It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different. —  Oscar Arias Sanchez

By Chioma Gabriel, Editor, Special Features

Since the nationwide crackdown on Judges by the Department of State Services, DSS, penultimate Friday, there has been a hurricane of voices all over the country, some justifying the clampdown while others appeared to be saying that justice was stood on its head.

*A cross section of Judges

But as far as the Federal Government was concerned, the cesspool of corruption that has bedevilled the hallowed chambers of justice needs a surgical operation if that arm of government is to be taken seriously. By the calculations of the presidency, the arrested judges were suspected to have aided and abetted corruption over the years.  Three judges from Sokoto, Bauchi and Kano were also taken into custody for allegedly collecting bribes.

A Federal High Court judge in Abuja from the South West and another who recently countered his colleague’s judgment relating to the ongoing PDP crisis, was also picked up including some suspected fraudulent court registrars who were perceived to have aided and abetted the sale of justice.“

“In defence of its action following the outrage over the arrests in some quarters, the Department of State Services (DSS) had immediately issued a statement explaining that the judges of the Supreme, Appeal and High Courts it arrested were found to possess huge sums of raw cash at home and own choice properties.

The DSS, had claimed that it carried out  special sting operations on the judges in its statement circulated to the media. The statement, signed by Abdullahi Garba, claimed that the operations leading to the arrest of the judges were informed by allegations of corruption and other acts of professional misconduct.

The DSS had expressed vehemence that the clampdown on the judges constitute a part of its mandate. The statement had explained :”The service action is in line with our core mandate as we have been monitoring the expensive and luxurious lifestyle of some of the judges as well as complaints from the concerned public over judgment obtained fraudulently and on the basis amounts of money paid.”

The DSS had further justified its action by adding that the judges involved were invited for interrogation, following which their residences were  searched. The searches, the statement had stated , uncovered huge amounts of raw cash in various denominations as well as in local and foreign currencies. The judges, DSS had also alleged, own real estates worth several millions of naira.

The ownership of the real estates, said the DSS, was confirmed by documents. The secret police also disclosed  that some of the judges have made useful statements, with a few declining  even in the face of allegedly glaring evidence against them in terms of cash, documents and property recovered.

“In one of the states where the DSS operations were conducted, credible intelligence revealed that the Judge had $2million stashed in his house. When he was approached for due search to be conducted, he, in concert, with the state governor, mobilized thugs against the Service team.

The team restrained itself in the face of unbridled provocative activities by those brought in by the Governor. Unfortunately, the Judge and governor also engaged the tacit support of a sister security agency,” the DSS had alleged.

Since the news broke last week, there have been a cacophony of voices for and against the arrest of the Judges. The perception in some quarters was that the DSS’s handshake had passed its elbows. The judiciary was shocked and fear has gripped many judicial officers. .

But trying to debunk allegations of witch-hunting and belly-aching, the presidency tried to draw a line between attacking the judiciary and fighting corruption, stating categorically that the issue here was fighting corruption.

Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity,? Garba Shehu, had issued a statement which he circulated to the media maintaining that the President reserves his highest respect for the institution of the judiciary as the third arm of government.

“To this end, the President will not do anything to undermine its independence. President Buhari remains a committed democrat, in words and in his action, and will not take any action in violation of the constitution.

“The recent surgical operation against some judicial officers is specifically targeted at corruption and not at the judiciary as an institution. In a robust democracy such as ours, there is bound to be a plurality of opinions on any given issue, but there is a convergence of views that the country has a corruption problem that needs to be corrected.

But reports by a section of the media are giving us cause for concern. In undertaking the task of reporting, the media should be careful about the fault lines they open. It is wrong to present this incident as a confrontation between the executive and judicial arms of government.”

The second arm of government, the legislature was not in tandem with the presidency over the arrests. During its plenary last Tuesday, the Senate had queried the powers of the DSS to arrest the Judges, describing the move as ultra vires and abuse of powers by virtue of Acts empowering them.

Senator Joshua Lidani, who moved the motion under matters of urgent national interest had condemned the arrest, arguing that the corruption allegations against the Judges ought to have been handled by the Nigeria Police which has the mandate to do so, pointing out the National Security Agencies Act, 2000 which in its several provisions dealt with internal security.

