By Lasisi Olagunju

Wahala no dey finish for Nigeria. Because President Bola Tinubu appointed an acting Chief of Army Staff last week, my northern friend sent me a WhatsApp message from Zaria: “It comes as a surprise as Oduduwa takes over the lead agencies of the critical safety sector: Army (military), Police (security), DSS (Intelligence), EFCC (anti-corruption).”

My friend was talking fairness. I heard him and remembered the quaint saying about equity and clean hands. So, I replied him: “Can you name those who served in those four positions under Buhari and where they came from?”

John Milton, legendary blind poet of seventeenth century England, said something about truth and falsehood grappling. Truth, the stronger, will always put the weaker to the worse. My friend thought he had the facts on his side, and so, he answered me: “Buhari picked those security chiefs across the north east, north west and north central…”

That was a half-truth, and I’ve heard it said many times that a half-truth will always mean a half-lie. And a half-lie is a lie nicely dressed. I asked my friend: “When you people met in Kaduna earlier on Monday and took a position on VAT, rejecting Tinubu’s tax reform bills, did you meet as three zones? No. You met as one North, one region. Those appointments made by Buhari were for that one North.” As I typed that response, I remembered that ‘One North, One Destiny, One People, Irrespective of Religion, Rank or Tribe’ was the motto of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), the North’s ruling party at independence. NPC may be long dead, but the North has dutifully kept its flame glowing. We still feel the spirit in every inter-regional discourse.

My friend argued more forcefully. He spoke as a northerner. I responded as a Yoruba man, not as a southerner, because there is nothing so called. I told him he was obviously not speaking for the other two zones in the South. I asked him if the North wanted the Chief of Army Staff position to go to the Igbo of the South-East. His response was that there was a time under Buhari when he campaigned for that arrangement. I asked him to speak for time present, not time past. “Would you want a South-East/South-South person to be Chief of Army Staff or Inspector-General of Police?” My friend did not reply me. He did not answer that question. I asked how he would feel if the positions go to the North today. He replied me with silence.

Finally, my friend quipped: “Personally, I pray for Tinubu to succeed but he doesn’t need to be nepotistic like Buhari, the disaster.”

Has Tinubu been unduly favoring the Yoruba in his appointments? Personal aides, yes. Security appointments, no. A list of 22 security appointees was circulated online at the weekend. Fifteen of them are from the North, five from the South-West, one from the South-East, one from the South-South. If anyone would complain of inadequate representation here, it should be the South-East/South-South corridor.

Sixty-four years after independence, Nigeria has remained a very delicate union of bickering partners. Despite several state creation exercises, the division along the original three regional lines has remained very strong. Today, the three arms of Nigeria’s armed forces have their chiefs chosen from the West (Army; East (Navy); North (Airforce). This would be fair enough except we are saying that one service chief is bigger than the others.

Army, SSS, Police, EFCC. For his complaint, why would my friend pick just four out of the 22 identified positions? Read my friend again. He described the four as “critical safety sector.” Buhari set the precedent by filling those posts with northerners; Tinubu has also filled them with westerners. If the East produces a president tomorrow, he will most possibly fill them with his regional brothers. But why?

Adebayo Faleti, late Yoruba playwright and culture scholar, wrote in his 1968 short story ‘Ogun Awitele’ (Foretold War) that war does not kill the coward; it also does not kill the fearless. The one who gets killed by war is the one who is careless (ogun kì í pa ojo; ogun kì í pa akin; aláìfòrànpòràn ni ogun npa). My playwright says war kills the careless. I will use the experience of Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, to discuss this. When Jonathan became president, he, like most of his predecessors, was very careful not to rupture the tenuous tendons of whatever we had as a country. But Jonathan overdid it. He apparently wanted to be another national hero and proceeded to make many strategic appointments which undid him. Jonathan’s 2015 election time Inspector-General of Police was a gentleman from the north. When it mattered most, the falcon refused to hear the falconer. The super cop did not just see his kinsman, Muhammadu Buhari, to victory, he publicly followed him to collect his Certificate of Return from INEC in April 2015. The gentleman officer abandoned his defeated Commander-in-Chief. Blood is thicker than water. The policeman came out three years later to celebrate what he did. He declared that the police under him forced Jonathan to concede victory to Buhari. Hearing him in an August 2018 interview gives reasons for appreciating the true meaning of blood and water and what made one thicker than the other. The former IGP said: “We forced those who lost elections to accept the results. The Nigeria Police forced those who lost elections to accept the outcome. It was the action of the police that made them to have a change of mind and accept the results. The heroes of that election should have been the police…I attended the presentation of certificate to the president-elect…”

