By nature, many Nigerians are incurable optimists. That is what keeps them going. In the face of severe challenges, they manage to sustain a relentless hope and positive outlook. In a sense, that speaks to their resilience and tenacity, without which life, which to the majority is already hell on earth, is insufferable.

Yet, this optimism has been stretched thin. The result is that most times, Nigerians tolerate the shenanigans of their leaders, which people in other climes can hardly take. So, while ability to push forward even when things seem dire is a human virtue, reckless optimism which creates the façade of illusionary hope, becomes a vice because where action needs to be taken, some resort to prayers. That explains why despite a call to prayer by Nigerian Catholics – Prayer for Nigeria in distress – in 1998, things are a lot worse today.

We are worse off because of our unrealistic expectations that God will touch our stone-hearted leaders and miraculously, they will become selfless and altruistic. No progress is ever made in an environment of passive wishing without a concrete plan. It is even worse when such hope is manipulated by the self-same leaders whose hearts have been hardened. In other words, hope becomes an illusion when it becomes a substitute for action. Believing that Nigeria will change for the better without Nigerians rolling up their sleeves and taking concrete steps to confronting their demons – leaders – is just wishful thinking.

When it comes to leaders who manipulate the people for their own selfish gains, President Bola Tinubu takes the cake. That is why, with him on the saddle, things have gone from bad to worse. But scarier still is the fact that when you think you have seen the worst, it gets even messier. With Tinubu, nothing is sacred. All that matters is raw power and its exercise.

The latest arm of government to be enlisted in the national hall of shame is the judiciary. And this is frightening. It is not as if many people still have very high opinion of the Nigerian judiciary particularly in the last ten years since the All Progressives Congress, APC, came to power. But even at that, it is beyond the pale for Nigerian judges to chorus Tinubu’s “on your mandate we shall stand” at their conference.

At the four-day 2025 All Nigeria Judges Biennial Conference, hosted by the National Judicial Council, NJC, at the National Judicial Institute, Abuja, which brought together more than 1,000 judicial officers from federal and state courts across Nigeria, judges were captured on video rising to their feet, clapping rhythmically, and joining in the chorus of what is a partisan pledge of steadfast loyalty to Tinubu’s leadership.

Ironically, Tinubu, who declared the event open, urged judges to uphold integrity and resist “justice for sale,” stressing the judiciary’s role as the “last hope of the common man.” Chief Justice of Nigeria Kudirat Kekere-Ekun echoed the same sentiment when she extolled the virtues of an impartial judiciary, and warned against external pressures.

But Nigerians were not taken in by the hollow sound bites. Professor Chidi Odinkalu, former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, captured the national mood when he described the show of shame as “the moment… when Nigeria’s senior-most judges, led by CJN Kekere-Ekun, officially decamped to @OfficialAPCNg!!” Another friend, a senior lawyer, said what the judges did was outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour. But it is worse than that.

Why? Because an independent judiciary, as Brett Kavanaugh, a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, once noted, is the crown jewel of a constitutional republic. It is a different ball game when lawmakers in the National Assembly sing what has become Tinubu’s 2027 highly partisan campaign song at a ceremony as solemn as budget presentation in their hallowed chambers. But lawmakers are politicians and that can be excused on the ground that politicians have no soul, are unscrupulous and are always focused on the next election and whatever gives them advantage.

But that cannot be said of judges. Agreed, while it is “ever true that the judiciary is part and parcel of the government apparatus and appointed by the executive and legislative branches,” as Murray Rothbard, an American economist, once cautioned, it is also true as John Adams, the second U.S. president, once declared that: “If… the courts are to exercise a review over the legislature, and to declare that the legislature is in its acts unconstitutional, they are in effect to be the supreme arbiters of the government.”

John Adams’ creed was the pedestal on which another American statesman, Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, stood when he declared: “All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.”

The bedrock of any democracy is the rule of law, which can only be guaranteed by an independent judiciary – judges who can make decisions independent of the prevalent political winds. A judiciary that stands on Tinubu’s mandate can neither be independent and virtuous nor make decisions independent of the noxious political winds that are blowing in the country.

In what amounted to a damage control, the National Judicial Institute, on Wednesday, dismissed the report as “entirely false and unfounded.” The institute, which claimed that the narrative misrepresented what transpired, explained that the rendition of the “on your mandate” tune originated from the Guards Brigade Band, which played it as part of its ceremonial protocol while ushering Tinubu to the podium for his address.

“The judiciary had no control over the musical selections of the Brigade, which operates under military ceremonial procedures,” the NJI clarified, adding that judges only rose to their feet out of respect for the office of the President, in line with established protocol, and not in endorsement of any political message. They further stressed that the judiciary “remains strictly non-partisan, deeply committed to constitutional neutrality, and wholly insulated from political activities or symbols of political allegiance.”

They may well tell that to the marines. The judiciary today is perhaps more partisan than politicians. The judges are being used to do the dirty jobs of the executive who build houses and buy luxury SUVs for them.

Tinubu’s presidency is turning into an unmitigated disaster before our very eyes. He may do well to heed the advice he gave to President Goodluck Jonathan in November 2014 when he, in self-righteous indignation, thundered: “I saw the sea of refuges caused by the Boko Haram insurgents and the lies coming from Jonathan’s administration. They have exhibited failure, lack of capacity, vision and creativity… 

If you control the armed forces and you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic, why should any part of this country be under occupation? In any civilized country Jonathan should have resigned. But if he will not resign, he should wait for our broom, we will sweep him away.”

Of course, Jonathan didn’t resign but he was swept out of office. That is the way it should be. That is the idea of democracy. It does not reward incompetence with a second term as Tinubu wishes for himself. Today, under his watch, Nigerians no longer see a sea but an ocean of refugees and blood flowing in their country.

In the last one week, terrorists have made mincemeat, literally, of Nigerians. Last Friday, they ambushed a military team led by Musa Uba, a Brigadier General and commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, in Borno State, killing four operatives — two soldiers and two CJTF officials. The dare-devil terrorists, who captured him alive, later executed the gallant officer. On Monday, the terrorists invaded Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, Kebbi State, and abducted 25 schoolgirls after killing the vice-principal. On Tuesday, they stormed Christ Apostolic Church, Oke-Isegun, Kwara State during an evening service, killing three persons and abducting at least ten. A young girl who sustained a gunshot injury is in critical condition.

And what do we get from the Tinubu government? Rather than resigning as he advised Jonathan 11 years ago, he wants Nigerians to still stand on his pyrrhic mandate in 2027. He is busy playing god, assured that he does not need the people’s votes to be declared winner in 2027. He may be surprised!