyers and crooked judges conspire to keep these cases going on for ever for at least two good reasons. It is a source of good earning for them. And each change in the federal administration changes the architecture of the anti-corruption war and brings some relief to those who are on the right side of the political equation, as in the good books of the new administration. 

It should not be difficult for us to appreciate this simple fact: So long as the small thieves have their comeuppance in the courts and the big thieves laugh in our faces, so long would the Nigerian public have mixed feelings about the true objectives of the anti-corruption war. This war ought not to be a respecter of persons, wealth or positions. We are talking about crimes against the Nigerian state and the people. Our desire to live in a country in which our laws take away from individuals their assumed right to make themselves unlawfully wealthy and the rest of us poorer by their deeds is given a short shrift when the anti-graft war is crippled by corruption. Those who breach the law must be made to accept the consequences of breaking themselves against the law. That is what we, the people of Nigeria, expect.