The transparency and speed with which the United Kingdom court tried and convicted the former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, alongside his wife, Beatrice, and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, is a lesson for the Nigerian judiciary, which operates an administration of criminal justice system skewed towards protecting the high and mighty, and punishing the poor.

The swift conviction of the former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu; his wife, Beatrice and a medical doctor, Obinna Obeta, by a United Kingdom court, less than one year after they were arrested in London for attempting to harvest a human organ has exposed the mischief of the Nigerian judiciary in the administration of criminal justice system.

On June 2022 Ekweremadu and his wife, alongside the doctor were arrested by the UK Metropolitan Police for attempting to convince doctors at the Royal Free Hospital to perform an £80,000 transplant on a 21-year-old street trader, David Nwamini, who was presented as the cousin of Ekweremadu’s daughter, Sonia. Despite their social status, Ekweremadu and his wife were promptly remanded in custody after they were arraigned and denied bail by Uxbridge Magistrate Court, which adjourned the matter till July 7, 2022, for hearing.

Barely eleven months later, the court sentenced the former Deputy Senate President to a total of nine years and eight months imprisonment, while his wife, Beatrice, was sentenced to four years and six months imprisonment. The third accomplice, a medical doctor, Obeta, was jailed for 10 years.

Their earlier conviction in March 2023 was the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act in the UK.

The court heard that the young man was said to have been offered an illegal reward of £7,000 to become a donor for Sonia after a kidney disease forced her to drop out of a Master’s degree in Film at Newcastle University.

Ekweremadu had denied offering money to the prospective kidney donor to save his sick daughter. His wife also denied involvement in the search for an organ donor for their ailing daughter.

The sentencing came after pleas from multiple prominent personalities and institutions, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The transparency, smoothness and speed with which the UK authorities conducted the trial showed the effectiveness of their administration of the criminal justice system. In convicting Ekweremadu, Justice Johnson did not consider how high his status was in Nigeria.

Not even the intervention of eminent persons and groups could save him.

To many Nigerians, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt in the conviction of the embattled deputy senate president, his wife and Obeta. In their views, the same offence for which they were convicted in the UK is a regular occurrence in Nigeria.

They said that if the same offence was committed in Nigeria, not only would the trial drag at snail speed for 10 years or more until Nigerians forget about it, there is a possibility that nothing would have happened to them.

In Nigeria, when suspects, especially the rich and mighty are arrested and arraigned, not only will the case drag on for years until it is forgotten in courts, but it would be struck out for lack of diligent prosecution which is deliberately caused by compromised prosecutors.

What it takes for the rich and powerful to evade justice in Nigeria is to hire good senior lawyers who know how to use ‘smart’ arguments and objections to deliberately waste the time of the courts and frustrate the judges.

Some of these senior lawyers are also notorious for bribing corrupt judges to circumvent justice.

Though there is no dearth of laws in the country, what many believe are also lacking are diligent prosecution and the political will to move against the powerful and influential people who contravene the law.

While in most developed countries, the high and mighty are prosecuted and appropriately convicted and sentenced to prison, the same cannot be said of Nigeria where the rich and famous frequently compromise the law enforcement officers and the judiciary to evade arrest, prosecution and conviction.

Though Ekweremadu and his wife were denied bail in the UK, influential people like them who commit more heinous crimes in Nigeria, including murder, manslaughter and those who stole public funds, or commit other financial crimes are granted bail and allowed to walk the streets freely when they are supposed to be behind bars.

Many Nigerians are aware that it was in order to enhance the justice sector delivery system to impact the quality of justice and avoid delays in the adjudicatory process in the country that the Administration of Criminal Justice Act was signed into law in 2015.

But eight years after, there has not been any improvement in the country’s criminal justice system, especially when the rich is involved.

While the poor languish in prison without trial for minor offences, the rich who commit grievous crimes were either given a slap on the wrist or granted bail to enjoy their freedom.

It is only Nigeria that the court will put the rich behind bars, and a superior court will grant him bail or acquit him totally.

This is why many feel that if Ekweremadu’s case had taken place in the country, the case would have remained in court indefinitely, without any conviction of the accused persons.

This calls to question the faulty administration of criminal justice system in Nigeria by dubious law enforcement officers, corrupt senior lawyers and compromised judges.

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana had since identified this flaw, when he raised the alarm that Nigeria operates a double criminal justice system – one for the rich and one for the poor.

In a paper titled: ‘The Danger of Unequal Criminal Justice System in Nigeria,’ which he presented recently at the Law Week of the Epe Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Lagos, Falana argued that apart from two former governors namely, Messrs Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and Jolly Nyame of Taraba State, the list of persons convicted for corruption was made of lowly placed individuals in the society, adding that owing to abuse of court process, rich defendants have continued to frustrate their prosecution with the connivance of some senior lawyers.

According to Falana, “By virtue of section 17 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law.

“But in practice, the rich and poor defendants are not treated equally by Nigerian courts. Apart from the fact that rich litigants have the means to hire the services of the best lawyers in any area of the law, the courts are manned by judges who are not neutral in the class struggle being waged daily by the Nigerian people.”

The world will continue to mock the Nigerian judiciary and their compromised judgments until judges start delivering, fair, just and transparent judgments speedily and treat all Nigerians equally, irrespective of class.

When Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the 29^th of May 2023 he will have his work cut out for him: not only will he be inheriting a morally and financially bankrupt nation questions will, continually, be asked about his checkered past and his ability to run the country.

How old is he really? What are his true educational qualifications? Does he really have dual-nationality? What’s the true source of his mega-wealth? Also, questions will be asked about whether he’s medically-fit to run the country and the continual questions about his alleged drug smuggling/peddling convictions in the United States about three decades ago.

