On this day when over a billion cards are exchanged each year in a profuse show of love and affectation, and in some cases grand deception, I have elected not to send a card to anybody. But I have found a worthy lover, a reliable arbiter, a dependable conciliator in the Nigerian Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is my Valentine, my relish, my lover, my comforting fortress in whose bosom I have found succour in a season of siege. To the eminent Judges of the Supreme Court, the architects of my emotional nirvana and paradisal pleasure, I say Happy Valentine. It is sheer bliss to have you all there as superintendents of the nation’s judiciary which itself has over the years suffered the same blight and affliction that barb the soul of the nation.

In recent weeks, the Supreme Court has come under intense and malicious attacks. Even from otherwise knowledgeable personalities, the acrid broadsides poured in against the majesty and sanctity of the highest court in the land. The sin of the Supreme Court was that it validated the elections of the Governors of Delta, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Taraba and other states to the ‘chagrin’ of some politicians and their surrogates. In doing so, the Supreme Court dismissed the rulings of the election tribunals and appellate courts in most cases. This was against the tide of induced submissiveness and subservient surrender to the Potentate of this time.

The Potentate is in full effulgence; his power transcends the frontiers of the Rock, the scepter of his authority has tamed the opposition, cowed Congress and seared the very essence of a section of the Judiciary, particularly the Appeal Court. And disciples of the Potentate, having read and interpreted the body language of the power merchant, have gone to town to act his script. They praised the tribunals only when they were awarded victory; they held up the banner of the Appeal Court only when the pendulum of victory swung their way. To them, all is fair in the battlefield for as long as victory is achieved. To them, any tact and every strategy – crooked, aberrant or devious – is good in so far as it produces the anticipated result. To them, the end justifies the means and the prism has only one side, their own side. They beat the gong and dance to its raucous rhythm which only they understand.

But democracy thrives on the plurality of opinion; it blossoms in the canvass of multiplicity of ideas. No democracy is anchored on the opinion or caprice of one man, one deity, one infallible sovereign. All over the world, the democratic agora is populated by all manner of people and all shades of opinion. It is an ecosystem where the sheriffs and the serfs, the mandarins and the masses co-habit in spite of their differences and class distinctions.

And for daring the Potentate, courtiers from the King’s court took to the media to malign the Justices of the apex court. Unfortunately for this small crowd of Nigerians the Supreme Court is not peopled by persons who would submit to intimidation on the pages of newspapers. They are persons of peerless pedigree and proven history of integrity. They are persons who know that the Nigerian general elections including the Presidential election that produced President Muhammadu Buhari, were not perfect, no election in the world is, but they are well aware that such imperfections were not enough to vitiate the result as announced by the electoral umpire.

The likes of John Odigie Oyegun, the Chairman of APC, Professor Itse Sagay, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) and others who had cast aspersions at the Supreme Court for not meeting their expectation including those who even called on the President to investigate the apex court must realize that the Supreme Court does not exist at the behest of the President. The President cannot investigate the Supreme Court. If any person has a grouse about the Supreme Court Justices, they should channel their grievance through the National Judicial Council. Taking to the media to lynch and disparage the Supreme Court is in itself a grandiose show of impunity and contempt for decency.

When in 2000 the US Supreme Court ratified the election of George Bush against the backdrop of the ‘mystery’ vote count in Florida, the American people and the media particularly did not go about taunting Bush as beneficiary of a fraudulent mandate. Neither did the opposition resort to media terrorism to jab at the Bush administration or the US Supreme. Once the Supreme Court had ruled, the people took it as the decisive terminus of the democratic process. Nobody, not even the US media, till this day refers to Bush as product of a flawed process. This is the way democracies are built all over the world. Democracies are built on the pedestal of the rule of law, on separation of powers among the three arms of government, and not on the feelings or body language of one man.

In the Nigerian instance, people should allow the judiciary to do its work unencumbered and unmolested. Any case that cannot be proved in a court of law cannot be proved on the pages of newspapers. This ought to guide the politicians in their misguided wheedling of the judiciary. Presidents, politicians, ministers et al will come and go but the Supreme Court and indeed the judiciary will remain and will continue to wax bold. And we are talking about the Supreme Court, the final arbiter in the legal exertions of mortal men. Al Gore lost to Bush by virtue of the US Supreme Court judgment. Neither the Democrats nor Al Gore went about castigating the US Supreme Court or its Justices. They accepted the verdict of the Supreme Court as final and decisive. Nigerian politicians should realize that the Supreme Court is infallible because it is the final court. It is not final because it is infallible.

We are witnesses to the various interventions of the Supreme Court in the Nigerian polity, saving the nation from violence and bloodletting in some instances. It has brought sanity in moments of insanity and chaos; it has wrought stability to the polity and has consistently demonstrated that it cannot be railroaded to give judgment just to suit the caprice of a power deity. For standing for justice and maintaining the independence of the judiciary, I am using this medium on the special day to deliver a bouquet of flower to the Nigerian Supreme Court. Happy Valentine to the eminent Justices of the apex court!

Author; KEN UGBECHIE

Email: kenchioma@yahoo.com