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Politicians Weaponising, Corrupting Judiciary In Nigeria – Odinkalu, CSOs, Others Kick

Published

1 year ago

November 26, 2023

… Urge citizens to take action

Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, says the deteriorating integrity of Nigeria’s judiciary is driven by ‘politicization of Judicial appointments, lack of independence, amongst other issues.’

Prof. Odinkalu raised the concern during a radio town hall meeting on Public Sector Integrity in Nigeria, organized by the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development, PRIMORG, at the weekend in Abuja.

He said politicians have captured the Judiciary with the independence of the institution gone, stressing that Nigerians must understand that the judiciary has been politically weaponized and corrupted by elites.

The human rights activist insisted that the judiciary was no longer serving the purpose of the masses but politicians and their associates whose children, cronies, and mistresses were getting appointments to the Bench.

His words:” It is not suitable for the Chief Justice of Nigeria to appoint his nephew to the Court of Appeal and his son to the Federal High Court or for the President of the Court of Appeal to appoint her son-in-law to the Bench and her daughter appointed to Plateau State High Court where she comes from. We are looking for the same people to protect us, and something is fundamentally wrong with them and the masses.

“Everyone should understand that the judiciary has been captured, politically weaponized and corrupted.”

Asked if reforms can restore the deteriorating integrity of Nigeria’s judiciary, Odinkalu said:” There are no reforms that will work unless we (Nigerians) deepen the de-politicization of the judiciary. This is because they (politicians) have captured the administrative processes which should have been performed in disciplining the judiciary – the Chief Justice is the owner of that one.

“They’ve captured the politics. The judges and politicians use the executive arm of the government to unseat people they don’t like, putting the ones they like in power. They have also captured the legislative process. The legislators are afraid of the judges,” He stressed.

Prof Odinkalu called on Nigerians to understand the issues and realize their responsibilities, adding that citizens are not as disempowered as they think; hence, the onus is now on the people to go and get back the institution of justice that politicians and elites have captured.

Civil Society organizations and other participants during the town hall meeting spoke extensively on the administration of justice in Nigeria amidst a growing trust deficit.

Emmanuel Bosah, Programme Manager at Integrity Organisation, noted that a lot of political will is needed to cure the rot in the judiciary currently while calling for judicial reforms and citizens to be empowered with the knowledge to follow up and hold the system to account.

A public good advocate and Security and energy Consultant, Kevin Fyneface, called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, to come clean with appointments in the judiciary and work towards rebuilding the trust of the third arm of government. He lamented that Nigeria is deeply rooted in nepotism and cronyism, noting that “where cronyism thrives, you will find corruption as the order of the day.”

On his part, a public servant and 2020 Integrity icon, Philip Ezegbulam, advised his colleagues both at the federal and state levels to resist the temptation of corruption, while the Programme Manager of Accountability Lab Nigeria, Ehi Idakwo, urged Nigerians not to be docile but proactive to corruption issues of the nation.

“I think citizens are not angry enough. We need to be angry enough to take action. If everyone takes action in writing a letter, in coming out to the streets to protest, in calling their representatives to know details of what is due the citizens, those are the kinds of actions needed right now,” Ehi posited.

The PRIMORG’s Town Hall Meeting Against Corruption series is aimed at calling the public and government attention to specific issues of corruption in Nigeria.

The syndicated radio program runs with support from the MacArthur Foundation.

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ELECTING A POPE: THE BURDEN OF MAKING CHOICES

Published

2 hours ago

May 11, 2025

The Gleamer

By Olubunmi Mayaki

“Habemus papam!” which in the English Language means, “We have a Pope.” was pronounced by Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a French Catholic prelate, His Eminence, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti from the iconic loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City on Thursday 8 May 2025 after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Those Latin words proclaimed to a tensed global audience the result of the election of a new Supreme Pontiff after the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88 years.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) emerged as primus inter pares (first among equals) from the cardinals after undergoing detailed election rituals, which have been the process of selecting the head of the 2000-year-old Catholic Church for centuries.

A papal conclave, the process by which a new Pope is selected, was held consisting of one hundred and thirty-three (133) College of Cardinals, drawn from different parts of the world converged at St. Peter’s Basilica for a public mass before heading to the Sistine Chapel to cast their votes to elect the 267th Pope. During the mass, part of the choir renditions reminded voters to remember their last day when they would stand before God in judgment to render their stewardship on earth, which is to prevent them from rigging the voting process. At the behest of the senior cardinal deacon, voting formalities were read to the electors, which included- oath-taking- “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God”. Other processes are banning phones, jamming calls, forbidding speaking or contacting any of the candidates, voting rounds, spiritual pauses etc.

Looking at the voting process, one should be curious about how an election to pick a leader for a religious body could be so systematic and attract such global attention. It is a sharp contrast to elections where political leaders are chosen. Even in the so-called advanced democracies, we have seen electoral flaws and a dearth of political leaders. States are finding it difficult to pick genuine statesmen, giving rise to hegemonic leaders. These political imperia ums are emerging and stoking crises in their domain. Fallouts of elections are no longer favourable due to unpopular candidates forced on citizens.

Africa, as a case study, shows that no matter the rules put in place by the continent’s leaders, our election processes have been fraught with rigging, corruption and waste. In most cases, the leaders who set the rules are the violators of the same process. Governments conspire with electoral bodies to truncate election processes at will. Such political brigandage has destroyed the progress of the continent.

Closing this view, I hope that African leaders will take a cue from the Catholic Church’s election process to reinvigorate and rejig the continent’s faltering political process for the good of its people. Better still; political scholars from the continent can study the Catholic model. The common features of elections in most parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, are riddled with vote rigging, violence, human rights abuse, repression, barbarism, crises, untold hardship, and sometimes, outright war. This is the bane of Africa’s development.

The burden of making good political choices should ordinarily rest on citizens. However, politicians have hijacked this process for selfish reasons. It has given birth to bad leaders. If we fail to get it right, what we see is what we get. That is the story of the world politics!

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