He may not have been everybody’s best choice for the job but he allegedly won the election fair and square, something that has already been confirmed by INEC and congratulatory messages have been pouring in from World Leaders across the globe. If you elect even a goat to be your President the intentional community will respect that as your choice as being the best you have to offer.

Nigeria is in shambles and despite the efforts of his predecessor, and fellow APC compatriot, Mohammadu Buhari, who was in power from 2015, things are still going downhill with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel. Are we going to see the emergence of a ‘Super-Hero’ Tinubu who’s going to come in guns blazing tackling corruption, cronyism, insecurity and consigning all the nations woes to the dustbin or is he just going to engage himself with doing ‘Naija-politics’ – turning a blind eye to all that’s going on, pardon all his corrupt mates while he sits out his term – like his predecessor.

The nation is fed up of leaders giving excuses for their incompetence. Recently Femi Adeshina, defending his boss, claimed Buhari was “..not aware of promises made to Nigerians by support groups in 2015..”. A good excuse to cover up incompetence but when you send out your supporters to canvas for votes don’t they read and have a copy of the [agreed] party manifesto? They could have easily have sent out Basketmouth or Mr Macaroni to tell a few jokes if they couldn’t tell the truth!

President Tinubu is in whether anybody likes it or not and everybody will be watching what he gets up to. I don’t want to sound like a Prophet of Doom here but APC winning a third consecutive Presidential term is pushing the country in the direction of being a one-party state: PDP is in trouble leadership-wise and unless they can bring in a suitable candidate to rival Atiku Abubakar they are dead in the water. Peter Obi’s Labour Party movement still has a long way to go to break the APC/PDP domination. And this is not good for development since the same party manifesto will just be re-cycled over and over again. To dispel the notion of the country turning into a one-party state is he (Tinubu) going to sack all current Buhari-appointed ministers and political appointees and appoint fresh new ones or is he just going to re-cycle the old and re-appoint them?

Then there is the question of his health. Being the leader of a nation, anywhere in the world, is a 24/7/365 job and it can take its toll even on the fittest of men (- and women). Tinubu’s true state of health has always been a subject of debate and he hasn’t come clean about it. During his tenure as President, Buhari was notoriously famous for going AWOL, on numerous occasions, on medical-check-up trips to the UK that King Charles, jokingly, once asked him if he had a house in London. Will incoming President Tinubu, a known perennial health-check-up tourist in the London medical circles, also be running the country from the UK? And will he be flying to the UK frequently in his own private jet or the Presidential jet?

The there is the question of him ‘going-youth’. The Youths of Nigeria, predominantly the under-35s, have always been excluded from the affairs of state almost as if they don’t exist. How is he going to connect with them in an effort to make his tenure more ‘youth-friendly’? At the end of the day its their future nation he will be managing. All these old Babas seem to forget that one day they’ll pass and the young people [ they are ignoring today] will inherit the mess they have left behind.

And about his checkered past? Well, we all tell the odd fib or white-lie or two (-or few!) from time to time, so now he’s going to be President perhaps he’ll tell us all as it is before we read about it in his unauthorized biography!

Follow me on Twitter: @Archangel641 or visit http://www.archangel641.blogspot.co.uk

Last Saturday, I attended the Ph.D. graduation of a treasured mentee of mine by the name of Abdulbasit Kassim at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His graduation ceremony would have been another mundane academic ritual to celebrate the crowning accomplishment of a doctoral study, except that Dr. Kassim’s life story and his PhD journey are anything but mundane.

As a third-year doctoral student, for example, he published a well-received book on Boko Haram with Oxford University Press, which was a finalist for the African Studies Association’s Paul Hair Prize. That’s not a usual academic feat for a doctoral student anywhere in the world. It was a testament to his contagious passion for and commitment to intellectual discovery. 

Dr. Kassim’s Ph.D. journey isn’t remarkable just because he wrote a book and won prestigious awards, grants, and predoctoral fellowships in the course of his study but also because he survived life-threatening health scares and mishaps with grace and equanimity. 

In the course of his study, he was burdened with unanticipated threats to his life that saw him constantly in the hospital and caused him to suspend his study for a year. I had paralyzing anxieties about him. But he survived and then thrived both because of his own overpowering will to live and the support of multiple people at Rice University and the Nigerian community he cultivated in Houston.

Again, during his fieldwork in Nigeria, his laptop and prized scans of rare ancient manuscripts were stolen, which set him back by another year. He sounded transparently broken and defeated when he called me after his return from Nigeria. But he soldiered on and conquered. His formidable emotional stamina in the face of immobilizing strokes of ill fortune has to count among his most prized personal traits.

It’s impossible to know Dr. Kassim and not take a liking to him—unless, of course, you’re a psychopath or a sociopath. He is an expansive social magnet who radiates irresistible warmth, amiability, good cheer, and civility wherever he is. He is compulsively polite and unfailingly respectful to everyone he meets, and this is reflected in the wide and diverse network of friends and acquaintances he has. 

Several of the people who rallied support for him in his moment of distress showed up at his graduation. I was particularly pleased to meet a gracious and complaisant Nigerian family in Houston that adopted him as their son and who organized a post-graduation get-together in his honor in their home to which I was invited.

Dr. Kassim was born in 1989 to a Hausa father from Kumbotso, Kano State, and a Yoruba mother from Lagos. He embodies a fascinating ethnic and cultural duality that is nonetheless sutured by the common Islamic faith of his parents.