Nigeria was deflowered in 2015. The hymen of innocence, once lost is lost forever. If the police were strategic in determining election winners, what wise president would then hand its rein to ‘outsiders’? Jonathan’s successor, Buhari, learnt from the Ijaw man’s fatal error. He inherited Solomon Arase from Edo State as IGP, kept him for one year and as the stakes were getting high, he quickly took the position ‘home’ and gave it to Ibrahim Kutigi from Niger State. From then on till he left in 2023, the baton passed from one northern state to another. Was Buhari being street-wise to have kept the Inspector-General’s position in his regional pocket for seven out of his eight years in power? If Buhari was not wrong that time, should we expect Tinubu to do today what Jonathan did which burnt his nimble fingers day before yesterday?

Jonathan’s ‘harakiri’ in politics started long before that appointment. He did several things which no one had ever done before. It was therefore not a surprise that his eyes saw what no one ever saw before. The Ijaw man made Fulani man, Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman in an election in which his main opponent was a Fulani. The man was praised by his nemesis and he enjoyed it. As the West African Pilot of 2 April, 1964 warned in an editorial: “The road to ruin is often smooth. Those who travel it pay the fare.” Three years after he was dusted and ousted, Jonathan wrote in his ‘My Transition Hours’ (page 75): “For some inexplicable reasons, the INEC had been able to achieve near 100% distribution of Permanent Voter Cards in the North, including the North-East which was under siege with the Boko Haram insurgency, but it (INEC) failed to record similar level of distribution in the South which was relatively more peaceful.” Because Buhari was no Jonathan, when it was time for him to replace Jega in November 2015, the Fulani man from Katsina went for a Fulani man from Bauchi. After eight years of uncommon tutorial from Muhammadu Buhari on how to (mis)manage a people’s diversity, it is not possible for any subsequent president (from the south) to do bobo nice again – especially with appointments strategic to their personal and political survival. A new INEC chairman is due for appointment in November next year (2025). Watch out for Tinubu. He will not be a Jonathan.

Key security appointments have become an armour for the president of Nigeria. The lesson taught by history is that a leader, while cuddling his neighbour, must never allow kin-blood to be diluted with water of whatever colour.

The politics of appointment into the head of the army started soon after independence. How did the government of Tafawa Balewa handle it? Sidi H. Ali, author of ‘Power of Powers: A biography of Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu’, Nigeria’s first minister of defence, wrote about the intense ethnic maneuverings and bitterness that attended the appointment of the country’s very first indigenous head of the army when the last expatriate, Major General Christopher Welby-Evarard, left in February 1965. “The four possible candidates were all brigadiers at the time. They were Ironsi, Ademulegun, Ogundipe and Maimalari. Ironsi was the most senior of all…After all the bickering, Ribadu came out to announce the appointment of Ironsi as the commanding officer of the Nigerian Army. This, of course, was received with mixed feelings…” (page 18). If Balewa were to come back from the dead today and is asked to pick his army chief, would he still go for Ironsi? Among the four gentlemen officers of 1964, who do you think Balewa’s choice would be?

