By Eddie Iroh

It was not long after the return to ‘civilian’ democracy in 1999 that wags went to work. They named the new rule ‘DEMONCRAZY’. Another group of wags termed it “DEMALLCRAZY’. That of course had nothing to do with the fact that the President in the new dispensation was a retired five-star Army General. In any case, that was something the politicians judged to be a good bridge between the military on one hand and the civilian politicians and the populace on the other.

However, 25 years after the military relinquished power, democracy has been on a very rocky and dangerous path. Fortunately, the recklessness of the political class has not led to yearnings for return to military rule even though there are some who might prefer the devil they know in military fatigues to the one who hides his carnivorous claws behind a civilian robe.

Meanwhile, the problem with Nigerian Democracy can easily be traced back to its foundation–the Constitution. This is a document skewered to benefit some and displease the others. In a country with 250 ‘tribes and tongues’, the Constitutions lamely agreed on the recognition of the Federal Character of
the country and the establishment of Federal Character Commission which is for all intents and purposes a toothless bulldog. The drafters of the constitution appeared to have focused attention on the presidency and thus gave it more power than is appropriate in a true federation.

The most attractive of these is presiding over the money collected by the national oil corporation from crude oil sales of which Nigeria is the eighth largest producer in the world. The principle of derivation, which would mean that a state controls what is produced from their backyard with them paying an agreed amount to the centre is not the case thus negating one of core principles of true federalism. Thereby within the federal system exists financial arrangement which has made the quest for the presidency a quinquennially do-or-die affair.

Only once in the 25-year history of the current dispensation has the losing candidate, who was the incumbent president, vowed that he would not go to court because his continuing in office was not worth the death of a single Nigerian! He gracefully bowed out and urged his supporters to keep the peace. Thus, the president-elect who had vowed on behalf of monkeys and gorillas would rise in their thousands to fight for him was left carrying the empty can.

That was the only time in 25 years the presidential election was not decided by the courts that have also become part of the problem. Time was when Nigeria’s supreme court boasted of men of character like Justice Adetokunbo Ademola and Justice Anthony Aniagolu who placed the law above thing else.
Alas that era is gone. The wags now regard the judiciary as ‘JUDISHARING’ where the cases are decided before they reach the Bench! No judgement by the judiciary has gone against the Executive, or ‘EXECUTHIEF’, as the wags would name it.

But I explain this with what foreign observer felt about African political rulership in general. He said: “African governments has fallen into the hand of elite politicians who have succeeded the colonial masters and pretty much sucks the life out of the wealth of the countries and about 70 to 80 percent
of these lie in banks in the capitals of Western countries.” In the Legislative arm they did not escape from the tongue lashing of the wags who nicknamed them the ‘LEGISLATHIEVES’.

And the Senate President Godswill Akpabio was caught red handed announcing to the whole
house on the eve of departure for their Christmas break that the Clerk of the National Assembly has put some ‘little amount’ in their bank accounts to enable them a full enjoyment in the festive season. On his desk as he was speaking were microphones of several radio and television services carrying his announcement to millions of hapless Nigerians who were wondering where the Naira would be found for their next cup of garri!

This brings to my mind a Second Republic cartoon by Owolabi, aka Owoblow. He drew a man who had stepped out of a Lagos bank carrying a sack of money. He was suddenly confronted by an armed robber. The armed thug pointed his gun at the head of the man with the sack of money and snarled “Give me that money or I’ll blow your brains out”! The man with the money looked at the gun and looked at his sack of money and said to the armed man “Listen you can live in this country without brains but not without money. So, if you want to shoot, shoot!”

So, as the inimitable Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo of ‘The New Masquerade’ would say, ‘Take your choose’!

By Emman Ozoemena

Struggle for supremacy between the political leaders and traditional institutions is as old man. Both realms constantly lay claim to being the sovereign representative of the people. Exceptedly, this usually results in deposition of the natural rulers by the government in the contemporary era, where political leaders hold sway as the sovereign.

Beginning from the colonial administration, deposition of traditional rulers has remained an instrument deployed by by the colonial administration and their successors in post independence Nigeria to control the natural rulers. The British Colonial government used it to quell opposition to the high handed style of governance. Oba of Benin, Jaja of Opobo,Oba of Lagos, Emir of Bauchi, Emir of Ningi, among others.

The post independence Nigerian leaders continued since 1960, has sustained this under hand practices to ensure their relevance. From North to South of Nigeria, there is section that has not experienced deposition most times on mere political differences and opinions.

Recent events in Kano has brought to the fore this instrument of control deployed by political leaders.