But, as you would expect, Nigeria’s identity politics sometimes puts him in the uncomfortable position of navigating and negotiating identitarian landmines.  In Lagos, his maternal relatives describe him and his siblings as “omo Gambari” or “omo aboki” [Hausa children], and he has recollections of his paternal relatives in Kano referring to him and his siblings as “'ya'yan Bayarbiya” [children of the Yoruba woman] each time they visited their hometown. He speaks both Hausa and Yoruba with native proficiency, but his Hausa has recognizable Yoruba inflections because his inchoate years were spent in Lagos.

He attended secondary school in Minna and university at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria where he earned a degree in International Studies at the top of his class and connected more deeply with the culture of his paternal ancestry. 

But the route to his immersion in northern Nigerian culture wasn’t without a few little prickly thorns. For example, after his secondary education at the Federal Government College, Minna, he purchased the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form to take the university entrance exam to ABU. The form has a provision for a middle name, which he never had. But because he thought the middle name was a requirement, he put Oluwatobi (which translates as “God is great”), the name his mother gave him, but which hasn’t appeared in any of his credentials.

He applied to study law at ABU and, although he had one of the highest UTME scores in the applicant pool, his middle name raised red flags about his identity among admission officers. They wondered what Kano indigene would have a Yoruba middle name, and suspected that he was claiming to be from Kano to game the system, which frankly isn’t unusual. 

Unfortunately, his father died when he was only 12. The responsibility to defend him and vouch for his paternal Kano ancestral bona fides rested with his father’s younger brother who came from Kano to Zaria to meet with ABU’s law lecturers. His uncle’s intervention helped authenticate his identity, but it was too late to salvage his admission. He was traumatized by the experience, but his spirit wasn’t broken. 

His uncle enrolled him for a diploma in library science the year he lost his chance to study law. The following year, he retook the university entrance exam, earned high scores, and got accepted into ABU’s International Studies program from where he graduated as the best student in 2011. His stellar performance became the basis for him to win the competitive Commonwealth Scholarship Award to study for an MA in Politics and International Studies at Keele University in England in 2012.

Dr. Kassim’s experiences navigating the contours of his dual identity recall W.E.B. Dubois’ notion of “double consciousness.” In The Souls of Black Folk, Dubois describes “double consciousness” as the “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.” Although Dubois deployed the term to encapsulate “the strange meaning of being black” in the United States at the turn of the century, it’s a useful concept to help unpack the strange sensation of embodying often conflictual northern and southern identities in today’s Nigeria. 

But it also has its good sides. For people like Dr. Kassim, being pan-Nigerian isn’t an option; it’s the only option.

I first got acquainted with him in 2015 when he sent me a cold email introducing himself and requesting that I read and give him feedback on a peer-reviewed journal article he had published in Politics, Religion and Ideology titled "Defining and Understanding the Religious Philosophy of Jihadi-Salafism and the Ideology of Boko Haram."

It was a thoughtful, insightful, and well-researched article that emerged from the work he did as a master’s student in England, which got published in his first year of doctoral studies. It signaled to me that this would be a successful graduate student and scholar. I was right.

Email communications soon graduated to phone calls and then to physical visits. He felt comfortable enough with me that when he came to Atlanta to renew his Nigerian passport he stayed in my home. Now he is like a member of my family.  He introduced me to his affable and deeply religious mother whom I look forward to meeting someday when I travel to Nigeria. My children fondly call him Uncle Abdulbasit, and my wife is so fond of him that since 2019 she kept telling me that I must attend his graduation come rain or shine. 

I told him that even if he didn’t invite me for his graduation, I would have attended it because there was a standing uxorial command that I dare not disobey. 

We have transcended mentor-mentee relationship and now have what feels like a familial relationship. As much as I am a mentor, confidant, and a sounding board for him, he also nudges me to complete tasks I’m dragging my feet on. I pointed this out in the acknowledgements of my 2020 book. I wrote: “I would also like to thank Abdulbasit Kassim, doctoral candidate at Rice University and a valued mentee of mine, whose persistent but gentle nudges pushed me to complete this book. Each time he called me, he never failed to ask about the progress I made in writing the manuscript of this book. His unceasing inquiries about my progress became one of the biggest prods for the completion of this book.”

Dr. Kassim is one young man who shows tremendous promise to extend the boundaries of knowledge and further greater understanding between Nigeria’s North and South. Join me to congratulate him.

Last week we officially entered into the new Carolean era, yes that is what the reign of King Charles III will be called, the past Carolean eras were those of King Charles I and King Charles II. The first King Charles (like his father, James I) thought, as King, he was above law and parliament but parliament and law thought otherwise and the King was tried for treason and executed in 1649.

The second King Charles III fared a lot better that first one and I am more than very hopeful, I am even confident the new King of our own Carolean age will not only respect parliament and law, he will also be a very modern King albeit with a root firmly planted in best of his and Britain’s past. Yes, your guess is right, I am not a full-blown republican, no need to hide it, I am a royalist, even a monarchist.

The coronation of the new king was certainly the most important show in town last week, by town I mean the world. Media analysts have observed that all the countries of the world, including Russia, Iran and Syria whose leaders were not invited, except for North Korea covered or at least mentioned the event. The Russian media focused more on the protests and views of the republicans who are against the coronation.

The first lessons to learn from the Carolean age is how to put on a state event and through it, send a message to the world. King Charles III’s coronation was a deliberate pompous display of poetry of colours, garment and hymns and speeches delivered with class, grace and depth. None of the activities were improvised or amended during the ceremony. It was designed to show the essence and best of the British monarchy.