Balewa is not coming back but his democratic successor was Shehu Shagari who came in 1979 and had Lt.-General Alani Akinrinade as his Chief of Army Staff. Shagari soon replaced the Yoruba man with his kinsman, Gibson Jalo. Jonathan inherited a chief of army staff, Abdulrahman Dambazau, from his late boss, Umaru Yar’Adua. He couldn’t sleep until he picked someone from his area, Azubuike Ihejirika, to man that goal post.

Every elected Nigerian leader since the end of the first republic knows why crab does not sleep. What it stays awake doing is 24/7 recce for the safety of its head. Its eyes should be its binoculars – and they are. Even Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian president did not deny himself that wisdom, although he was very nuanced about it. He had three Inspectors-General of Police and all three were from his western region. His DG SSS from 1999 to 2007 was Colonel Kayode Are, his Abeokuta kinsman. For the army, Obasanjo, a southern Christian, in eight years, had four gentlemen as his Chief of Army Staff. He started in 1999 with Victor Malu, a Christian from the North; then he moved south and picked Alexander Ogomudia, a southern minority. After two years, two months, Obasanjo took the position back to the North. But he did not give it to those who might use it to injure him. He picked Martin Luther Agwai, a southern Kaduna minority Christian. Three years down that road, he went south again and picked Andrew Owoye Azazi, another southern minority. It was clear that he was deliberate about what he did. He was wide awake, mixing his nationalist broth with condiments of small nepotism here, a little of altruism there. The Obasanjo experience ended almost twenty years ago. This is the age of reason, apology to Thomas Paine. The gloves are off.

But, I think the people who are reading north and south into today’s appointments had better shine their eyes and see where the real danger is. The fish gets rotten from the head – and it is always progressive. Under Buhari, the president’s wife ran the alternate presidency while a regional cabal revved up the old engine of the man we elected. Today, we are not sure whether it is the man we elected or the wife or the son (with their business friends) that is at the top. After this set, we may have grafted on the trunk of our democracy a hereditary oligo-monarchy.

And we cannot say a president should not have a family – and friends. Wither the way then? Igbó rèé, òna rèé (the bush is here, the road is here). Where should we face?

The founding fathers of the United States feared what we see now. In her review of Adam Bellow’s ‘In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History’, Joanne B. Ciulla says “nepotism was very much on the minds of America’s founding fathers. The last thing they wanted in their new country was hereditary rule.” She writes further (and this is interesting) that “one of the many qualities that made George Washington attractive as the first president was the fact that he did not have any children (who would share his powers or even seek to succeed him). When John Adams ran against Thomas Jefferson, his detractors feared that, because Adams had a son, he might try to start a dynasty.” Indeed, in that election dubbed ‘Revolution of 1800’, Jefferson, who did not have a son, defeated incumbent President John Adams.

But that cautious beginning notwithstanding, America has evolved to mint its own brand of ‘safe’ nepotism. Ciulla writes: “Let’s cut to the 2000 presidential election in the U.S. It pitted a son of a president against the son of a senator. When George W. Bush won, he appointed Michael Powell, son of Colin Powell, to be chairman of the FEC; Elaine Cho, wife of Senator Mitch McConnell, to be Secretary of Labor; and Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, to be the chief labor attorney. In addition to these appointments, Bush made the Vice President’s daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretary of state, and her husband chief counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. At the request of Senator Strom Thrumond (and to the dismay of some people), Bush gave Thurmond’s twenty-eight-year-old son the job of U.S. Attorney for South Carolina.” The American system, from the above, draws a line between “bad nepotism and good nepotism.” Ciulla says the US now defines nepotism “not as hiring a relative but as hiring an incompetent relative…”

That is in the US. Here in Nigeria, competence is discounted. The concern is more on the history and the geography of the hired and the motive of the appointing authority.

