Fire at the blacksmith’s…
Events on the Nigerian political scene since Friday evening reminded me of my outspoken grandmother Hajiya Allami, now late. She had gone to great lengths to hide her calabash full of millet from goats but when she sent Yar Rimawa to take it for milling, the young girl spilled the flour in the sand. Hajiya […]
Events on the Nigerian political scene since Friday evening reminded me of my outspoken grandmother Hajiya Allami, now late. She had gone to great lengths to hide her calabash full of millet from goats but when she sent Yar Rimawa to take it for milling, the young girl spilled the flour in the sand. Hajiya Allami sighed and said, “Fire was expected at the blacksmith’s shop, but here it is at the ginnery.”
Election year in Nigeria is always tense because it hardly comes along without trouble. This year, we were expecting fire from six likely sources, akin to a row of blacksmiths’ workshops that are brimming with fire, hot charcoal and molten iron. The first such workshop was party primaries. The combined acts of desperate aspirants, shenanigans of political parties, antics of godfathers, cash-and-carry attitude of party members, dubious role of security agents and muddling tactics of lawyers together ensured that the party primaries of late last year exceeded our expectations.
The second blacksmith’s workshop is the election campaign. Already, thugs are having a field day clashing in the streets, disrupting rallies, ripping up rivals’ posters and billboards and burning opponents’ campaign vehicles, as happened in Wukari. That is to be expected too. The third blacksmith’s workshop is the social media. These days the traditional news media are regarded as too tame. Their editors keep out abusive language, profanity, rumour and unsubstantiated allegations. Luckily, the social media has no editors so activists are free to unleash whatever they like in order to promote their candidate and tarnish his opponent’s reputation.
The fourth blacksmith’s workshop in Nigerian politics are the polling stations. Some 120,000 of them will open across the country on February 16 and on March 2; expect local party chieftains to employ do-or-die methods in order to deliver their wards to their parties. This is not necessarily done with the support or knowledge of the presidential candidates but a local party chieftain reckons that even if his party wins the election, he will be at a disadvantage in the subsequent scheming unless he delivers his ward, hence the do-or-die method.
The fifth blacksmith’s workshop is the counting centre. This is more important than the polling station because figures can be conjured up here, provided the cooperation of electoral officers, returning officers, security agents, party agents and all election observers is secured. And then the sixth blacksmith’s workshop where we normally expect trouble in Nigerian elections is at the election tribunals. Candidates and their opponents turn up here with thugs in tow. There is much pushing and shoving. As Alhaji Garba Dandiga once explained, this aspect of politics is very important because by the time the court case is over, the pushing and shoving has created enough bad blood between the two camps to prevent your supporters from decamping to the other side.
What however exploded on the national scene three days ago, a struggle to grab control of the Chief Justice’s chair, allegedly in the name of fighting corruption but actually in order to gain control over the numerous election tribunals, was a case of fire erupting at the ginnery instead of at the blacksmiths’. This is the first time in Nigeria’s history that a Chief Justice is removed in questionable legal circumstances, for that matter on the eve of elections. The last time a big federal judge was suspended was in 2011 when the National Judicial Council [NJC] asked President Jonathan to suspend Appeal Court President Ayo Salami. Before that, we must go all the way back to 1975 when General Murtala Mohammed retired Chief Justice Teslim Elias as part of his purge of the public service.
President Buhari said in his speech on Saturday morning while swearing-in Acting Chief Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed that the motive for speedily pursuing and ousting Justice Walter Onnoghen was because he did not declare some of his assets, including domiciliary bank accounts. Many Nigerians and the international community as well do not believe this is the real reason. For one, the political, diplomatic, legal, security and public relations cost of this action is so high that the Presidency wouldn’t embark on it just to punish non-declaration of assets, which in Nigerian terms is a small crime.
I say so because the Buhari Administration knows when to let sleeping dogs lie if the cost is too high. In its early days, the government went all-out for Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, who allegedly collected billions of naira from NIMASA during the Jonathan regime for a suspicious pipelines protection contract. The warlord’s “militants” immediately unleashed attacks on oil installations and we have not heard much about the case since 2017. The fact that there is no media or National Assembly pressure to conclude that case suggests many Nigerians think that trying to retrieve billions from Tompolo is not worth the drop in crude oil production.
We do not know for sure why the Buhari Administration badly wants to get Onnoghen out. Some people are alleging that the suspended CJN has PDP sympathies and could orchestrate a nullification of the presidential election when the case gets to the top court. Well, I can only make some observations here. One is that the Supreme Court has never annulled a presidential election in Nigeria, partly because the judges are keenly aware that it would precipitate a constitutional crisis which could spell doom for the democratic Republic. A top judge once said there must be Nigeria before there is law.
In 1992, I found myself in an animated discussion with the late Chief Justice Dahiru Musdapher at his Kaduna home. He was then an Appeal Court judge. Being young and brash at the time, I asked him if it was true that the Edo State Election Appeal Tribunal which he headed restored Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as Governor because the Babangida regime asked him to. He denied it, then said, “Mahmud, let me give you a piece of advice. Whenever you contest an election, make sure you are declared the winner and allow the other person to go to court. It is not easy for courts to annul an election.”
In the case of a presidential election, seven Supreme Court judges sit on the panel. I do not think the Chief Justice alone can determine the outcome. APC is however not the first party to think in this way. In 1979 when the Supreme Court upheld Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s election victory, UPN members alleged that Chief Justice Atanda Fatai-Williams schemed it that way, even though the court split 5-1-1. About ten days ago when President Buhari addressed his old Dodan Barracks staff, he implied that he lost three election suits in 2003, 2007 and 2011 because of corruption in the judiciary. He even said he rewarded a judge who delivered a minority ruling in his favour with ambassadorship to the United States. With all due respect, I advise the president not to say things like that again in the future. Not only will people resort to self-help if they believe that all court rulings are bought, but it also amounts to enticing judges to deliver rulings in a certain way in expectation of ambassadorial appointments.
This is not to say there is no corruption in the judiciary or in the election tribunals. In fact, a governor once told me that he spent more in litigation than he did in the campaign. I don’t think the money went to the lawyers alone. In the 1990s, the Court of Appeal, which appoints election tribunal members, decided to appoint only retired judges in order not to overburden serving judges. The experiment spectacularly failed because it received too many complaints of corruption. Since then it has reverted back to using serving judges, who have their careers to protect. In the last twenty years several judges have been punished for election-related corruption. For the first time however, the Chief Justice is being punished for anticipatory election related corruption.