Truth be told, there is hardly a Nigerian whether a politician, lawyer, judge, public servant, civil servant or ordinary citizen that respects the law and Nigerian constitution. Nobody respects the law of Nigeria. Nigerians mostly respect the laws majorly in breach. Only infinitesimal numbers of Nigerians have respect for the law and the constitution and they are doing things right in the interest of the Nigerian state.
The moral fabric of virtually all Nigerians have been woven around accepting that evil pays and is good and can be defended so long as it benefits them. That is why brazen violence is done to the Nigerian constitution, and democratic desecration of values is being celebrated and tolerated even by the highest office in the land. Good people hardly get recognised. The moral values of Nigerians seem to be near zero.
There is no institution that checks the violations of our constitution. All the institutions are manned by virtually people who have propensities to compromise the laws and the constitution for personal gains of themselves, their cronies, and the pecuniary benefits of those who violate or laws. The interests of the people are respected in theory but in practical realities, personal interests determine governance and governmental policies and programmes in most cases.
Public service is thus not for the service of the public interest and public good but for the personal interests of those who are in charge of the public institutions. Those in charge of our institutions claim to be fighting corruption but virtually almost all are engaged in corrupt ways of doing corrupt things for their selfish interests Those in opposition are not better than those in power. The only difference is in the opportunity to loot the treasuries. The worst thing is that those who have the duties to decide rightly have in most cases chosen to decide wrongly for reasons not far from the self-serving partisan interests of their paid masters.
Today, there is hardly any difference between the three arms of government in terms of checks and balances. There is cooperative agreement within the three arms of government to punish Nigerian citizens and approval of lawlessness appears to be official state policy. Law is what those in power and those interpreting it say law is and not really what law is. Lawlessness in adjudications is perceived by reasonable Nigerians, but the perceptions of Nigerians matter not to those who have sworn to defend and uphold the Nigerian constitution without fear or favour affections or ill will. Adjudicatory logic rooted in nationalistic stability appears to have disappeared from policy jurisprudence.
For me, I do not see anything that can be done differently by anyone in Nigeria without the system sabotaging such efforts. All institutions of governance appear to have been compromised, unfortunately. Going to court in sensitive political matters that can shape the destiny of Nigerian democracy and governance for good appears to most Nigerians to be a waste of time in most cases. The jurisprudence that gives sound policy direction to put bad behaviour in check has run out of the adjudicatory lexicon of Nigerian jurisprudence. All one sees are adjudicatory policy summersault that approve of constitutional iniquities.
Nigerians reasonably believe that you may not get justice because most decisions are politically motivated and rendered to perpetuate evil doers in power. Where is our hope? I have no answer. Many people who are in positions today came against the will of the people. There appears to be a conspiracy of those in charge of institutions to keep Nigerians in perpetual subjugation in penury and suffering. We, as Nigerians, are in for troubles, which seem not to bother those who should be bothered. But in all of these, I see the failure of the legal profession as the bane of Nigeria’s stability and democratic growth and development. Let the legal profession enforce boundaries that are codified in the code of conduct of its members and sanity will be restored in Nigeria.