In all these nepotism matters, the peace of the country and the happiness of the people are the casualties. Every hour spent by the leader ignoring competence but checking the bloodline or the ethnicity of the man for the next post is the hour just before darkness. And, if the nepotist succeeds in burying his long heel in this sand, it is bye bye to peace and amity. As Olusegun Obasanjo said in 2019 at the height of Buhari’s glass ceiling-bursting nepotism: “If you cannot trust me, why should I trust you?…The person who is our leader now is saying he cannot allow another ethnic group to work with him because he cannot trust them. If he cannot trust my tribe or your tribe, of what benefit is he? And he is saying my tribe and yours should come and vote for him. He can ask for our votes, but he cannot trust us to work in good positions. Life is give and take.”

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

The continued detention of the EndBadGovernance protesters by the Tinubu administration demonstrates that the administration has blossomed into full-blown despotism and totalitarianism. It is no wonder that the international human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has recently called for the immediate and unconditional release of over 1,000 #EndBadGovernance protesters who are currently in prison custody nationwide due to their participation in the recent nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest.

Similarly, the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Transparency International (TI), renowned human rights activist Femi Falana SAN, and others have vociferously urged the federal government to expedite the release of the #EndBadGovernance protesters and other individuals being detained in connection with the protest.

According to Falana, no fewer than 2,111 protesters have been arrested in connection with the nationwide protest, out of which 1,403 have been secretly arraigned in various courts and ordered to be remanded in prison custody due to lack of legal representation.

This follows the surreptitious granting of a 60-day extension to the police by Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja to detain 124 alleged protesters, including at least 22 minors. In another development, a Federal High Court in Abuja has issued an order freezing the bank accounts of 32 individuals and companies allegedly linked to the #EndBadGovernance protest.

Meanwhile, the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) has drawn the attention of the federal government to the deteriorating health of some of the detained protesters, particularly Michael Adaramoye, Mosiu Sodiq, and Eleojo Opaluwa.

The nationwide #EndBadGovernance protest spanned ten days, from August 1 to 8, 2024. It is noteworthy that, prior to the protest, the federal government and some state governments openly acknowledged that the right to protest is a constitutional right and, therefore, urged the would-be protesters to conduct their protest in a peaceful manner devoid of violence.

The Lagos State government not only permitted the would-be protesters to protest but also directed them to do so in designated places in Lagos. It is therefore surprising that the protest has drawn the ire of the Tinubu government, culminating in the arrest and detention of over 1,000 protesters, including minors aged 14-17, who have been thrown into prison on accusations of terrorism, treason, and treasonable felony under the Terrorism (Prevention & Prohibition) Act.

The minors being detained include: Muktar Ishaq Alhassan, 16; Sani Aliyu, 17; Mahmud Mustapha, 16; Umar Abdullahi, 17; Habibu Sani, 17; Mustapha Abubakar, 17; Sani Hassan Idris, 17; Abdulrahaman Ibrahim, 17; and Salisu Adamu, 16. Others are Bilal Auwalu, 15; Amir Muhd, 17; Abdul’aziz Adam, 15; Sadiq Sunusi, 15; Ibrahim Sani, 17; Hassan Muhd, 17; Saifullahi Muhd, 15; Umar Ali, 17; Musa Isyaku, 15; Muhd Musa, 14; Usman Amiru, 14; Abdulganiyu Musa, 15; and Sunusi Nura, 14.

If the federal government had initially acknowledged the right of the protesters to protest under the Constitution and even permitted the protesters to go out and protest, why is the same federal government now turning around to arrest and detain the protesters, accusing them of committing terrorism, and treasonable felony? Why detain harmless minors who probably joined the protest for the fun of it?

It is unfortunate that the Tinubu administration has been unlawfully arresting, torturing, and detaining some of the protesters and promoters, contrary to sections 39 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantee the right to freedom of expression and assembly. Additionally, the government has been unlawfully freezing the bank accounts of some of the #EndBadGovernance protesters and promoters.

The aforesaid actions of the Tinubu administration are illegal and unconstitutional. The continued detention of these protesters and the freezing of their bank accounts are capable of triggering another round of protests. We have yet to recover from the damaging effects of the last wave of protests, yet the government is not laying the groundwork for peace. Instead of giving peace a chance, the government is persecuting the #EndBadGovernance protesters and promoters.

