The President of the African Bar Association (AfBA), High Chief Ibrahim Eddy Mark, has warned that constitutional democracy across Africa is facing mounting threats from political interference, attacks on judicial independence, disregard for court decisions and the gradual erosion of civic freedoms, calling on judges and lawyers to defend the rule of law with courage and integrity.

In a goodwill message to the 2026 Annual Conference of the Nigerian Law Society, Mark said the challenges confronting constitutional governance across the continent require renewed commitment from the Bench, the Bar, civil society and all defenders of justice.

Addressing the conference themed “Constitutional Democracy and the Role of the Judiciary,” the AfBA President described the judiciary as the indispensable guardian of constitutional order, warning that democracy cannot survive where courts are weakened or their authority undermined.

“History teaches us that the strength of any democracy is measured not merely by the conduct of elections but by the fidelity of its institutions to constitutional principles,” he said, stressing that an independent, impartial and courageous judiciary remains the final refuge of citizens seeking justice against arbitrariness and abuse of power.

While acknowledging that many African countries have made progress in democratic governance, Mark cautioned that constitutionalism across the continent remains “a work in progress.”

He identified persistent threats including attacks on judicial independence, disregard for court decisions, constitutional manipulation and shrinking civic space as obstacles to democratic consolidation, insisting that these developments should inspire collective action rather than resignation.

According to him, the legal profession has a historic responsibility to serve as the conscience of society by defending constitutional governance, promoting access to justice and ensuring that constitutions remain living instruments for protecting the rights and dignity of citizens.

“The legal profession has always stood as the conscience of society,” he said, reaffirming AfBA’s commitment to promoting the rule of law, defending judicial independence, protecting human rights and strengthening legal institutions across Africa.

Mark commended the Nigerian Law Society for choosing a conference theme that transcends national boundaries, noting that debates on constitutional democracy and judicial independence have become increasingly relevant across the continent as African democracies grapple with evolving political, economic and institutional pressures.

He expressed optimism that the deliberations would generate practical recommendations capable of strengthening Nigeria’s constitutional democracy while offering useful lessons for other African jurisdictions confronting similar governance challenges.

The AfBA President also reaffirmed the Association’s commitment to deepening collaboration with the Nigerian Law Society in promoting justice, defending human rights and strengthening legal institutions throughout Africa.

Ending on a reflective note, Mark observed that constitutions alone cannot preserve democracy unless institutions remain strong and those entrusted with protecting them act with courage.

“While constitutions are written on paper,” he said, “constitutional democracy is sustained by the integrity of institutions and the courage of those entrusted with their preservation.”

His remarks come at a time when debates over judicial independence, constitutional governance and the rule of law have intensified across several African jurisdictions, with legal practitioners increasingly warning that the resilience of democratic institutions will depend not only on constitutional guarantees but also on the willingness of governments and citizens alike to respect the limits of public power.

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President Tinubu says secure housing strengthens judicial independence. Critics argue that how judges receive official benefits matters as much as the benefits themselves, raising fresh constitutional questions about the separation of power

The inauguration of 20 official residences for judges of the Federal Capital Territory High Court has reignited one of the most enduring constitutional debates in Nigeria’s justice system: Can judicial independence be strengthened through executive-funded welfare, or does such largesse risk creating the appearance of judicial dependence?

For the Tinubu administration, the answer is straightforward. Secure accommodation, improved welfare and a conducive working environment, it argues, are indispensable to ensuring that judges can dispense justice without fear or favour.

For a number of constitutional lawyers and judicial reform advocates, however, the issue is considerably more complex. They contend that while judges deserve decent housing, security and other conditions of service, the manner in which such benefits are provided is just as important as the benefits themselves, particularly in a constitutional democracy where governments are among the judiciary’s most frequent litigants.

President Bola Tinubu restated his administration’s position on Wednesday while inaugurating the housing estate constructed by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for judges at Katampe, Abuja.

Represented by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the President said judicial independence extends beyond constitutional guarantees and must be reinforced through policies that protect the dignity, welfare and security of judicial officers.

“We cannot expect judges to dispense justice without fear or favour if their comfort, security and peace of mind are left to chance. True judicial independence is built on the dignity of our judicial officers,” he said.

The President noted that the newly commissioned estate follows the completion of 10 housing units each for judges of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court. He added that his administration had also commenced residential projects for judges of the National Industrial Court and the Code of Conduct Tribunal, describing the initiatives as part of a deliberate effort to strengthen one of the pillars of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy.

The development comprises 20 fully furnished five-bedroom duplexes with boys’ quarters and supporting infrastructure, including recreational facilities, neighbourhood shopping areas, standby power, perimeter fencing and an event centre.

The Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Husseini Baba-Yunusa, welcomed the project, describing judicial welfare as “an institutional necessity” capable of improving productivity, personal security and the effective administration of justice.

FCT Minister Nyesom Wike said the project forms part of a larger 40-unit estate, assuring that the remaining houses would be completed before the end of President Tinubu’s first term.