Let us remind ourselves that the British Monarchy is an important symbol of Britain’s greatness and splendour. With the throne, Britain is able to claim its role as the oldest living and most relevant kingdom.

With so much social revolution going in the world and drama affecting individual members of the royal family, the monarchy has been shaken and tested many times.

Those who manage the crown have however been able to keep its magic and practical use. The throne of England continues to be the repository of what is best in the land.

It not only helps to conserve culture; it also serves as symbol of unity and measure of standard. The monarchy is also an important tool of diplomacy and economics. Palaces and souvenirs still bring in millions of dollars into the coffers of Britain.

Aviation and tourism analysts are predicting a surge in travel to and interest in the UK thanks to the coronation.

The event was also an open classroom as it gave many another opportunity to rediscover the history, geography and culture of Britain.

The coronation has been carefully planned to reiterate and showcase the magic and usefulness of the monarchy. Though the main events were in London, each part of the country from every village to town and county had something they are doing for the coronation.

From the choir events in churches and town halls, to the special meals in pubs and market display, everyone was involved one way or the other. A king was been coronated in London but it was England that was celebrating and affirming its centrality, greatness and relevance.

Those managing monarchies and other state affairs from across the world can certainly learn more than a few lessons.

Outside the coronation, but still in London, another event took place last week from which we can learn a thing or two.

It was in the court of law where the case of the Nigerian Senator Ike Ekeweremadu, his wife Beatrice and doctor were tried. The proceedings and judgement of that case have valuable lessons for all from those in the bar to those on the bench to teachers of law to those covering legal and stories as well as we the people. On a personal note, when I heard about the Ekeweremadu case, my first reaction was to pray that “may our resolve and joy not be tested through the pain and need of our children”. I am sure that even the most reckless or principled parent will be able to relate with such prayer.

In his conduct of the case and delivery of judgement, Justice Jeremy Johnson, the judge that presided at the old bailey, did more than deliver a sentence, he gave the world some very useful and missed lessons on law and justice. He logically and in very clear, simple and convincing terms established the principles and purpose of the laws at stake, he demonstrated the laws that were violated and how they were violated. He showed that he fully understood the mitigating and aggravating factors in the conduct of the defendants and the many interventions on their behalf, he demonstrated with proof that he carefully considered the positions of the defence counsel and those of the of prosecutors. Weighing thesis and antithesis, he showed for all to see that he was not outrightly against the defence counsel by explaining and justifying where he disagreed with their positions, he also demonstrated his independence of the crown counsel by explaining and justifying where he disagreed with their positions.

In his conclusions and judgement, Justice Jeremy Johnson was very deliberate in showing the whole world that he was applying the law to serve justice.

The judge at the old bailey was very careful not to let law and justice be hindered or corrupted by technicalities or peculiarities, he made sure that there was no delay or postponement that could be avoided.

It is worth noting here that Justice Jeremy Johnson did all these and more in the full glare of the camera whilst maintaining and even enhancing his own dignity, that of the court and of the law.

Some are arguing that televising some court cases might hinder the course of justice and law but in the new Carolean age, Justice Jeremy Johnson has shown us that transparency serves law and legitimises justice.

Join me if you can @anthonykila to continue these conversations.

*Prof Anthony Kila is Institute Director at CIAPS. www.ciaps.org. and a regular contributor to The Frontier.

I got word that my elderly friend, His Excellency Mohammed Ould Salek, the Minister-Adviser on Diplomatic Affairs to President Brahim Ghali of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, better known as Western Sahara, was in Nigeria. He was the Special Envoy sent by the Saharawi President on April 28, 2023 to bid farewell to President Muhamadu Buhari as he ends his tenure on May 29, 2023.

This gesture is quite understandable because when SADR was struggling against re-colonisation by the Moroccan monarchy, Nigeria, led by then General Buhari, gave it recognition in 1984. Nigeria was satisfied that Western Sahara under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 of December 14, 1960 on Decolonisation, had a right to statehood. Again, Nigeria backed the decision of the Organisation of African Unity (Now the African Union) to admit Western Sahara as a member.

The bold diplomatic and conscientious stand by that regime, which had Professor Ibrahim Gambari as Foreign Minister, has since then informed Nigeria’s unambiguous position on the independence of Western Sahara.

Indeed the situation of the Saharawi is one of the most terrible cases of crimes against humanity, and perhaps, the worst refugee crises in history. After the 1975 Moroccan military attacks on the civilian populace, many Saharawi took refuge in the Tindouf Province of Algeria. They and their offspring have been forced to remain in those five Algerian refugee camps for the past 48 years while Morocco occupies their ancestral homes!

The United Nations-backed referendum which was to allow the Saharawi determine whether to be an autonomous state or part of Morocco, has been stalled for decades by the latter.

Also, Morocco has over the last few years sought to maintain its illegal occupation of parts of Western Sahara by offering grants to susceptible African countries, and using the natural resources of Western Sahara, such as fisheries and phosphate, as bait.

For instance, it is giving stolen phosphate and fertilizer from Western Sahara to a top industralist in Nigeria and allowing the European Union to illegally feast on Saharawi fisheries.

I first met Minister Salek in June 2019 when he accompanied President Ghali to a reception held by the Dipo Fashina-led Nigerian Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara. We knocked it off as if we had been old friends. We met again in 2021 when he updated me on the situation in his country.

This morning of Sunday, April 30, 2023, our meeting was as usual cordial. But this time, he had gotten a goat slain for me and the sight of the table he had gotten prepared, was intimidating. I told him I was intimidated and, more so, I should actually be his host. He laughed heartily and said: “We herders, when we have a very important visitor, we kill a goat, ram or camel.” I told him that a decade and half ago, when I visited Western Sahara, I ate camel meat for two weeks. He laughed and said, we had not met then, but that I must return, and this time, stay in his house. I told him if he could intimidate me with so much food right here in Abuja, then I was afraid what would happen if I visited Western Sahara.