Why should citizens suffer prolonged incarceration for exercising their fundamental rights and expressing their views about Nigeria? The truth is that young people in this country—those in the age bracket of, say, 18 to 45, who could technically be categorized as the younger generation—are seething with anger, perhaps now more than ever, over the way they are constantly being shortchanged in Nigeria. They are angry about the country’s deteriorating politics, increasing youth unemployment, the failed education system, and, in short, about everything. They are angry that President Tinubu is living in a lap of wasteful expenditure and opulence at the expense of the Nigerian people, who are dying of hunger and human misery.

The paradox is that Nigerian youth constitute a significant percentage of our population, yet they are completely marginalized in the scheme of things.

The worrisome aspect is that while the government has developed a proclivity for arresting and detaining young people on any flimsy excuse, political office holders who have looted the treasury are freely walking the streets untouched. Do we have two criminal justice systems in Nigeria—one for the rich and another for the poor?

The painful aspect is that while there are abundant laws against police brutality and human rights violations in Nigeria, the Nigerian police still go about arresting and detaining suspects and dumping them in prison without bail or trial. As clearly stipulated in our 1999 Constitution, every citizen is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law of competent jurisdiction.

Additionally, any person who is arrested or detained shall be informed in writing within 24 hours, in a language they understand, of the facts and grounds for their arrest or detention. If a person is arrested either for the purpose of being charged in court or upon reasonable suspicion of committing an offense, they must be charged in court within a reasonable time not exceeding 48 hours, failing which they should be granted bail.

Therefore, the Tinubu administration is urged to immediately initiate the processes for the release of the #EndBadGovernance protesters. The government should halt any further clampdown on #EndBadGovernance protesters. Nothing is gained by seeking revenge against these protesters and their supporters. After all, they are our children. Rather than wage war against our youth, the government should, in the coming weeks, order the release of the detained young protesters. It is self-destructive to continue shortchanging the young people, the leaders of tomorrow.

The beauty of democracy, in contrast to the totalitarianism and dictatorship we witnessed during the military regimes in Nigeria, is that citizens are free to express their opinions without any form of intimidation, persecution, or victimization. The rule of law ought to reign supreme over the arbitrary and capricious exercise of power.

Arbitrarily arresting peaceful protesters undermines the rule of law and further erodes public trust in the Tinubu government. Peaceful protest is a fundamental human right enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution. The detention of a suspect in prison without bail or trial is unconstitutional and actionable in law. In a democracy, the government must respect the voices of its citizens. Peaceful protests are a means for people to express their views, grievances, and demands.

Suppressing a peaceful protest by young people undermines democratic principles and can lead to more protest against the government. Nigeria is a signatory to various international treaties and conventions, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protect the rights to freedom of assembly and expression.

Arresting peaceful protesters flagrantly violates these obligations and can damage Nigeria’s international reputation. When citizens are denied the right to protest, they may resort to other, less peaceful means of expressing their dissatisfaction. This can lead to instability, violence, and disruption of public order, which is detrimental to the nation as a whole.

By Mabel Adinya Ade

Recent images and reports of young, frail, malnourished Nigerian children being detained and brought before adult courts for participating in peaceful protests against bad governance are a searing reminder of the state’s responsibility towards its citizens, especially its most vulnerable. These are not the actions of rebels or criminals; these children are simply exercising their constitutional rights in a plea to bring light to their plight. Instead of being heard, they face an unimaginable response detained, humiliated, and denied the dignity every human being deserves.

This shocking treatment is an affront to Universal Human Rights, Nigerian Constitutional values, and indeed, our cultural ethos that places a high premium on the well-being of children. For a government to subject children to such conditions behind bars and in adult courts begs the question: Are we no longer bound by our duty to protect and nurture the young? Our constitution is clear: every Nigerian, regardless of age, has the right to be heard, respected, and treated with dignity. When young citizens are bold enough to peacefully raise their voices against the injustices affecting their lives, this act of bravery should be met with commendation, not brutalization.