The Other Constitutional Conversation

Beyond the commissioning ceremony, however, the project has revived a debate that has simmered within Nigeria’s legal community for years.

At the centre of that discussion is not whether judges deserve decent accommodation. Few legal practitioners dispute that proposition.

The more difficult question is whether official residences, luxury vehicles and other welfare benefits should be provided through highly public executive initiatives involving political office holders, or through institutional mechanisms that place greater distance between the Bench and the Executive.

Among the most outspoken critics is Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu.

Odinkalu has repeatedly argued that public ceremonies in which governors or other executive officials hand over expensive houses and luxury vehicles to judges risk undermining public confidence in judicial independence.

According to him, the concern is not that judges should live in poor conditions. Rather, he argues that benefits forming part of judicial remuneration ought to be transparently funded through constitutionally approved judicial budgets instead of appearing as executive benefaction.

He has also questioned why housing and official vehicles are sometimes presented as discretionary executive gestures when judicial funding ought to flow through institutional budgetary processes designed to preserve the separation of powers.

Odinkalu has further pointed to the Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers, particularly provisions requiring judges to avoid relationships or situations capable of creating an appearance of partiality, arguing that public displays of executive generosity towards judges may weaken public confidence in the courts, especially where governments are frequent litigants.

Financial Autonomy or Executive Benevolence?

Similar concerns have been raised over the years by Femi Falana, who has consistently argued that judicial independence cannot be fully realised without genuine financial autonomy as guaranteed under the Constitution.

Falana has repeatedly maintained that the Executive should faithfully implement constitutional provisions guaranteeing financial independence for the judiciary rather than exercising significant influence over judicial funding.

Constitutional lawyer Jiti Ogunye has likewise argued that public confidence in the justice system depends not only on the actual independence of judges but also on institutional arrangements that visibly insulate the judiciary from political influence.

For many legal scholars, that distinction is fundamental.

Judicial independence has both an institutional and a perceptual dimension. A judge may remain entirely impartial in fact, yet public confidence may still be weakened if institutional arrangements create an impression of indebtedness to one arm of government.

That concern is particularly significant in Nigeria, where election petitions, corruption prosecutions, disputes involving governments and constitutional challenges routinely place the Executive before the courts.

How Other Democracies Approach Judicial Welfare

Comparative constitutional practice suggests that the debate is not unique to Nigeria.

Across many Commonwealth jurisdictions, judges receive official residences, housing allowances, enhanced security and transport where necessary. The crucial distinction, however, is that these benefits are generally administered through established judicial remuneration systems, independent commissions or institutional budgetary frameworks rather than through public presentations by political office holders.

The objective is not merely to protect judicial independence, but to reinforce public confidence that judges neither owe nor appear to owe personal obligations to those exercising executive power.

A Test of Public Confidence

The debate ultimately goes beyond bricks, mortar or official vehicles.

Nigeria’s Constitution guarantees the independence of the judiciary because courts frequently determine disputes involving governments, elections, public finance and individual liberty. For that guarantee to command public confidence, many constitutional scholars argue that judicial officers must not only be independent—they must also be unmistakably seen to be independent.

Supporters of the Katampe project contend that secure accommodation protects judges from intimidation, improves their welfare and strengthens the administration of justice.

Critics counter that the same objective should be pursued through institutional arrangements that eliminate any perception of executive patronage.

Wednesday’s commissioning therefore represented more than the opening of another housing estate.

It reopened an enduring constitutional question that extends beyond one administration: where should a democracy draw the line between legitimate judicial welfare and the appearance of executive influence over an independent judiciary?

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HOW many mass abductions have we recorded in Nigeria since Chibok in 2014? Can you count them? What kind of people are we? What kind of minds wake up every morning to meticulously plan how to steal someone’s child, lock them away in a forest, expose them to hunger, rain, mosquitoes, fear and uncertainty for weeks?

At what point did cruelty become a profession in Nigeria, indeed a sector of the economy?

These are question that have refused to leave the lips of many Nigerians. Really, what kind of people have we become?

What kind of human beings look at a toddler, a child, a young girl, an old woman, and see not innocence but opportunity?

The abduction of the Oriire children and countless other kidnapping incidents across Nigeria have dragged us to a frightening place where the safety of a child is no longer guaranteed by the walls of a home, the gates of a school, or even the sacred environment of a place of worship.

Children who should be worrying about homework, friendships, examinations and dreams are learning words that no child should know: ransom, kidnappers, captivity, survival.

A child should know the comfort of a mother’s embrace, not the coldness of a forest floor. A child should know the sound of a school bell, not the sound of gunshots.

A child should know bedtime stories, not the frightening whispers of criminals discussing their fate as he shivers and his empty stomach twists and rumbles.

What kind of sickness has entered the heart of a society where human beings can keep children under the rain and scorching sun for 56 days and still sleep at night?

How these people sleep, function? Are they even still human, these men who walk past crying children, bewildered women and helpless men and negotiate their fates on a phone? Are these human beings?

A healthy society does not produce such monsters. Maybe it’s time to admit we are no longer what the creator created.

