“We had consistently made the same points to the opposition, but they kept giving their supporters false hopes and goading them in the wrong direction. Unfortunately for them, all the vituperations poured out against the judiciary actually cut no ice with it. Our Justices are always firm, courageous and cerebral. Kudos to them.
As noted earlier in this court diary series, it is left to be seen whether the Ariwo-ola-led Supreme Court will continue in the erroneous path of Tanko’s deviance from the norm or will restore time-honored practice of following seniority in the empaneling of seven justices for the Supreme Court appeal and in taking time to give a considered judgment instead of dismissal on the spot. Time will soon tell.
When he inaugurated a cohort of 72 new Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, on December 8, 2021, then Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Tanko Muhammad, reported that 33 or nearly five per cent of the 681 cases considered by the Nigerian Supreme Court during the year were “political cases”. This was rather a curious category to maintain or report on. Judicial doctrine ordinarily views political cases with reluctance. Nigerian law knows nothing of the sort.
The Nigerian judiciary is nowhere these days to expect justice. There is no doubt that there may be good men and women on the bench. But the Nigerian judiciary, once the shining armour of this nation, is now largely corrupt and incompetent; and, above all, it is brazen in both its cowardice and its impunity.
“We hope that the PEPT judgment will be carefully reviewed at the Supreme Court, and the apex court will be strong defenders of the Constitution and issue an objective and fair judgment, without bias or favour, based on the evidence presented before it.