Children Are Being Failed by Their Government

Witnessing children collapse from hunger and deprivation as they stand before the courts is a glaring reflection of the challenges facing the nation today. These children should be in school, with access to shelter, healthcare, and food. Instead, they are left on the fringes, denied basic needs, and now criminalized for expressing their desperation. The Nigerian government has a solemn duty to ensure the welfare of these children, a responsibility that should compel every public servant to address these grievances, not silence them through detention.

It is impossible to separate the challenges facing these young people from the broader crisis in Nigeria. Our nation is plagued by ongoing insurgencies in the North Central, North East, and North West regions, widespread food insecurity, and unprecedented levels of inflation and economic instability. The devaluation of the Naira has left many families struggling to afford basic necessities, and social security and protections are but a distant dream for the majority. This harsh economic climate has pushed millions to the brink, leaving children innocent and deserving of our care without the resources needed to survive, let alone thrive.

The Rising Tide of Despair Among Our Youth

These children, facing neglect and abuse in the hands of those meant to protect them, are also growing up in a world where the dangers of kidnapping, human trafficking, and violence lurk around every corner. The economic situation is strangling opportunities, forcing many into drug addiction, internet fraud, ritual killings, and suicide. When a society fails its young, despair sets in. And when young people lose hope in their future, it is the entire nation that suffers.

Instead of further traumatizing these children by exposing them to the harsh realities of detention and adult courtrooms, we should be listening to their voices and addressing their concerns. Are our judicial systems no longer advocates for justice and protection? Nigerian law provides for family courts precisely to protect minors from the harmful impacts of adult judicial processes. Yet, here we are, allowing children to be tried as though they were adults stripping them of their innocence, subjecting them to psychological trauma, and effectively branding them as outcasts.

The Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act: An Essential Shield at Risk

The Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act is a critical shield for Nigeria’s vulnerable populations. It protects children, women, and other marginalized groups from physical, emotional, and psychological harm. Recognizing and enforcing this law is vital. It prohibits acts that would expose young protesters to harm, degradation, or any form of violence, especially at the hands of those entrusted with their protection.

Imagine the repercussions if this law were repealed or disregarded. Without the VAPP Act, cases of abuse, harassment, and violence would spiral further, unchecked. Children, like those peacefully protesting, would lose any legal recourse against the very authorities failing them now. Without VAPP’s protections, children could be detained without appropriate safeguards, exposing them to trauma that can last a lifetime. This would undermine any remaining trust in the system and deepen the cycle of disillusionment already rampant among young Nigerians.

The enforcement of the VAPP Act isn’t a luxury; it is a necessity. It is a legal instrument that provides a safety net for Nigeria’s most vulnerable. The government must not only uphold but strengthen its implementation to protect children from the kinds of abuses we see today. Repealing it or diminishing its importance would be a catastrophic reversal, sending a message that Nigerian vulnerable/children’s lives, safety, and dignity are expendable.

The Government’s Role in Restoring Trust and Hope

Our leaders must ask themselves: if these children were their own, would they accept this treatment? The answer is undoubtedly no. So why, then, is it acceptable for these young citizens? We call on the Nigerian government to recognize this as a moment to prioritize the welfare and rights of our children. We must listen to their voices, which are a reflection of the growing disillusionment in our country Nigeria.

Inaction will only deepen the sense of betrayal that many young Nigerians feel towards their leaders. Instead, we urge the government to consider the following advocacy actions:

1. Immediate Release and Rehabilitation: The detained children should be released immediately and provided with care to address the physical and emotional harm caused by their detention. Rehabilitation and support services must be made available to help them heal.

2. Commitment to Dialogue: The government should initiate platforms for youth voices, especially those marginalized by poverty and instability, to express their concerns constructively without fear of arrest and detention.

