Mass ignorance of the masses

“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance” – Plato When a learned mind listens to the opinions of lay men in matters relating to the decisions of the court as it affects our politicians, then one will be able to understand the magnitude of the ignorance of Nigerian citizens when it comes to law […]

“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance” – Plato

When a learned mind listens to the opinions of lay men in matters relating to the decisions of the court as it affects our politicians, then one will be able to understand the magnitude of the ignorance of Nigerian citizens when it comes to law related issues. First off, majority of Nigeria’s citizens get their knowledge about court events as it affects politicians through the media (television, newspapers, radio, and now Facebook), and reports from these media are mostly covered by non-lawyers so they are misinterpreted and misunderstood by lay men.

The Supreme Court, as it is, has hit the spotlight this year because of many of its decisions – from the presidential election petition, to overturning the verdict of two governors declared winners by INEC, and then the move to make the Supreme Court reverse its own decisions. As a lawyer, one may be able to see between the lines, understand the ratio decidendi of the judgments, understand that the court is not final because it is infallible, it is infallible because it is final, these are basic knowledge of law that law students at the university will understand.

But then the number of lawyers in the country cannot be measured against the number of laymen. This creates a problem where propaganda can be used to easily get to the minds of the masses and get them talking on issues they know little or nothing about. Sadly, the Nigerian politicians have understood this concept and that’s why anytime a judgment is passed, they find one way or the other to discredit the judgment of the court.

Only recently, a house reported to belong to Justice Mary Odili was attacked because some hoodlums believed that she was solely responsible for the sacking of David Lyon as governor-elect of Bayelsa State barely 24 hours to his inauguration. Now these ignorant masses are not aware that Justice Mary Odili is just the presiding justice in charge of that appeal, and if majority of the justices on the panel give a dissenting judgment from hers, the dissenting judgment would have been the overriding decision of the Supreme Court.

This is just one in many situations where Nigerians have decided to discuss law from an ignorant stand point, and Nigerians being who we are, have refused to accept that we do not fully comprehend the workings of the law in the Nigerian legal system. Rather, we go about basking in the ignorance and believing that our opinions are what transpired in the legal system.

At this juncture, it is imperative for me to state that while the media tries its best to report matters and decisions of the various courts in Nigeria to the understanding of the masses, they ought to reduce the mass ignorance of the masses by using only legal reporters to report incidents that are law related. The Nigerian lay man is yet to understand his/her own fundamental human rights as enshrined in the constitution, how much more understanding decisions of the court as it affects others.

The ignorance of the masses is portraying the judiciary in a mockery light. Listen to conversations amongst laymen when it comes to court decisions reported by the media, and see how misled most Nigerians are on the issue relating to the judiciary. Information, it is said, is power and when the wrong information is in the hands of millions of Nigerians pertaining the judiciary and its workings, then imagine the danger such power in the wrong hands portends for the development of our society as it affects the Nigerian legal system.

The cure to ignorance is the search for knowledge, and if the source of such knowledge lacks the quality to cure the ignorance, then the ignorance will become an acquaintance. In my humble opinion, the media can help inform and educate the masses by reporting law related issues adequately with the help of learned minds. It might not be the case to use lawyers to report law events in advanced countries, we need to create a unique and peculiar way of curing the mass ignorance of masses in Nigeria.

Godspeed

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