The challenge before the nation now, is how to safe guide the future of traditional institutions in Nigeria. It is rather precarious given the corrosive influence of partisanship in the state especially by the governors who are are like overlords. How do we insulate the institution from from politics and politicians. The future of this rational institution may be on the brink, if care is not taken by the stakeholders, the Nigerian people.

Emman Ozoemena, a public policy consultant wrote in from Abuja, Nigeria.

By Jaafar Jaafar

While the hyperbolic lyrics of the legendary Sarkin Kotson Kano Abdulrahman’s magnum opus – Sir Sanusi Sarkin Yaki Zakin Daga Na Abashe – turned the late Sir Sanusi’s inborn hubris into believing that he was above his peers and superiors, his grandson chose to take inspiration from a tribe of cyber buskers cheering him to banishment.

Barely three years after his ascension to the Kano throne, the present emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has dumped a set of etiquettes laid down by Muhammad Al-Maghili during Emir Muhammadu Rumfa’s reign in the 1480’s to inspire awe and instil respect for leaders; demolished the century-old Soron Ingila built by Emir Abbas and used by colonialists shortly after Kano conquest in 1903 and; squandered at least N4billion bequeathed to him by Emir Ado Bayero in 2014.

Let me make it clear to people who think I was paid to write against Emir Sanusi that my conscience is the mainspring of my actions.

For the sake of making a point, on Wednesday last week a notable personality who marvelled at my last article on Emir Sanusi sent me a ‘gift’ of N200,000.

I declined to accept the gift in order to clear my conscience that I have NEVER collected money from anybody to write against the emir.

Well, I really do not bother about the effete challenge of a clan of Internet meerkats, tying to challenge an armadillo of a journalist.

What I am more concerned about is setting the records straight with fairness but without fear or favour.

There are certain traditions a traditional office holder is expected to adhere to.

That is the reason it is called traditional institution.

Traditional rulers are chief image-markers of their people, chief custodians of culture and traditions, ambassadors of their people, etc.

But Emir Sanusi chose to drift from this tradition.

I have never heard an Eze saying the Igbos are 419ers or drug-traffickers, nor heard an Oba denigrating the Yoruba people.

While I have my reservations about Ganduje’s light rail project, Emir Sanusi’s conclusion that tens of thousands of enterprising stall owners in Sabon Gari Market, industrious traders of Yankura, dutiful traders at ’Yan Lemo, resilient vendors of Kurmi, venturesome grain dealers of Dawanau, billionaire merchants of Singer and Kantin Kwari Markets are all there to attend “wedding and naming ceremony” is abusive.

And I am being charitable.

Emir Sanusi’s Financial Recklessness

About six weeks after becoming emir, Sanusi began the butchery of the emirate council’s life-time savings in fixed deposits in First Bank, UBA, Zenith, FCMB, AfriBank, Access, etc.

On July 24, 2014, the sum of N400m fixed by his predecessor was first broken from First Bank to the transaction account of the emirate council at the same bank.

Less than three weeks after, on August 13, 2014, another fixed deposit of N200m was recalled to the main account.

The recall of the fixed deposits continued steadily until December 8, 2016 when about N4billion he inherited were drawn into the main/transaction account and mercilessly exterminated.

Following his visit to former President Goodluck Jonathan on July 24, 2014, and subsequent release of his travel documents by the SSS, the emir began criss-crossing the world.

On August 1, 2014, Emir Sanusi approved the payment of N152,624,723 to a now sanctioned bureau de change operator, Dabo Gate Ideal.

Twelve days after, on August 13, 2014, the same company was again paid N15,458,660.

On December 10, 2014, Western Union Travels and Tours Limited, a travel agent to DELOITTE, was paid N6,993,203.

Three weeks after, precisely on December 31, 2014, the same company was paid N5,566,235 from the emirate council account.

Two weeks after, the company was again paid N9,071,000 from the emirate council account on January 14, 2015.

This payment trend to Western Union Travel and Tours and Classic Air Service for chattered flights and foreign travels continues till date.

Contrary to reports that the emir’s expensive cars were gift from friends, documents available to me show that on August 27, 2014, Nigeria’s famous exotic car dealers, Triple K Investments, were paid N142,800,000 from the First Bank account of the emirate council for the supply of exotic cars.

Still on August 27 and October 16, 2014, Emir Sanusi approved the payment of another N154,873,000 and N36,223,000 respectively to the same Triple K Investment for the supply of exotic cars.

Again, the same company was paid N5,060,000 on December 17, 2014.

In my last article, I hinted that the emir spends a lot on Internet bills.

Now to prove this assertion, here is the breakdown of his expenditure on calls and Internet.