3. Strengthen Family Courts: The judicial system must adhere to the standards for handling cases involving minors, ensuring they are directed to family courts where they can receive the care and protection they need.

4. Strengthen Social Protection Programmes: It is vital to provide social safety nets for the most vulnerable, ensuring that children have access to food, education, healthcare, and a safe environment.

5. Invest in Mental Health and Counselling for young people: We must expand mental health resources to address the growing crisis among our young people, providing avenues for healthy expression and support.

6. Prioritize Enforcement of the VAPP and Child’s Right Acts: The government must reaffirm its commitment to the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act and Child’s Right Act, enhancing enforcement to protect the rights and dignity of children and other vulnerable groups from all forms of violence.

7. Hold Leaders Accountable for Children’s Rights Violations: We call on the international community to hold Nigeria accountable to its commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights frameworks.

To the Nigerian Government and International Community

This is a plea, not only from Mabel and concerned citizens but from young voices crying out for justice, dignity, and compassion. Detaining children for peacefully protesting is an international embarrassment, a violation of their rights, and a betrayal of the trust they place in us as their protectors. Every child in Nigeria deserves a future filled with hope, not trauma. Our country has the capacity to create a brighter, more compassionate Nigeria; one where young people can look to their leaders with respect rather than despair.

The time to act is now. Let us release these children, address their grievances, and commit to creating a Nigeria that honours the dreams, rights, and dignity of all its citizens, especially the most vulnerable among us.

Mabel Adinya Ade

Executive Director,

Adinya Arise Foundation (AAF)

[email protected]

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

“The partiality that inevitably affects judges has been noted in cases with a political flavour.”

David Pannick, KC, Judges, p. 44 (1987)

The state as we know it enjoys three notional monopolies. One is a monopoly of legitimate taxation. The second is a monopoly of the legitimate instrumentality of violence; and the third is a monopoly of legitimate dispute resolution. In Nigeria, all three monopolies are now contested by non-state entities.

Of these three monopolies, many focus on the legitimate instrumentality of violence but it is the capacity of a state to resolve disputes lawfully and peacefully among those who live in it that makes the other two monopolies worthwhile. That is why courts, administrative and even traditional institutions exist.

David Pannick, KC reminds us that “as part of the function of deciding disputes, the courts provide a public service, at almost no charge to customers (who pay for their lawyers but not for the judge and the courtroom).” This is the ideal. Nigeria’s judicial system is in a profound crisis of legitimacy today because of ample evidence suggesting strongly that the requirement that litigants should not pay for the judge or the courtroom may not apply to certain categories, especially among political litigants.

To be clear, the most important reasons for which people sometimes end up in court often are not things to which it is possible to assign any value – dignity, equity, justice, memory, safety or human life. These are all invaluable. Without them, organized society fails. Jurisprudence is the system for organising knowledge about judicial decisions that ultimately deliver and govern these invaluable public goods.

However, judicial business is not confined to these. Many disputes that end up in court involve property or things of material value, such as land, inheritance, shares, stocks, or chattels. Some others may extend to intangibles of value, such as status or reputation. There could also be cases concerning access to political power from which perch the people involved hope to reap benefits that are material in consequence.

These are all things for which the currency of transaction or exchange is money. In Nigerian parlance, that is called “Kudi”. When a court system prioritises disputes affecting things measured in the currency of money over things that are entirely invaluable, it replaces a system of jurisprudence in favour of a preoccupation with “Kudisprudence”.

By way of full disclosure, I did not invent this expression, “Kudisprudence”. I was introduced to it by a friend and school mate of long standing who also happens to be a diligent Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). He has not licensed me to disclose his identity, and I am obliged to respect his anonymity.

Two cases occurred this past week to illustrate how this distinction between jurisprudence and Kudisprudence affects judicial decision making in Nigeria. On 30 October, the police arraigned a member of the House of Representatives, Mascot Ikwechegh, on charges of assault against a gig-economy driver working with Bolt. A now viral video clip showed Mr. Ikwechegh had assaulted the driver in words and deed. He called the driver vermin in different forms and threatened to “disappear” him without consequences, before proceeding to satiate on the driver his thirst for physical violence.

