Written by “The Duty or Responsibility and other obligations owed to inhabitants of the nation state shall be performed by a higher order comprising of three units: namely, political, legal, and administrative units. The political unit shall be responsible for the formulation or origination of policies. The legal unit shall be responsible for matters of interpretation. The administrative unit shall be seen to carry out all of the processes involved for the purpose of implementing all policies”. Article 3 – RIGHT OF HABITATION Complementary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights By Andre John-Salakov – and Presented to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Organisation’s 60 birthday
By a majority of 9 to 1, Nigerians of all ages condemned the National Judicial Council for recommending the removal of the President of the Court of Appeal.
In addition to the condemnation, many legal practitioners are agreed that the ongoing tussle between the 2 most powerful judicial office holders is only a “tip of the iceberg”.
Mr. Femi Falana, one of Nigeria’s best known Human Rights Activists, the prestigious Nigerian Bar Association and political groups vocalized their condemnation of the so-called “recommendation”.
There is no doubt that the Nigerian judiciary is corrupt to the core. Yet, President Jonathan has accepted the so-called “recommendation”. He has removed the President of the Court of Appeal.
The genesis of the judicial row
Despite my criticism of the British colonial masters in my book “The OXFORD MAFIA the ones above the law”, the British government left Nigeria in a healthy state of legal frame of mind.
But where the Constitution of the Federation of Nigeria 1960 was found lacking, it was a matter for the Nigerian Parliament that came into being following the British departure to have corrected any errors or omissions instead of photocopying everything therein literatim and verbatim.
The Yoruba of Western Nigeria under the able guardianship of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, were the fathers and mothers of Nigerian Independence. Without Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group political party, the British colonial masters would have stayed for another 15 years. Nigeria would have been granted independent status in 1975.
But as events turned out, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group political party master-minded the movement that finally negotiated a successful transition from colonial or protectorate status to independent status.
The British Government had no choice but to grant independent status, but not without a condition attached.
Catalogue of corruption
The Nigerian Judiciary is corrupt. Hereunder is a selection of areas of concern:
(i) The Federal High Court is the court house where money launderers, embezzlers of public funds, and other practitioners of corrupt practices, bury their loot. (Ibori was charged with 174 offences of money laundering, embezzlement, corrupt practices, etc, etc. He was acquitted of all counts)
(ii) Cases are not tried on merits but on the readiness of plaintiffs or defendants to find a legal practitioner who would deals of a corrupt nature with a presiding judge. (A sickening form of plea bargaining goes on in the Federal High Court every day)
(iii) It is an abuse of process for a Member of the Inner Bar to enter an appearance in a law suit in which the party he claims to represent is neither a Defendant nor Plaintiff. See Restricted communication attached.
(iv) The Nigerian Judiciary has no control over character assassination of plaintiffs or defendants by legal practitioners
(v) Many legal practitioners tout for business
(vi) Some legal practitioners engage in unjustifiable litigation in clear violation of the Rules made under the Legal Practitioner Act – the judiciary seems to be totally oblivious of what is happening
(vii) Some members of the Judiciary sitting in the Federal High Court undermine the integrity of their office by showing bias and perversity
(viii) Bribery is a feature of administration of justice in Nigeria
(ix) Senior judges impose upon junior judges NOT to give judgment after trial. My Suit No. FHC/IKJ/CS/42/2011 falls into this category
Purpose of nation state
“The primary purpose of the nation state is people promotion, insofar that the nation state is in place to protect the people but not to destroy them or shorten their life span by means of oppressive or dictatorial bureaucracy” Article 13 – RIGHT OF HABITATION Complementary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights By Andre John-Salakov – and Presented to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Organisation’s 60 birthday
Having been dumped on the Nigerian soil by Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Directorate on 22 June 2010, 51 years after I left Nigeria, as a minor, I wrote to President Jonathan, to the Attorney General and to the Minister of Justice to issue a Certificate removing me from Nigeria and returning me to the United Kingdom.
14 months later I am still under country arrest. In legal fees, printing of court documents, payments made to bailiffs to serve processes I have spent some 1.5 million naira. Yet, Nigerian justice is still a pipe dream.
“English university education highlights class distinction but the Continental system, including the Scottish and Welsh systems focus on the needs of the wider society” Andre John-Salakov in POLICY SCIENCE, A Science of Explanation (1992)
Practically all the people who are running the affairs of Nigeria at Federal and State levels spend large sums of money to educate their children in the UK or United States of America.
In Nigeria today, parents, not just the HIGH and MIGHTY ones in the corridors of power in capital cities, prefer to send their children abroad. The quality of education in Nigeria today is poor and is getting poorer.
No person of sound mind and reason would dare compare education in Nigeria today with education in my time and era – in the 1940s and 1950s.
In my time and era, the British taught us in such a way that our Standard Six Certificate was as good as any GCE “A” awarded by any Grammar or Grammar Technical School in England in those days. We didn’t have WAEC in those days, but London Matriculation in the 1940s and 1950s.
The HIGH and MIGHTY in the corridors of power in Nigeria today do not want their children to have much to do with Nigerian education. They have an ulterior motive. When they (the parents) are no longer around those children would return to Nigeria as adults. Naturally, they would continue to bleed the country of its wealth, just as their fathers did. By the year 2015 Nigeria would be insolvent.
At the moment, too much money is in the hands of a few people. Basically the wealth of Nigeria is in the hands of a few. In a country of 150 million people of which 98.75 percent is suffering grinding poverty?
Resolution
The composition of the Judiciary is an issue that has to be addressed as soon as possible. President Jonathan’s acceptance of the so-called “Recommendation” makes a mockery of the rule of law.