The Lower House stood with the senate. The House of Representatives frowned at the action of the secret police, even whilst it set up a committee to investigate the raid.“

Judiciary as hope of the common man It used to be said in the past that the judiciary is the hope of the common man. But to what extent this still applies in Nigeria is unknown.

Both the high and low are supposed to have hope in the judiciary in a civilized society. This is the general concept world-wide. But whether the common and the uncommon man still have hope in the judiciary is debatable.

Over the years, the judiciary has been severely condemned, lambasted and castigated. There have been claims and counter-claims from people who alleged perversion of justice in matters relating to their cases. The insinuation often made is that justice goes to the highest bidder.

Whenever elections are conducted in our democracy, the results are often resolved in the courts. Judges always decide the direction of the pendulum and there have always been insinuations that where the drum beats harder, there, the pendulum of justice swings to. Simply put, when it comes to who emerges winner in Nigerian elections, justice is for sale.

Enter corruption

The judiciary is saddled with the responsibility of upholding the rule of law by interpreting, construing and applying the laws of the land in the resolution of disputes and act as checks on the two other arms of government while also adjudicating on contentious issues.

Corruption has been tagged the bedrock of major challenges and economic woes facing the nation in recent times. Although, there is economic recession due to drop in oil prices, the level of impunity in different sectors of the economy as a result of corruption is alarming.

It has been perceived that some judgments and rulings have been up for sale in Nigeria for as long as anyone can recall.

Failure of leadership, corruption and bad governance are being felt across all sectors and segments of Nigeria polity; unemployment, insecurity, crude oil thefts, dearth of infrastructure, problems in education, health services, transportation, accommodation, communication, to mention a few.

Nigeria’s social politico-economic history has revealed that many of its leaders over the years have been using the “iron law of oligarchy” and ‘judicial manipulation’ which explains the triumph of the leaders’ ambitions for office over the citizens’ revolutionary goal.

The judicial arm of government has over the years been drawn into the arena of corruption and appears to be deeply engrossed in excessive acts of corruption, impropriety and mismanagement of judicial power.

All available means were employed by Nigerian political leaders to ‘grab’ power at all cost including the blatant rigging of elections, mismanagement of public fund, manipulation of census figures, violence, thuggery, arson, vandalism, gangsterism, corruption, religious ethnicity, regionalism, tribalism, ethnic sentiments, judicial corruption and acts of brigandage.

The DSS sources revealed that, regarding some of the judges arrested over the weekend, they had written to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, a month earlier detailing instances of criminal conduct by the judges. Past reports claimed that before the DSS invited the judges, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had tried to interrogate judges in whose possession they had found substantial sums of suspicious cash,but that the NJC had insisted that the sanctions by the body were sufficient.

In most cases, the NJC had punished corrupt judges with compulsory retirement but allowed them to enjoy their loot. There was an instance where a top member of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA)had petitions pending at the EFCC accusing him of embezzlement of NBA funds.

Another in the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, had a case against him at the EFCC over alleged embezzlement of settlement fees paid to Nigeria by the Halliburton Corporation.

Not long ago, another senior lawyer was charged for funneling bribes to several judges. The senior lawyer is also a member of Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, a body mandated to select senior lawyers for elevation to a rank known as “Senior Advocate of Nigeria.” The senior lawyer is said to still retain his position on the committee despite being charged with bribery and corruption.

It was also alleged that in 2011, a serving justice blocked the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC) from interrogating a justice of the National Judicial Institute (NJI). The ICPC had wanted to ask the Justice questions regarding the alleged disappearance of N6 billion from the agency he was running. Nothing came out of it and the said justice continued to serve until his retirement. Before his retirement, he allegedly ensured that 18 members of staff at the NJI were punished for revealing the fraud.

Before the current case involving the seven justices, a case was cited in 2014 as one more reason the NJC has become an ineffectual if not hopeless body. The EFCC had reportedly found that the bank accounts of a serving Justice held more than N2 billion.

And when the EFCC summoned her to appear for interrogation, she rushed to court and obtained an order to stop the EFCC from acting on her case. She was later “compulsorily retired” by the NJC. The justice who prevented her interrogation, was one of the Judges arrested over the weekend, with $500,000 allegedly found in his bedroom.

There have been reports that some of the Judges have been in on the act of selling judgments in Nigeria, so much it had become a pastime.