For those conversant with that Nigerian rat-killer, the material on the video clip portrayed Mr. Ikwechegh as the member representing “Otapiapia” Federal Constituency in the Rat Killers Assembly. On his arraignment, the court granted him bail on an oral application in the sum of N500,000 with sureties who only had to show evidence of utility bills for proof of their residence. The case was adjourned for one week.

Two days later, on 1 November, another court in the same Abuja was host to proceedings charging at least 114 children according to the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, with treasonable felony. These charges arose in connection with the #EndBadGovernment protests which occurred last August around the country. Arrested in different locations in northern Nigeria reportedly, these children were transferred to Abuja where they had been detained en masse for 93 days.

On arraignment, they all looked “visibly unwell and malnourished.” In their short spell in  court, at least four of them suffered fainting feats. Having beheld all of this, the presiding judge promptly rewarded the children with bail in the sum of N10 million Naira each or a total of N1.14 billion Naira, with two sureties each of whom must be a senior federal civil servant of at least Grade Level 15. He adjourned the case to 24 January 2025. These terms were manifestly such that none of these children can hope to comply with.

This is a court system in which material things, such as status, make all the difference between receiving justice or being on the end of the administration of law even when it is manifestly unjust. The parliamentarian received jurisprudence from a court system that was happy to serve malnourished children with anything but that.

There is an even more worrying scenario to which the expression “Kudisprudence” may be applied. That can be the case where a judicial decision follows upon a bargain – implicit or explicit – between a judge or magistrate on the one hand and a party (disclosed or undisclosed) on the other. This was the sense in which Stanislav Andrzejewski, the former Polish soldier and prisoner-of-war who founded the Sociology Department at the University of Reading in England coined the word “kleptocracy” in 1968, which he defined as “a system of government [that] consists precisely of the practice of selling what the law forbids to sell.” Among the things a kleptocracy can buy and sell in its political open market, Professor Andrzejewski included “even judges.”

The fact that Kudisprudence in the second sense occurs in certain courts in Nigeria is not in question. Many disciplinary cases concluded by the National Judicial Council (NJC), no less, testify to this fact. The only issue left to be determined is how pervasive this is. One thing seems clear: political cases increasingly appear to suggest – very much as David Pannick writes – a higher predisposition to what look like outcomes of Kudisprudence.

For evidence of how this system of Kudisprudence can work, a recent report by the advocacy group, Citizen Gavel, names a notorious former governor and current minister who has a long track record of “building judicial infrastructure and offering other forms of support” to the judiciary in acts of generosity that “often coincide with periods when he has faced significant legal challenges. This raises the possibility that these actions may have indirectly influenced judicial decisions.” Law professor, Fidelis Oditah, SAN adds that in the courts in the Rivers State disputes may have been “corruptly procured” and that the decision have more than a whiff of “a rat” about them.

In its nature, judicial quid pro quo does not necessarily occur on social media or with receipts. Verified cases are more likely than not to be fewer in fact than the number of actual incidents. Many more followers of the recent goings on in Nigeria’s judicial system may themselves have evidence to conclude that it has evolved from a system of jurisprudence to one preoccupied with Kudisprudence.

On its own, that would be sufficient cause for worry; but the reason the system now suffers an overwhelming sense of crisis of credibility is because it cannot be ruled out that this preoccupation with Kudisprudence in the first sense is not the result (in a significant number particularly of political cases), of Kudisprudence in the second – transactional – sense.

David Pannick concludes that courts offer to “those who are greedy, vexatious, exhibitionist, aspiring to canonisation, or just plain impossible a platform to perform.” Every one of them has a right to a court system that regards the public interest in justice as something that money cannot buy.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu may be reached at [email protected]