Read Also: The Untold Cost of the Oriire Rescue: Family seeks answers over how army lieutenant died in Oriire rescue

A healthy society does not tolerate such evil but here we are, for years suckling these demons. Do humans breastfeed demons? Tell me.

A healthy society does not become used to the suffering of its own people.

And yet, Nigeria appears to be fighting a battle not only against criminals with guns but against a dangerous disease of indifference, muttering ‘It is well’ and ’ we will get out of it’. Pray, tell me how.

Before tears of one family dries, there is sorrow in a dozen more, and before you finish writing one story, it has become yesterday’s news. The pain of one community becomes another statistic. Another kidnapping happens, another outrage erupts, another promise is made, and then the nation moves on, in fear, uncertainty until the next tragedy arrives.

Yes, the sun comes out every morning and the birds sing but isn’t this the end of the world? How did the evil roaming our streets become a endless stream of stories and condolence government statements and ‘may this never happen again’ prayers?

Every time a child is kidnapped, there is a mother whose heart stops every time her phone rings. There is a father who walks around pretending to be strong while silently falling apart inside. There are siblings who look at an empty chair at the dining table and wonder if their brother or sister will ever return. Yet for the abductors, it just another day in business, a mere money making venture.

Demons everywhere, brazen, daring.

They have now expanded their business territory to examination halls, turned our schools into hunting grounds. What kind of wickedness makes people storm a place where children are writing examinations and decide that those children’s futures are worth destroying?

The WAEC examination is not just another school activity. For many Nigerian children, it is a bridge between poverty and possibility. It is a document that can open doors, determine careers and shape destinies.

The teenager sitting in an examination hall is not just a student. That child carries the dreams of parents who have sacrificed everything. That child carries the hope of a family waiting for a better tomorrow.

So what kind of person looks at a room full of young people trying to build their future and thinks: “These are my targets”?

What kind of darkness convinces someone that destroying innocent lives is a path to wealth or power?

Who gave birth to these demons?

And perhaps the most painful question is how did we get here?

How did criminals become so bold?

How did they acquire the confidence to walk into communities, attack churches, kill worshippers and abduct people during moments meant for prayer and peace, force people to abandon their ancestral homesteads.

Didn’t the Yorubas have a saying: Ese kii se lasan’. Tragedies do not occur without a reason. And that if a fire burns and crosses the river, there is a power behind it.

The church, the mosque, the school, the home – these are supposed to be places of refuge. They are supposed to represent safety. But when criminals begin to invade even sacred spaces, it tells us that something has gone terribly wrong.

A society where people cannot pray without fear, travel without fear, sleep without fear or send their children to school without fear is a society crying for healing, desperately.

But perhaps one of the most disturbing issues is the suggestion that some of these criminal networks may enjoy support, protection or sympathy from people who should know better.

If anyone — for political advantage, financial benefit or personal ambition – sponsors, protects or negotiates with evil people, then that person is not simply playing politics. That person is gambling with the future of a nation.

Because what kind of political victory is achieved by destroying children?

What kind of power is gained from the tears of widows?

What kind of influence is built on the blood of innocent people?

A person who uses the suffering of citizens as a ladder to climb into power is not a leader. That person is part of the sickness.

And if are allowed to travel, receive support, celebrate victories and operate with confidence while ordinary Nigerians live in fear, then the question must be asked: who is failing whom?

This is not just about security forces. It is about the entire ecosystem that allows evil to survive, thrive.

A criminal does not operate successfully without weaknesses around him. There are informants. There are financiers. There are people who know and keep quiet. There are those who benefit from chaos.

The tragedy is that the victims are always the weakest.

The farmer. The student. The worshipper.

The mother. The child.

Never the powerful.

Nigeria must confront this sickness honestly. We cannot continue to describe every tragedy as “unfortunate” and move on.

Some things are not just unfortunate; they are unacceptable.

A nation must protect its children because children are the future walking in human form.

A nation must protect its elderly because they are the memory of society.

A nation must protect its women because they are the foundation of families. When a society fails these groups, it is not just facing insecurity. It is digging its own pit.

So again, the question remains:

Is this the land of the sick or what?

Because a healthy nation cannot watch its children disappear and respond with only prayers and condolences.

A healthy nation cannot allow evil men become more organised than the institutions created to stop them.

A sane nation cannot become a place where survival and resilience are considered an achievement. Resilience cannot and should not replace resistance in the face of evil.

Nigeria is not short of good people. We are not short of brave citizens. We are not short of men and women who want peace.

But goodness has remained too silent for too long and now evil has become confident.

The battle for Nigeria’s soul is not only about defeating criminals with weapons. It is about defeating the culture of acceptance that says, “This is how things are now.” No. This is not the Nigeria we knew, the Nigeria we inherited. This is a demon-infested conglomerate.

This must never become a new normal because a child crying in a forest is not normal.

A teenager kidnapped from an examination hall is not normal.

A worshipper killed during prayer is not normal. An old man beheaded by criminals is not normal.

A nation must know when it is bleeding and Nigeria is deathly pale, right now.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

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