Our conversations on the state of the Moroccan occupation of his country began with his showing a photograph of himself and Syrian President Bashir Assad being circulating on internet allegedly by Morocco. He said the photograph was taken before the Syrian War, but was being circulated as a recent one. The Saharawi envoy said the intention was part of Morocco’s campaign to stop the re-admission of Syria into the Arab League and Gulf States.

I asked him about the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline which passes through Western Sahara. He said his country has asked that the project be stopped to allow the consent and involvement of his country.

Minister Salek said despite Morocco looting the resources of Western Sahara and creating the illusion of a buoyant economy, the country is actually sinking. In his analysis, Morocco’s primary problem is that its wealth is in the hands of 10 families who are mismanaging and looting it. He informed that in order to keep afloat, Morocco on April 3, 2023, took a $5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, IMF; the fifth such loan in ten tears. He said the state of the ordinary Moroccan is so bad that many are taking to the sea in a desperate bid to get to Europe leading to many of them drowning.

The Saharawi Minister said the Moroccan economy would face more shocks as the free money from EU countries carrying out illegal fishing in Western Sahara waters, will stop from July 17. He said the EU Court had in September 2021, nullified the EU-Morocco Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement, SFPA, on the grounds that fishing cannot be carried out in Western Sahara waters without the consent of its people. He said that at a March 20, 2023 meeting of the 27 EU Member States’ Ministers for Fisheries, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland had pleaded for an extension of the agreement in violation of the EU Court decision, but that most members refused.

Minister Salek assured me that the renewed military conflict against Moroccan occupation which began in 2020 is going well: “The war is causing a lot of casualties for Morocco, but Morocco has introduced new weapons, drones and we need to find a solution to these drones as soon as possible. If after the first 16 years war they could not conquer us, they will not now.”

He said the issue is not Morocco or any power it has, but like were the cases of the Apartheid regimes in Namibia and South Africa: “It is the backing it is getting from Europe and America. They are saying Russia cannot change its borders with Ukraine; how can they then claim Morocco can change its borders with Western Sahara?”

The Minister said the issue of Western Sahara is one of decolonisation adding: “You cannot occupy Nigeria or Benin and say, I grant you autonomy. Western Sahara was never part of Morocco; we were always sovereign. That was also the ruling of the International Court of Justice, IJC, in October 1975.”

He said the monarchy is deliberately keeping the Moroccan military which had two attempted coups against his father, busy, by throwing it against Western Sahara: “Morocco that has no funds to buy food to feed its hungry populace, but is buying arms.”

Minister Salek informed that the BRICS meeting in Cape Town said the issue of Western Sahara must be resolved: “There is a new reality in the international field; that is why we need Nigeria to play its role.”

We have entered a busy season of hearing election petitions, and their Lordships will be busy, too. A lot of work lies ahead. This is not surprising because politicians are generally desperate people who want to win elections at all costs. The general elections involve contests at different levels; state houses of assembly, governorship, house of representatives, senate and the presidency. This process excludes the off-season elections.

It is the same desperation that caused the subversion of democracy in Adamawa state as I argued in an earlier article. The resident electoral commissioner (REC), Hudu Yunusa-Ari, who had no business announcing the result of the supplementary gubernatorial poll went ahead to illegally declare Senator Aishat Binani Dahiru of the All Progressives Congress as the winner.

Thankfully, the Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) intervened quickly and restored normalcy.

Although Yunusa-Ari was eventually arrested and granted bail, he was not remorseful. He reportedly said that he did nothing wrong. Can you believe that? This egregious culture of impunity – it spreads like cancer – without consequences is one of our biggest headaches and it threatens our humanity. Hopefully, he will face the full wrath of the law.

The joke was on Senator Binani because she gave an acceptance speech and went to court, seeking judicial review in an attempt to stop INEC from voiding her illegal declaration as the “winner” of the election.

Isn’t that what is called abuse of court process? That was exactly what Senator Binani did. A senator is supposed to make laws but she turned herself into a law-breaker.

With 18 registered political parties, all manner of persons have been posing as politicians and wasting our time; some of them picked their party’s nomination forms just to try their luck or use it as leverage to negotiate for positions. In the absence of internal democracy, parties conduct parallel primaries. In the end, it is the courts they turn to for the rightful winners and eligible candidates.

Some frivolous cases that should not have been filed in the first place are given hearing dates because the litigants are encouraged by their lawyers who always believe there’s a chance to win on technical grounds. Of course, the lawyers are handsomely paid by their clients.

The recent general election was the 7th cycle since 1999. In spite of the challenges that we face, I believe we are making progress. I agree with those who say the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is a game-changer.

The deployment of BVAS nationwide by INEC during the last general elections was successful and one of its key benefits is that it prevents over-voting. BVAS can state correctly the number of accredited voters in a polling unit.

INEC has been called all sorts of names and accused of bias because the expectations of some politicians were not met. This is laughable. Our elections always end up as controversial events despite the best efforts of the electoral umpire. However, this is not to say we cannot improve.

When politicians win, it means the process was free and fair; but when they lose, the election was rigged. We are used to these tales by moonlight. I call it “sheer hypocrisy”.

Isn’t it obvious that the problems with our elections are instigated by politicians and not INEC? Who are those who recruit thugs to snatch ballot boxes? What of vote-buying? Who are the merchants of electoral violence? Unfortunately, security agencies are also compromised and usually look the other way when electoral fraud is perpetrated.

