Two giants walk away, what Nigeria must learn from Uwais and Aminu
There are men whose lives demand more than silence when they pass. Justice Mohammed Uwais and Professor Jibril Aminu were two such men distinct in their callings, united in their quiet dignity, and now, side by side in memory. Justice Mohammed Uwais did not shout, yet his voice reverberated through the chambers of Nigerian democracy. […]
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There are men whose lives demand more than silence when they pass. Justice Mohammed Uwais and Professor Jibril Aminu were two such men distinct in their callings, united in their quiet dignity, and now, side by side in memory. Justice Mohammed Uwais did not shout, yet his voice reverberated through the chambers of Nigerian democracy. I remember the solemn image of Justice Uwais at the presentation of the Electoral Reform Report, speaking with the weight of someone who had seen the soul of Nigeria’s politics and knew its sickness. He did not wag fingers or raise his voice. Instead, he offered the report like a surgeon showing an X-ray to a patient in denial. But instead of following the prescription, the nation turned away and reached for a placebo.
As Chief Justice of Nigeria, he served with a rare blend of intellect and restraint. But it was his post-retirement labour chairing the Electoral Reform Committee in 2007 that defined him as not just a judge of law but a judge of conscience. That report, now famous and famously ignored, still sits on the shelf like an unopened gift. The report is perhaps Nigeria’s most coherent blueprint for democratic rebirth. He saw what most pretend not to see. That a nation cannot keep changing players while the game itself is rigged.
He warned us that if the electoral umpire remains tethered to the presidency, impartiality is only theoretical. He proposed true independence for INEC, electoral courts, internal democracy within parties, ideas so practical, they scared the system. Successive governments have praised the man but buried his work. President Tinubu, a man who once paraded himself as a disciple of democratic reform, has so far preferred expanding his party’s empire to implementing enduring change.
In a more self-aware country, the Uwais Report would be a national compass. Imagine if its recommendations had been adopted. If INEC truly stood apart from the presidency, if internal party elections weren’t coronations in disguise, if election petitions were resolved before inaugurations. We might have had fewer post-election crises, less voter apathy, and more trust in our institutions. Instead, we recycle disappointment every four years and call it democracy. Here, it is a forgotten manuscript collecting dust in the shadows of realpolitik. Justice Uwais has now gone the way of all men. And so we ask. How long will we keep building tombs for prophets and ignoring their prophecy?
Beside him in this week’s solemn roll call stands Professor Jibril Aminu, 85, a physician, diplomat, and technocrat who wore many caps without losing his identity. As Minister of Education, he saw education as a tool for national cohesion not just exam scores and certificates. As Minister of Petroleum, he navigated the complexities of oil with the caution of a surgeon. Later, in diplomacy and the Senate, he became an emblem of intellectual presence in spaces increasingly allergic to deep thinking.
But Aminu, too, battled the inertia of a system where excellence is often a threat. He once remarked that Nigeria treats its best minds like ornaments praised but never used. His frustration was no secret. He believed in institutions, but watched them hollowed out by transactional politics. He championed education, but witnessed its commercialisation. He trusted policy, but often stood alone in rooms where politics drowned reason. In their twilight years, both men remained calm, almost prophetic. It is as though they had seen enough to know that Nigeria rarely listens until it is too late. Their deaths are not just the closing of lives, they are a test of national memory.
We often weep at funerals but forget at dawn. But we cannot afford amnesia this time. If we forget the work of Uwais, we forfeit fair elections. If we forget the standards of Aminu, we surrender academia and governance to mediocrity. They were not flawless no one who walks Nigeria’s thorny corridors of power escapes without bruises. But they were steady, thoughtful, principled. And in a country addicted to applause and allergic to reflection, they were dignified silences, reminders that grace and gravity can still exist in public life.
A country is not measured only by the men it buries, but by what it does with the wisdom they leave behind. If legacies are not lived, they are merely eulogised, and eulogies alone have never built nations. Let us mourn them, yes. But more importantly, let us honor them by fighting for the ideals they lived for. Clean elections, quality education, principled leadership, and institutions that serve the people, not the powerful. Anything less would be betrayal dressed in tribute.
#ABetterNigeriaIsPossible
Shaakaa can be reached via [email protected]