By Josef Omorotionmwan
Even without all the niceties that normally accompany major policy shifts, the Nigerian Judiciary was quietly sentenced to death some four years ago, when President Goodluck Jonathan was yet functioning in an acting capacity.

The decision to go the quiet way must have been informed by the need not to give the Judiciary a doze of its own medication. There was no trial, no judge and no jury – only a policy of attrition.

Nigeria today is striving to be among the 20 greatest countries of the world by the year 2020. If she attains this, it will be double honours – that is also the year she will attain the status of being the only country without a judiciary. For some, that will be the very definition of unfettered freedom – freedom for unlimited looting and freedom even to commit murder without being questioned.

On Monday, September 23, 2013, it took the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhatar, and the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Okey Wali (SAN), to cry out that the third arm of government, the Judiciary, was being gradually incapacitated by dwindling budgetary allocations.

We see a grand design by the Legislative and Executive branches to rig the Judiciary out of existence. Available statistics show that funding from the Federal Government has witnessed steady decline of N10 billion annually from N95 billion in 2010; to N85 billion 2011; N75 billion in 2012 and N67 billion in 2013.

This type of design also demands that they play around with figures so as not to expose their game plan, hence they deliberately put down an allocation of N67 billion instead of N65 billion for the Financial Year 2013. There is an inverse relationship between the general budget and that of the Judiciary: While the Nigerian budget is rising geometrically, the allocation to the Judiciary is dwindling.

By extrapolation, an annual reduction of N10 billion will bring the Judiciary to zero allocation by the year 2020. What will happen then? We shall return to this aspect after a brief history.

Our government stands on a tripod: According to the literary theory of the Constitution, the framers developed a practical arrangement of the separation of powers under which the Legislature makes laws and formulates policies that are administered by the Executive branch while issues of interpretation and settlement of disputes are referred to the Judiciary.

It was reasonably thought that the concentration of too much power in the hands of one man or in a single institution would lead to tyranny.

By functionality, the legislature was supposed to be the most senior partner in the tripod but many things have happened to whittle down that effect.

The first is a function of instability. Each time the military adventurers intervened in governance, their first bus-stop was to sack the legislatures and send members packing while the Executive and Judiciary remained in place. That explains why the Legislatures had to begin again whenever the military juntas retreated to the barracks.

Second, when money talks, nobody walks. By the singular fact that the President controls the power of the purse, the Executive branch has gained a lot of prominence over time. Even the legislators look up to the Executive to feather their own nests.

Without prejudice to the highly educated politicians, of the three branches of government, the Judiciary parades the most educated lot. Whereas virtually any warm body that possesses the “School Certificate or its equivalent” can be President or a member of the Legislature, the Judiciary remains the only collection of lawyers of several years standing.

After the legal education at the university and the law school that leads to the call to bar, a judge must also posses many years of cognate experience in the field of law. This could be a source of envy to the other branches.

In a broad sense, the doctrine of separation of powers is not absolute. At best, it creates a situation of interdependence.

For example, the courts have little independent power to compel compliance to their orders, other than the punishment of individuals for contempt; but even contempt action still requires the cooperation of other agencies engaged in the enforcement of the law. In general, the authority of the courts rests less on the use of force than on the acceptance of their orders by those directly affected.

For over five years now, the Federal Government has been sitting on the Supreme Court decision declaring the Excess Crude Account illegal.

By world standard, our current Judiciary can pass for a 19th century institution. It is naïve to think that these relics can be starved to death. The situation portends real danger to society. The moment we allow justice to openly become cash and carry, there will be anarchy.

Meanwhile, judges will begin to show symbolic presence in courts – sit for five minutes or just enough time to enable them adjourn all cases! The list of awaiting trial cases will become overwhelming. Election riggers will have a field day as there will be no facilities for election tribunals anymore. People that approach the courts will have to provide the biro and foolscap papers on which their judgements will be scribbled, as they do in some police stations.

Is this the type of Judiciary we want? We must quickly halt the open invitation to anarchy. To do otherwise is not to recognise the importance of the Judiciary.

Honourable Justice Moses Oyemade is relevant here: “The only thing we have now in this country is the Judiciary. We have seen politicians changing from one policy to another and from one party to another but the only protection the ordinary people have against all these inconstancies is a fearless and an upright judiciary. An independent and fearless judiciary is the greatest hope of the ordinary citizens. It gives form and substance to the spirit of liberty and man’s yearnings for justice….”. This spirit shall not die in our time!