The Judiciary was on trial recently, precisely on Tuesday, July 25. The case was that of the Department of State Services vs Godwin Emefiele, suspended Governor of Central Bank (CBN), who in my opinion, is being unjustly treated. But it turned out that it was not Emefiele who was on trial, though he was the one docked. It was actually the Nigeria judiciary that was on the crucifix at the mercy of the DSS.

Call it drama. Call it a horror movie. Call it a crime scene. They all fit. On a closer scrutiny, it was more like street urchins (Area Boys) brawling on a court premises. No offence if you mistook the scuffle to be between ill-bred hoodlums brawling over who would ferry wares of a merchant in a typical Nigerian market; or some tipsy motor park touts scuffling with equally inebriated motor park drivers over the sharing of the day’s proceeds of extortion.

As I watched the footage of the spar from the premises of the Federal High Court, Lagos, I had to pinch myself to be sure it was not some kind of dream, a momentary escape into the surreal world. But, hell, it was real and true. A smash and grab fighting bout had broken out right on the hallowed premises of the Temple of Justice. A vicious fistfight more life-threatening than Vincent McMahon’s mortal passion, the famous World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

Here’s the synopsis. Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court, Lagos, had granted bail to Emefiele with an unambiguous ruling that he be remanded in the custody of Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS). It was a simple straightforward ruling delivered in lucid language. But the DSS has other ideas, not minding the sanctity of the pronouncement of the judge of a court of competent jurisdiction on a matter. The DSS operatives, obviously acting on superior orders from above, spurned the court’s order. They re-arrested Emefiele after hounding, pounding and over-aweing officials of the NCoS. And what a scene from hell it was as men who ought to uphold the sanctity of the law and evince the finest tenets of the rule of law were seen shoving, pushing, hitting and toting guns on a court premises. The very sight of hooded DSS operatives bearing sophisticated fatal contraptions called guns at the doorway of the Temple of Justice is an unseemly affront on both the judiciary and democracy. At the end, the gun had its way over justice.

A profound and enduring dictum that set the tone for the reforms in modern legal practice is: “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall” (in Latin: Fiat justitia ruat caelum). This has over the ages come to define the essence of the legal practice, judgments and all the concomitant procedures of jurisprudence. It lends itself to the reality that justice is what matters at the end irrespective of the consequences of such justice or the emotions of the persons involved. In plain language, justice must override judgment, at all times. In the instant case, justice was abused by judgment. The court had taken the path of justice by granting Emefiele bail and handing him over to the appropriate authority, in this case, the NCoS, but the DSS operatives had a particular unwritten judgment in their head: Get Emefiele back into their custody. They had their way.

Ever since, lawyers; senior, intermediate and junior; had been punting at the DSS, describing their actions as barbaric, disgraceful and shameful. They are right. The action of the DSS operatives was as disgraceful as it was damaging to the reputation of Nigeria. It advertises Nigeria as a lawless nation populated by lawless law enforcers under the nose of an equally lawless and renegade national leadership. Otherwise, for such act of brigandage, the leadership of the DSS would have been sent packing, investigated and prosecuted. An affront on the judiciary, an arm of government, is an affront on democracy.

 I recall a similar incident in August, 2018 when Professor Yemi Osinbajo was acting President at a time President Buhari travelled to London on a ‘short leave’. Osinbajo showed that he can lead. He sacked the Director-General of DSS, Lawal Daura, after masked personnel from the DSS barricaded the National Assembly, preventing lawmakers, staff and journalists from accessing the complex. It was a rage against democracy and Osinbajo swiftly took action that restored sanity. He fired Lawal Daura, a kinsman of President Buhari. Heaven did not fall; instead, democracy was strengthened.

Today, it’s the same DSS on rampage like junkyard dogs. Except that their victim, this time, is not the Legislature, but the Judiciary. And I hear some Nigerians muttering serves them right. They say let no one shed a tear for the judiciary. These Nigerians argue, rightly or wrongly, that the judiciary is a victim of its own cunning craftiness, its own deceit. They argue that the judiciary should not pretend to have suddenly become a friend of the people when in reality, it has been anti-people. In one of the elite WhatsApp groups where we fertilise ideas and exhale our individual and collective angst against the system, some have chronicled the ‘sins’ of the judiciary and reasons why they deserve no pity from Nigerians.

Just a few of them. On June 10, 1993, an FCT High Court Judge, Justice Bassey Ikpeme, in a curious and strange midnight judgment, ordered the then National Electoral Commission (NEC) not to conduct June 12, 1993 election. Her judgment was based on the prayers of Chief Arthur Nzeribe, founder and leader of the infamous Association for Better Nigeria (ABN). Pronto, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and other individuals, in a rare case of forum-shopping, got High Courts in Ibadan, Lagos and Benin to order NEC to proceed with the election. Notwithstanding that Ibrahim Babangida’s Decree 13 of 1993 states that No Court can stop the election, Justice Ikpeme’s anti-people judgment carried the day. It was on the premise of this judgment that another Judiciary champion, Justice Dahiru Saleh, then Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja ordered NEC to halt the release of the election results on the grounds that the election ought not to have been held in the first place. This was what gave Babangida the impetus to announce the annulment of an election considered the freest and fairest in the nation’s history. The Judiciary aided this ‘coup.’

The crude removal from office of former CJN Walter Onnoghen by Buhari also had the silhouette of senior judicial officers providing cover for such Executive lawlessness. All too often the Supreme Court has made judicial somersaults on certain cases, leaving even lawyers hiding their faces in shame. In a sense, the judiciary invited odium and disrespect to itself such that spurning court orders raises no eyebrow any more. Such pathetic tragedy. This only happens when an institution in full consciousness chooses to work against the people. This might just be why some Nigerians are indifferent to the DSS treatment of a court order. The people no longer see the judiciary as their last hope. This should be food for thought for the National Judicial Council.