There are also cases of collusion and bad behaviour by some rogue INEC officials. In such cases, the law should take its course with consequences where applicable. Even if we conduct the elections 100 times or inaugurate another brand new INEC, it is not a guarantee that there will be no irregularities.

This is why we have numerous election petitions across the country. But it is unfair to subject their Lordships to unnecessary media trials. It is a disgusting campaign that undermines the integrity of the bench.

With the lorry-load of petitions that are suffocating the courtrooms, it is obvious that many other criminal and civil cases will be on hold. The wheel of justice will grind to a halt – albeit, temporarily – for some people.

I have seen several public affairs commentators – including lawyers – using the media, especially television, to say our justice system cannot be trusted. Some analysts pontificate and blow hot air on TV because they want their views and positions – on behalf of their clients – to be the law.

How can a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) tell the whole world on national television that he has no confidence in our judiciary? Is it because his preferred candidate did not win an election? We cannot pretend that such allegations are normal and sweep them under the carpet.

Politicians and their lawyers carry on as if our elections must be a do-or-die affair due to their selfish interests but I am happy to tell them the truth: Nigeria will move on without them. There can only be one winner in an election.

The idea that all election petitions should be concluded before May 29 also animated conversations on TV and social media. Although this idea is brilliant, it is an example of the media trial of their Lordships.

The right thing to do is to amend the constitution instead of deploying arm-twisting tactics as some SANs are doing. If Kenya did it, some commentators suggested, Nigeria can also do it but they forget or pretend not to know that the enabling laws are not the same.

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP, is a veteran of this game and I admire his commitment and tenacity but like a true democrat, he should have stayed with one party or built a new party from the ground up.

The Waziri Adamawa is 76 years old. He has contested in six presidential elections and lost all of them. How does he find the staying power? He polled 6,984,520 votes in February to come second but he believes he won the election even after INEC has declared Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC as the winner and president-elect.

I understand how Atiku feels. He is pained and disappointed. To win, Atiku needs the right strategy and nuanced thinking. He cannot be doing the same thing in every election cycle and expect a different result. The former VP says he will reclaim his “stolen” mandate; he has to prove it in court. He has filed his petition asking the tribunal to review the process of the election and declare him the winner.

Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), is also saying he won the presidential election. He wants to reclaim the same mandate. Fair enough, but how many presidential mandates do we have? He filed his petition to challenge the outcome of the poll at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja.

But we should not muddle the waters because there can only be one president at a time. If both Atiku and Obi are claiming victory, which one of them is the “rightful owner” of the mandate, assuming there was a stolen mandate in the first place? Obi came third in the election with 6,101,533 votes.

When Obi became the governor of Anambra state under the banner of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) from March to November 2006; February to May 2007 and June 2007 to March 2014, how did he do it? More than once, he got his reprieve and court judgement in his favour.

Last Tuesday, the supreme court affirmed Ademola Adeleke as the governor of Osun state by upholding the decision of the appeal court in Abuja which had earlier affirmed Adeleke’s victory on March 24, 2023. His rival was Adegboyega Oyetola of the APC whom he defeated in the gubernatorial poll on July 16, 2022.

Adams Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo state (November 11, 2008 – November 11, 2016), also reclaimed his mandate by using the courts when he ousted Prof Oserheimen Osunbor who was governor for 18 months (May 29 1999 – November 11, 2008).

Cases can be won and lost in the courts and we must understand that their Lordships are interested in the evidence and merit of each case before them. There is no room for morality or emotions or the fulmination of dejected losers in law.

Atiku and Obi must prove their cases beyond a reasonable doubt. Indeed, the verdict of the Justices of the Supreme Court in the Adeleke vs Oyetola case is instructive going forward as it relates to all election petitions before them.

If Obi, Adeleke and Oshiomhole could win their cases in the past, what is different this time?

Since INEC declared Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu president-elect, the commentators aforementioned, their associates and clients have taken to media outlets to cast aspersions on their Lordships. They even want to teach them new skills in law and ethos unknown to our jurisprudence.

Those who say they no longer have confidence in our justice system should tell us what is biting them. Atiku wants the hearings to be broadcast live on national television. Peter Obi shares the same sentiments. Understandably, there’s so much at stake with a presidential election but the impression being created is that their Lordships have something to hide and only a live telecast can expose their hidden agenda.

I hope Atiku and Obi are ready to pick up the bills because TV networks will charge for their services. It would be unfair to use taxpayers’ money for this purpose. In his previous petitions, would the PDP presidential candidate say our justice system treated him unfairly?

Some sections of the media are canvassing Atiku and Obi’s positions. Are they saying that if there’s no live telecast, justice would not be properly served? I just want to understand their logic – the logic that makes sense.

Throughout Governor Adeleke’s court hearings up to when the Supreme Court delivered its judgement, no TV station covered any proceeding live but a verdict was announced all the same based on the letters and spirit of the law. The logic of their Lordships in the case was sound, and they marshalled their arguments point by point based on available evidence.

Adegboyega Oyetola couldn’t prove his case. The Supreme Court is the temple of justice and final arbiter. It was the end of the road for Oyetola.

These protagonists of fair, open and transparent hearing should actually request that the global TV networks come to Abuja and cover the proceedings. This arrangement should give them enough comfort. Live TV coverage will not change the colour of the meat in the sandwich and without the unnecessary media hype, their Lordships will still carry out their jobs – without fear or favour.

If Atiku and Obi do not have confidence in our judiciary, they should not have filed their petitions. The campaign of calumny, intimidation and blackmail against their Lordships must stop.

