Judiciary major problem of Nigeria’s democracy – Wenenda Wali

Wenenda Wali, is the National Leader of Unity House Foundation (UHF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that encourages progressive and development based politics and focuses on peace and good governance advocacy, mentorship and human capacity building, and a member of the Board of Education Champions League (ECL), an initiative designed to promote educational growth and revive the declining culture of reading among the young generation.

In this interview, Wali, examines Nigeria’s 25 years of uninterrupted democracy. He observes that the judiciary has been the major problem of the country’s democracy.

Excerpts:

As a Nigerian who has witnessed activities in the country right from May 29, 1999, when the current democratic dispensation was enthroned, how would you assess Nigeria’s 25 years of uninterrupted democracy?

It’s a great deal, any which way you want to look at it. And the biggest takeaway is the full realization that Rome was not built in a day. Even though some say Rome too was not destroyed in a day. So if you look at it contextually, you’ll ask if we are we making progress? But you see, one way of measuring the progress is to begin to dimension the conversation around your question, 25 years of uninterrupted democratic rule. Yeah, some will powerfully argue that it is not 25 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, but 25 years of uninterrupted civil rule. It makes more sense.

Why do you say so?

Because if you look at the tenets of democracy as espoused by the West, there is the tendency for us to always want to interpret democracy within the context of how the West sees it. So, we are going to have to use the Western type of democracy as a yardstick for defining or if you like dimensioning the conversation. For example, democracy they say is the rule of the people, by the people and for the people. And nobody would honestly say that what we have had in Nigeria since 1999 is a government that is by the people. So it’s more of the government of civilians away from military rule with all the negatives of military rule. Some would argue very strongly too that no matter how bad the civilian rule is, it is better than any military rule.

Do you agree with that?

Yes, I kind of agree with that because you have conversations and people can make their views known and you have an idea of what the people are saying, where they stand on issues and they are not too scared to air their opinions. Some benevolent ruler will consider a bit of that. Take a practical example, the current administration in Nigeria under the leadership of President Ahmed Tinubu. In the last one year, they have had to reverse their decisions because they felt it was not popular. They may have a plan B to go through the back door to introduce those same things. But one thing is central. They have listened, they have heard that the people are not on the same page with them and they reversed the decision. The military people don’t really care about such things. Once they take the decision, you either accept it or you just keep quiet. If you don’t, you will just be made to appear before a military panel for coup plotting. Because that was the judgement for anybody who disagreed with the position of the military.

On that note, I would want to say that we have made progress in terms of conversations around governance. People are speaking and to a very decent extent their voices are being heard. So we would say that it is not a bad experience so far. But it can get a lot better than where it is now.

Can it be said that the country is completely purged of military tendencies after 25 years of unbroken democracy?

What has happened is that even as we are away from military rule, there is the tendency of people being uncomfortable with the other political opinions, if you like call it the other point of view. So it is difficult to ignore the fact that some people are suffering from the hangover of military rule. But in all I would say that we have not done terribly badly. But there’s still a lot of room for improvement. The encouragement should be that in the last 25 years we have seen that despite the shortcomings of civilian rule, it is still better than the command and control type of the jackboot juntas who would come and then just take decisions. You could say Nigeria is still suffering from the several years of military rule. Even the civilians are thinking in a military way. A president feels that when he says stop, it must be obeyed by all. A governor has the same tendency. Even the local government chairman. They all have this military instinct. And it is not their fault because this is what we are used to. You know for those who are in their forties, fifties and sixties, they never knew anything that you call democracy. So it would take time, take a while for us to be able to completely get out of this military mentality. The command and control mentality. But like I said earlier on, are we better in terms of accommodating alternative views, I would say yes. Is governance better? In some areas.

The biggest challenge which I think this country has, this is my personal opinion which many people probably would not share with me. But that is my opinion. That every other aspect of our governance system is making progress apart from the judiciary. Judiciary is the one that is acting in an anachronistic way. They are still way back and pulling the country back.

How do you mean?

I’m shocked you are asking me this question because anybody who is in this country will know that. Just like Peter Obi said in a recent public lecture that the problem with the Nigerian democracy is not INEC but the judiciary. All the contradictory judicial pronouncements, all the issues of judges taking positions on issues they should ordinarily not be involved in. Every Nigerian now knows the word competent jurisdiction. Courts are acting like courts of appeal on matters that have been pronounced on by courts of same jurisdiction. And these things are going on and on and on. And nobody in the judicial circle is really, really worried about these things. So I think, because I don’t see what anybody is doing to correct what is happening. Don’t forget, and I say that every time. Every society has people that have a predisposition to disobeying the laws of the land. Or, acting in one way or the other that is not in the interest of the community. So there is no society in this world where everybody wants to act like a saint or everybody acts saintly. But you see in other societies where people want to commit one form of malfeasance or the other, they are worried because they know that there will be consequences if they are caught.

So if you take that as it trickles down to what is happening in this country. Judicial officers make pronouncements because they know that nothing will happen. Nobody has been punished for it. Somehow they get around it and they just move on. All of the tension we have in our society today, trace them. Some validation has been given by judicial officers. I give you an example. A court gives an interim order based on an application that was made by people who are obviously on the face of the document before him, are not in the position to make those applications and he granted the order. The case of Kano State APC. We are in a situation where we no longer know if you can have a governor as the head of executive, then you have one legislator as the legislature. Because if you have a situation where everybody in an assembly resigns leaving one person, does the law allow that one person to carry on as the legislative arm of government in that state? Does the law allow people to sit down one day and say we are no longer members of this party that sponsored us into this particular office? Does it allow you to collect the mandate of another political party and go to stand on another mandate? These are the issues. The fact is that at all times you see judicial officers validating those positions even when on the face of it they are very contradictory. So, are these parts of the issues that we would say that we will celebrate as a democracy? If indeed we are practising democracy as you and I would wish, I do not think and believe that the kind of things that are happening in this country would be happening now. Because these things don’t rhyme and don’t meet the expectations of other democratic practice.