On June 29, 2015, Airtel was paid N2,639,185.19;

on July 22, 2015 (N1,471,163.49);

on August 31, 2015 (N4,954,883.61);

on September 29, 2015 (N2,638,626.18);

on November 9, 2015 (N1,012,077.36);

on December 21, 2015 (N8,697,900.09);

on March 11, 2016 (N3,640,356.14);

on April 26, 2016 (N1,000,000);

on August 22, 2016 (N3,000,000)

on September 21 (N2,000,000);

on December 19 (N5,000,000) and;

on February 9, 2017 (N2,000,000).

I couldn’t believe when I once heard the emir once spent N7m on Internet in ONE month !

Now imagine this: The total amount the emir spent on Airtel from June 29, 2015 to February 9, 2017 is N37,054,192.06.

This amount alone could build a modest school or a cottage hospital with equipment as a way of matching his words with action.

While the salary bill of the emirate was in average of N7million (usually defrayed by the interests accrued from over N4billion fixed deposits Emir Ado Bayero made), the emirate received a steady grant from local government deductions of N127,898,110.07 every quarter – about N42m monthly.

While he buffeted the savings on his expensive lifestyle, to be fair to him, he increased the salary to N17,078,441.56 in September 2014.

The salary bill further ballooned under Sanusi to about N23m after the emir put his distant cousins, uncles and other relatives on salary.

When recession bit harder, grants decreased and balance in the account fell to as low as N800,000 at a point, the emir now slashed the salary to the status quo ante, but he never stopped lavish spending on foreign and local travels, Airtel data/calls, questionable NEFT transfer of about N12m monthly, cars, sartorially hyped up outlook, etc.

In monthly grants, the emirate council received between July 30, 2014 and March 1, 2017, the sum of N1,672,953,660.

While the total debit from June 8, 2014 to April 11, 2017 is about N6 billion, the current balance in the account as at April 11, 2017 is N23,487,406.12.

For someone who is preaching the gospel of economic management, financial prudence, I wonder why he woefully failed set example in his tiny fief.

Let me, as obedient subject, once again remind my emir, a monarch who does not mind deposition on the alter speaking the “truth”, that when certain Sanusi Lamido Sanusi escaped firing squad by whiskers and jailed for about two and half years under Abacha’s Decree 2 in Sokoto Prisons for “inciting violence”, his rights to both movements and free speech were trampled.

I hope somebody will take some lessons.

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Mohammed Ladan Tsamiya probably believed he was a commodities trader who happened also to moonlight as a Justice of the Court of Appeal. To him, both vocations seemed to provide mutually reinforcing revenue streams. Sometimes, he transacted business as one while doing the other. In keeping with this tendency, it was an unsuccessful transaction in the sale of beans that brought his vocation as a judge to an untimely end.

The story began with the 2015 elections. In Abia State, south-east Nigeria, the parliamentary elections in 2015 were not without controversy. Nnamdi Iro Oji, a losing candidate in those elections, filed a petition with the National Judicial Council (NJC) in January 2016 levying serious allegations of misconduct against Ladan Tsamiya. What follows is from the 19-page report of the NJC Investigation Committee into these allegations. Sunday Akintan, a retired Supreme Court Justice, chaired the NJC’s investigation committee into Mr. Oji’s complaint. The other members of the Committee were Hakila Yalla Hemman, then Chief Judge of Gombe State; and Aloy Nweke Nwankwo, Chief Judge of Ebonyi State.

Mr. Oji complained that around 12 October 2015, after the conclusion of first instance proceedings in his case at the Abia State Election Petition Tribunal in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, he got introduced to someone “who was in the system”, who took him to a house in Sokoto, north-west Nigeria, where they met with Ladan Tsamiya. After condemning the election petition tribunal as having been “influenced”, Ladan Tsamiya advised Mr. Oji to write a petition to the President of the Court of Appeal requesting a change in the composition of the Court of Appeal panel in Owerri. His application was granted but he was “shocked when he saw that Hon. Justice Mohammed Ladan Tsamiya was one of those sent to Owerri Judicial Division to handle the appeal.”

Over a sequence of encounters which occurred in Sokoto, Gwarimpa (Abuja), and Owerri in Imo State, according to Mr. Oji, Ladan Tsamiya requested him to provide N200 million “to enable him discuss with the three (3) Justices who were to handle the appeal to influence the court’s decision in his favour.” When he seemed reluctant, the Justice of Appeal warned Mr. Oji that failure to deliver the requisitioned sum or a substantial part thereof “may bring a shocking outcome to the appeal.” Specifically, Ladan Tsamiya advised Mr. Oji that “the funds which should be in foreign currency should be brought to him in his private residence in Owerri, Imo State, which was where they met.” Despite having a strong case on the facts, the decision in Mr. Oji’s appeal went the way that Ladan Tsamiya had predicted after he failed to deliver the funds demanded.