The other matter that has also shown the desperation of some commentators, lawyers, politicians and their fans is the status of Abuja as a requirement for winning the presidential election. Again, some sections of the media have been hyping this narrative as if the rest of us did not go to school.

This hollow argument suggests that Abuja has veto power over all the other states. How is that possible? All states are equal before the law. Indeed, how can FCT with 1.5 million voters have veto power over the rest of the country with over 90 million registered voters? Does it even make sense? It means Abuja has a special status that comes with juicy privileges for its residents that the rest of the country can only cringe for.

A highly respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) flew this kite as soon as INEC declared Bola Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election. Even as a layman, to suggest that a presidential candidate needs 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is both a fallacy and a misnomer.

To the best of my knowledge, all ballots cast and recorded anywhere in Nigeria are equal. Mind you, we do not have an electoral college which is operational in America where we borrowed the expensive presidential system of government from.

To be declared the winner of a presidential election, the constitution says the candidate would have polled 25% of the total votes cast in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the FCT. If the candidate has 25% in 24 or more states, FCT will no longer count. The candidate must also have the highest number of votes.

But the arguments by the so-called analysts and legal experts is that if a candidate gets 25% of the votes cast in 24, 25, 30 or even 36 states, 25% in FCT is still required to be declared the winner.

I disagree but let us await the verdict of the Supreme Court.

My understanding is that FCT will only count if the candidate scores 25% of the votes in 23 states in which case, 25% of the votes cast in the FCT will become necessary to win. In that instance, FCT will count and have the status of a state – the 37th state.

“You don’t expect your judges to live in squalor, to operate in squalor and dispense justice in squalor. This is part of the changes that are necessary. We must fight corruption but we must definitely look at the other side of the coin. If you don’t want your judges to be corrupt, you got to pay attention to their welfare. You don’t want them to operate in hazardous conditions,” - ’President-Elect’ Bola Ahmed Tinubu

It was nothing short of audacious of Tinubu to choose, without being prodded, to speak to corruption and judiciary in Nigeria the way he did at Port Harcourt, the other day. Rightly or wrongly, if an opinion poll is conducted on who is the most corrupt public official in Nigeria today, there is all likelihood that Tinubu will carry the day.

If another poll is conducted on who has had the most corrupt influence on the Nigerian judiciary today, the odds are he will similarly rank higher than any other Nigerian. With this personality profile, you can now understand my attribution of audacity to anyone of his specification pontificating on the subject matter of corruption and judiciary in Nigeria.

Implicit in the observation of Tinubu is the shared conviction that the judiciary is rotten and that the reason they are predisposed this way comes down to economic vulnerability. He is of the belief that their remuneration is not commensurate with the gravity of the role assigned to them by the constitution. Since nature abhors vacuum, into the gap that separates remuneration from the magnitude of their role enters corruption. Beyond the judiciary, the thesis of this subversive vulnerability is generalisable across the public service.

Exactly the same argument can for, instance, be made for the Nigerian police and allied security institutions and agencies. This is why Nigerian law and security officers are incriminated in sundry crimes and devastation of the entire security architecture they are sworn to protect and deploy to serve the common good.
In a baffling display of state capture, we were treated to the novelty of the institutional collusion of the police, department of state security, dss and the military with the Nigerian electoral agency, INEC and the ruling political party, All Progressives Congress, APC, to literally steal the 2023 general elections. This was followed with the institutional implication of the judiciary in which the dispossessed is dared to “go to court” where the crime is perfected with the imprimatur of a compromised bench.

If we were to believe the fabled prowess of Tinubu as political godfather and Mr fix it, then his proposition at Port Harcourt was somewhat a Freudian slip. In the prevailing fourth republic, he has been credited with the feat of procuring several governorship seats through the instrumentality of a suborned judiciary. The most conspicuous of which were the Justice Ayo Salami serial interventions. The Times of London* was the most disrespectful in characterising him as “a wealthy kleptocratic ‘godfather’ of politics”.

There is however a utilitarian perspective to his Port Harcourt declaration. First, he is bringing, perhaps, the biggest sociopolitical challenge of Nigeria, corruption, to the front burner as a priority area of his potential presidency. He is doing so, coincidentally, at a time, the Nigerian judiciary is facing the make or mar integrity test of a lifetime; to determine the fate of an alleged mastermind in the institutional subversion of the judiciary.
In the crusade against the Nigeria-wide free fall in corruption, he has the choice of serving the utility of “it takes a thief to catch another thief”. In this imagined transformation of Tinubu from Saul to Paul, he will turn out the opposite of his predecessor who spectacularly turned out a bad cop against his mythical good cop reputation.

Now to the theory. In my estimation, the preeminent theory of corruption in Nigeria, was the one formulated by Professor Peter Ekeh of illustrious memory. He postulated that “Corruption arises directly from the amorality of the civic public(the government) and the legitimation of the need to seize largesse from the civic public in order to benefit the primordial public (Ethnic and kinship affiliations).
He argued that there are two forms of corruption that are associated with the dialectics. The first is embezzlement of funds from the civic public, from the government, to be more specific. The second is the solicitation and acceptance of bribes from individuals seeking services provided by the civic public by those who administer these services”.
“Both carry little moral sanction and may well receive great moral approbation from members of one’s primordial public. But contrariwise, these forms of corruption are completely absent in the primordial public. Strange is the Nigerian who demands bribes from individuals or who engages in embezzlement in the performance of his duties to his primordial public. On the other hand, he may risk serious sanctions from members of his own primordial public if he seeks to extend the honesty and integrity with which he performs his duties in the primordial public to his duties in the civic public by employing universalistic criteria of impartiality”.

