On July 11, 2012 when Justice Alooma Maryam Mukhtar successfully passed the Senate screening process, she made a pre-inaugural pledge to fight corruption which has become endemic in the judiciary.
She said”Corruption is in every system of our society and I can’t pretend that it is not in the Judiciary. What I intend to do to curb this is to lead by example and hope that others will follow.”
Well spoken, my Lord; but then, beware; corruption will fight you.
If you are in doubt, could you ask the former executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, how corruption fought him and dethroned him from his exalted position as the nation’s anti-graft czar.
Ribadu almost lost his life when centrifugal forces combined to remove him as the EFCC chairman, especially when he moved against some powerful friends of the then President Umaru Yar’Adua, including the now convicted former Delta State Governor, Mr. James Onanefe Ibori.
Ibori was set free by the Nigerian judiciary, but the British lower magistrate court convicted and sent him to jail in the United Kingdom for alleged economic crimes against the Nigerian state.
If Justice Mukhtar consults Ribadu, she would be told how some powerful members of the oil cabal stole over N1.7trn from the subsidy scheme alone. My Lord will learn from Ribadu that in a corruption-infested environment that we operate in, when you try to be revolutionary and distinctive by trying to influence the system positively, corrupt powerful elite will team up against you.
Does this then mean that my Lord, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, should not fight the hydra-headed monster? My answer is in the negative because if corruption is not fundamentally fought and defeated from the temple of Justice in Nigeria, then the lesser mortals – the citizens – will no longer trust the judiciary but will resort to self-help and violence as the way out whenever their rights are abused.
The new Chief Justice of Nigeria should fight corruption and build a strong institutional framework to expose, punish and shame corrupt judicial officers and judges so that our collective trust in the nation’s judiciary can be restored.
Justice Mukhtar should learn from President Barack Obama of the United States of America who, at inauguration, made a solemn pledge to bring health care to the poorest of the poor and followed through with his revolutionary Medicare called Obama Care, even when the opposition Republicans went as far as the Supreme Court to seek to upturn it. They failed in a resounding manner.
At his inauguration on Tuesday January 20, 2009, Obama pledged, “That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some and also as a result of our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.
“Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”
Obama stated further thus, “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that, for far too long, have strangled our politics.”
Like President Obama, the new Chief Justice of Nigeria should be resolute in her crusade against corruption and ensure that other members of the nation’s judiciary learn from her good example and examples of great minds like that of Justice Augustine Aniagolu, who jailed his would-be bribe giver; and such other icons like Justice Mustapha Akanbi who fought corruption in and out of office.
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