So basically for you the judiciary has not helped the growth of democracy in Nigeria?

Saying that it has not helped, you might not be very right. Rather, I would say that the judiciary is destroying the democratic process in Nigeria. To say they have not helped is taking it lightly.

There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is blessed with natural and human resources. I mean, God Almighty has given Nigeria everything to be one of the greatest countries of the world. Why are we still very much far away from where we should be despite the fact that we have practiced democracy for an uninterrupted period of 25 years?

Did you hear a senator go on public television to say that they are corrupt? They steal because they will need to share with their constituents and that is the only guarantee for them to come back. What that legislator is saying is legitimizing the Robin Hood Principle, steal and then spread part of it and everybody is cool. So it is not me defining democracy now. It is even those who are practising it, the principal practitioners of democracy – the legislators, the executive members of the government. Those are the people who are saying incredulous and incredible things. So they are justifying what I am saying that if it was a democracy that we are actually practising, such a person will no longer be in the Senate.

Having agreed that we are clearly not where we should be, what would you identify as the major factors responsible for Nigeria’s backwardness amidst abundance of resources? Some have attributed it to corruption, mismanagement and bad leadership. In your own view, what are the things responsible for our drawback?

I have said it before and I am not ready to shift from it. It is the judiciary. The judiciary is our problem.

So you don’t see corruption in the executive as a setback?

It is still the judiciary! If people are punished for stealing, corruption will be minimized in the executive arm. If people are punished for stealing, corruption will be minimized in the legislative arm, same thing in the judiciary. People are doing stuff and getting away with it. One of the fundamental things around being a judge or being a judicial officers, is that a social life is completely cut off from you. Because you are removed from the space where your process can be corrupted by sentiment or association. Now what am I saying, a situation where you have judicial officers who believe that they will grow in the system and be protected by patronising or rendezvousing with people in politics.

Do you remember sometime ago some humongous amount of money was found in both the accounts and the houses of very senior judicial officers and some of them had the temerity to say it was money they were getting from their private business – a judicial officer involved in the business of selling rice and beans? Now tell me if there won’t be a conflict between the law and his beans or rice customers or suppliers or the people who buy from him. If they are brought before him in court, what happens? So I insist that every society has a system that needs to be checked by having consequences for wrongdoing and having it enforced. Recently in the US, Scottie Scheffler, the number one golf player in the world was involved in a situation where, you know normal traffic control, there was an accident scene and then he made to avoid it, I think he had an encounter, an altercation with the police officers. They immediately brought him and handcuffed him and locked him up. It can’t happen in Nigeria. Where is that judge or that magistrate that would remand that guy or even the policeman that will remand that guy in police custody for that thing he has done? I’m not saying that the police was right or wrong. I’m just saying that the possibility that he was wrong. If he was wrong he won’t do it again. Because he knows that the last time he did it there was a consequence.

Do you know the national chairman of a political party was seen on video converting his agbada to a warehouse or vault? But it was not an issue even after he left office. This gentleman is on record to have been involved in something that is alleged to be an act of corruption. That matter has not been cleared. But he is the national chairman of a political party. And you expecting that system to be just to all? What moral justification will he have to superintend over an issue of corruption within the party. So at the end of the day he may have had good intentions, but his actions were not good enough. But you see, it will be done again and again and again because the last time he did it nothing happened, instead he was promoted.

Don’t forget that a federal high court had said that Kano government had no right whatsoever to look into that matter. Another federal high court in Port Harcourt had long ago under Dr. Peter Odilli said that, I think it was a state high court, that said that the EFCC has no right whatsoever to look into matters concerning states. Yes, logical argument. Another court in Kano is saying that the state court has no right to look into the matter, that it is with the EFCC. And it’s all in this one country, all around the judiciary. How long will it take for the judiciary to put its acts together? And know that at the end of the day when people in the executive misbehave or people in the legislative arm misbehave, they still come to the judiciary.

For example, what is happening in Rivers State today. The law is clear on certain positions. What qualifies you as a member of the House of Assembly? It is very clear. But the law too says that it is the court that will authenticate that position. And people are saying that because the law says so, I am going to implement it. Really? Even after those other people have gone to court and gotten a court order? So it’s a whole gamut of rubbish going on. And under the superintendence of the judicial arm of government.

Do you know there are certain things that the government does that you and I can actually go to court to stop it, to say don’t do it. But you can’t have that kind of relief even if you go to court. So that is what gives the people in the executive arm of government the impudence to ride roughshod over the people of Nigeria. What can you do?

Don’t forget that the Uwais Commission was very clear in their report that nobody should be sworn in, or rather that all matters arising from election issues in courts or the tribunals, must be settled before swearing in. What’s so difficult about that? Because this is the root of the problems we have in this country where they will just say rig the election first. We will just push it till after swearing in and we will now open the state’s coffers. And looking at a judge who is handling a matter before the government in power and you expect him in this Nigeria of today to be fearless about his judgement. The days of the Kayode Esos of this country, the Oputas of this country are gone and gone. I don’t know whether I can say they are gone forever. Because who is going to replicate that kind of system?

So I can say for certain that we have made progress because we have moved, because if it was under the military government, you and I won’t be having these conversations. It is as simple as that!