Wraith notes that, ‘while the local government authorities, with their civic structure, have ‘a sad record of muddle, corruption and strife’, the ‘ethnic unions are handling sums of money comparable to those of many local authorities; and are spending it constructively and honestly. Wraith rightly emphasises, ‘To put your fingers in the till of the local authority will not unduly burden your conscience, and people may well think you are a smart fellow and envy you your opportunities. To steal the funds of the union would offend the public conscience and ostracise you from society’

Allied to Ekeh is the concept of autochthony, (autochthony is defined as the quality of belonging to or being connected with a certain place or region by virtue of birth or origin inclusive of linguistic and cultural homogeneity) and the sociological notion of state-society discontinuity. It proceeds from the premise that corruption is rooted in state-society discontinuity and there is a positive correlation between this discontinuity and sociopolitical dysfunction.
The more the discontinuity, the more the dysfunction. This is typically the case with post colonial African states and Nigeria is a good illustration of the phenomenon. Nigeria does not organically evolve from a prior Nigerian society; the Nigerian state/nationality is not coterminous with a preceding Nigerian society.

Prior to Nigeria, what we had were Yoruba, urhobo, Igbo, Kanuri, Tiv, Hausa, Fulani societies. Nigeria was solely a creation of British colonialism into which these disparate societies were forcibly incorporated. In the path to Nigerian freedom, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, drew the contrast that we do not have Nigerians in the same manner as we have Germans, French, English corresponding to Germany, France and England. Arising from this formulation, the policy prescription here is the ‘need for an autochthonous transformation of the state in Africa’

Autochthony is when Nigerian political leaders and intellectuals advocate that ethno linguistic commonalities should constitute the basis for drawing the map of states/regions within Nigeria. It was this logic of autochthonous transformation that informed the recommendation of regional federalism for Nigeria (which resulted in the constitutional birth of Western, Eastern and Northern region at independence in 1960).

Let us now look at the applicability of Ekeh’s theory to the charmed political career of Tinubu.There is nothing to contest in the observation that the Nigerian presidency has become the fountain of corruption in Nigeria. As we learned from the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, it has played out in the personality cult appropriation of the Nigerian state, and an unprecedented primitive accumulation of resources. Some, with reason, have described the Nigerian presidency as the most powerful (read limitless and unaccountable power) in the world. This resonates with the quip of Lord Acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Such tendency towards absolute corruption in Nigeria is reinforced by the resource curse syndrome in which you do not need to work and be productive in order to acquire wealth.”The big idea
behind the ‘resource curse’ is that mineral and fuel abundance in less developed countries (LDCs) tends to generate high levels of corruption, ineffective governance and greater political violence”.
Since the proclamation (in the early 70s) by General Yakubu Gowon, that money was not Nigeria’s problem but how to spend it, corruption had taken a cue and soared like the meteor. The need to ameliorate the destabilising zero sum dimensions of Nigerian politics, has necessitated the adoption of presidential power rotation otherwise known as Turn by Turn Nigeria limited.

Thus the default perception of the Nigerian presidency has become how much public wealth the incumbent can confiscate and acquire for himself, his kith and kin inclusive of ethno regional confederates and nationwide political allies-and do so with impunity. Following Peter Ekeh, this is the oblique inherent errand, Tinubu voters especially the Yoruba faction are sending him to accomplish.
It has been long in coming but this is the new normal in Nigeria.
Who cares if he is El Chapo, Pablo Escober, Donald Trump, Omar Bongo, all rolled into one? Who cares about the usurpation of the zoning principle and the degeneration of Nigeria’s power politics into the cesspit of dogs eat dogs?. As I have iterated, no Yoruba can claim to support Tinubu on the grounds of any fine principle, idealism, altruism or patriotism.

And as if the moral problematic of a Tinubu presidency is not enough, the two frontrunners for the Senate president position are Godswill Akpabio and Orji Uzor Kalu. In a subsisting petition before the economic and financial crimes commission, efcc, it is alleged that “the cumulative aggregate of these monies stolen by Godswill Akpabio from the coffers of government as pocket money is the annual budget of some states in Nigeria put together”.
That of Kalu is more egregious “the trial court found him guilty in December 2019 and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
But in one of a series of questionable judgements given by the Supreme Court, his jail time was nullified on technical grounds: that the judge who jailed him was ineligible to handle the trial having been elevated to the Court of Appeal’s bench as of the time he concluded the case”.

Faithful to his philosophy and ideology 

If there is a leader who has remained faithful to his philosophy and ideology and is not swayed by time and chance, it is Pa Rueben Fasoranti.

Baba's life is a great example to all. He has enjoyed constant celebration for all with, arguably, no controversy to his name despite many feathers to his cap. His humility and commitment to truth are unwavering.

I also know that Baba has a good standing with God in his Anglican faith. He still observes the prayer routine and takes holy communion every time. He is committed to the things of the Lord and always contributes his part to its development.

Baba is not a leader who never looks back to get feedback from his followers. Even at his age, besides that he is still concerned about the impact of his action on his followers, he is up to date about what they do at every point in time.

There is nothing I do that he doesn't know and will always take the opportunity of the time he sees you to ask about you and what you are up to and offers advice as appropriate. An example of this was the last time he saw me in the church. Everything about him speaks leadership.

Baba, you have reached a great milestone in life and you have deployed the four corners of your territory to make life much easier through your leadership. You are a visionary leader and a true inspiration.

I celebrate you today as I wish you continued peace in your soul.

Happy 97th birthday, Sir.