It is a time of overflowing emotions about matters political in Nigeria. I understand and respect that people are entitled to their dispositions. But I also recognize that society desperately needs those few who through some other strength move to the level of reason or more rational consideration of the matters of public conscience to steer society through the gap between us and them to provide the steam that result in the long term greater good of all which the emotion of the moment can unthinkingly sacrifice in the loose -loose mindset that emotions often set. Even with a win-win mindset that a rational mindset can find times like we have require the public sphere is injected with a heathy dose of rational public conversation that is purposefully patriotic and visionary.

I have often thought around these lines which is the reason I typically avoid abusive and uncivil banter on Twitter. But the importance of thinking in this disposition did not grip me in the manner it has since I recently participated in the NBA SPIDEL conference on the Judiciary and the 2023 elections.

It was easy to reach the conclusion from speaker after speaker that many believe getting justice in Nigeria is almost impossible for the common man in Nigeria. From the perennial problem of access which makes the common man throw up his hands and say ‘ I leave it to God to deal with them’ to the intellectual angered that Judicial capture or Justice for sale was eroding the institutional cornerstone of human progress, the rule of law.

It struck me that even though it may be true that pour Judiciary is not what it was when Judges gave Military rulers bloody nose in discharging their duty to justice and that many politicians say go to Cory because many of them own the Judges or have people like Senator Balkachuwa interceding for them, abroad dismissal of the Judiciary by senior Lawyers alongside citizens pushes society closer to anarchy for without that hope that a good judge may be lurking in the corner the survival of the fittest becomes the order. That is how a country can travel the road to Somalia. So what to do?

In my view Patriots, thinking people and true citizens who can liberate themselves from the emotions of man’s most base parochial instinct which drives them to deepen the gap between us and them, have to identify the existential crisis in Judicial collapse or delegitimization of the Judiciary in the current Judiciary bashing, deserved as it may seem. All have the obligation to forge horizontal linkages to find pathways to saving one of modernity’s most important institutions, impartial and blind justice. Just talk will not do. Action that should yield impact is important here. And the time for it is now before Afghanistan embraces us.

Questioning justness of the Law is not new. It is even healthy in a manner of speaking. In 1850 the French Laissez-faire Thought Leader Frederic Bastiat wrote a much regarded small book, The Law. He exposed Law as an instrument the powerful use to define right and wrong relative to their interest. Oppressive as it’s essence may be it comes to be the basis of shared values and boundaries to conduct which then reduce uncertainty and makes it easier to risk investments that make for growth and development. 

The challenge therefore is that nation building makes making the Justice system better for all a constant work in progress. How shall we set hand to plough on this cause?

On my part I have already reached out to some stakeholders for the convoking of a colloquium in grave urgency. 

Elements of this conversation must include a way of celebrating judges of integrity, calling out Lawyers that corrupt judges, remunerating judges so well that only the very greedy are tented with corrupt gain, and denoting a serious multi stakeholder participating process for selecting judges. In this age of the Aristocracy of talent, as Adrian Wooldridge appropriately calls it. Our judges must be top talent and so remunerated. The judges must then be isolated from those who may seek to influence them, with institutional firewalls.

It is not enough that Budget allocation to the Judiciary be a first charge item it must be such neither of the other two arms of government can have much influence on judiciary finance administration. 

Add to this significant civil society Judiciary watch and an Ombudsman role beyond the Old boy league of the NJC and redemption way yet come to this foundational Institution.

When in Spring 1996 at a Hoover Institution event at Stanford I met Douglass North whose insights into how Institutions evolve was so profound it rightly earned him a Nobel Prize in Economics my big question was about the role of civil society and Associational life in how Institutions evolve. I am convinced from his response that he would agree with my placing much at the feet of Lawyers and the Nigerian Bar Association in the rescue mission on the Judiciary. I would particularly charge activism to the retired or retiring senior Lawyers.

Many years ago I made these same points at a conference of the Lagos Bar, encouraging some Lawyers to found LIFFE, Lawyers Interested In Free and Fair Elections. I am not now sure where the LFFE effort is.

Pat Utomi