These allegations may have been staggering in their substance, but Ladan Tsamiya’s response was not lacking in invention or audacity. According to him, this was a tale of a sale of beans gone awry. Sometime in November 2015, he said, three persons “one Hausa and his two Igbo friends met him in Sokoto and the Hausa man introduced himself as a buyer of beans and ginger which His Lordship said he had in commercial quantities.” He reportedly “assumed that the two Igbos were also interested in buying the commodities.” It was in the course of these conversations, according to Ladan Tsamiya, that “one of them” reportedly asked for his assistance in connection with a pending case at the Court of Appeal. He claimed he declined, telling them that he could not help because he was not their lawyer. The discussions over the sale of beans – according to Ladan Tsamiya – subsequently broke down and could not be consummated.

Unsurprisingly, Ladan Tsamiya’s story of mixing commodity trading with judging proved to be unconvincing. In their report delivered on 22 September 2016, the committee of investigation found the case against Ladan Tsamiya to be “credible” and recommended sanctions against him. Eight days later, on 30 September 2016, the NJC announced its decision to compulsorily retire him from judicial service.

12 years earlier, it was arguably their inclination to do what Nigerians call “chopping alone” that ultimately ended the careers of two other senior Justices of Appeal, Okwuchukwu Opene and David Adeniji. In 2004, the NJC recommended the dismissal of both Justices of Appeal after they collected sundry items of bribery, including N15 million and N12 million respectively to award the contest for the Anambra South senatorial constituency in the 2003 general election to Ugochukwu Uba, who was not a candidate in the contest. James Ogebe, the senior Justice of Appeal then who headed the Court of Appeal panel drafted to Enugu to replace them after the scandal broke recalls in his memoirs that “there was clear evidence of bribery…. They brought a bag containing the money that was not properly closed. A cook who was cooking for them inside the official house even saw it. He was the one who carried the bag inside. They just gave him N10,000 from it.”

Eight years after the end of Ladan Tsamiya’s experiment in occupational cross-dressing ended his career, in May 2024, the NJC announced that they “cautioned” Amina Shehu, a judge of the High Court of Yobe State “for issuing Writ of Possession Conferring Title on the Defendant in Suit No YBS/HC/NNR/1cv/2020 when there was no subsisting judgement (sic) of any Court to enable His Lordship issue the Writ.” In ordinary parlance, the issuing of a writ of possession in the absence of an underlying judgment would be a felony crime of burglary, theft, conversion, or stealing. If committed by an ordinary citizen, such a crime would almost certainly have an additional element of fraud. Any person who can commit such an act surely should have no place in any judicial service worth its name. By concluding that the appropriate sanction in such a case is a mere “caution”, the NJC makes it difficult to distinguish a judge from the criminals whom they are supposed to hold to account.

These three cases discussed here hardly differed in terms of gravity. Instead of accountability, the judiciary especially under the outgoing Chief Justice, Olukayode Ariwoola, has converted the myth of judicial independence into a charter for judicial impunity. In the case of Ladan Tsamiya, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) did launch an investigation after the conclusion of the disciplinary process by the NJC, leading to his arrest. He was later arraigned for trial before the High Court of Imo State in Owerri in July 2019. Five months before the trial, however, in February 2019, the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Abuja presided over by the recently deceased Noelita Agbakoba as judge, set aside the decision of the NJC for having been reached in violation of relevant provisions of the Judicial Discipline Regulations. Under Olukayode Ariwoola – as a discerning tweep has pointed out – “Someone who sprayed Naira got 6 months. Someone who issued a warrant of possession without a preceding judgement got a warning.”

Over the 20-year period that separates the disciplinary cases concerning Okwuchukwu Opene and David Adeniji in 2004; Ladan Tsamiya in 2016; and Amina Shehu in 2024, the sanction issued by the NJC for judicial misconduct of a criminal nature became attenuated from dismissal through compulsory retirement to a mere love letter, signalling the collapse of judicial discipline and accountability in the country under Olukayode Ariwoola as Chief Justice of Nigeria.

Over that time horizon, judicial process in the public perception became somewhat tarnished to a mere transaction in which outcomes are more likely than not to be determined by a quid pro quo between litigants and the presiding officers, and not by the strength of the evidence or a fair and dispassionate application of the norms. At the special session of the Supreme Court to usher in the new legal year organized on 27 November 2023, Ebun Sofunde, SAN, who addressed the court on behalf of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN), captured this well when he warned that judicial reputation “is at an all-time low… to a point where it may no longer be redeemable.” This sums up the state of Nigeria’s judiciary 25 years into elective government.

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