SUNDAY EJIKE and LANRE ADEWOLE sum the eight years of the Buhari administration, spotlighting the unforgettables.
In the eight years of his second sojourn in power as Nigeria’s president, ending in about two weeks, Muhammadu Buhari has made both historic positive and negative impacts on the Justice sector, in a relationship that has been more adversarial than complementary.
In engaging with the judicial arm of government, President Buhari as the head of the executive arm, is leaving a profound adjustment on the psyche of the system, which has seen him, unprecedentedly relieving two Chief Justices of Nigeria of their jobs, midway into their tenures and incidentally becoming the first President to allocate the largest money, for the running of the system, he has been accused, and not without justification, of ruining.
The unprecedented double terminations at the very top of the Judiciary, orchestrated by the executive arm of President Buhari as well as the increased funding, for what was supposed to be an “enemy” sector, highlight the love-hate relationship between Buhari and the Judiciary, which dates back to his multiple failed attempts at mounting the presidency, for which he squarely blamed the “corrupt” Judiciary.
Seventeen months into his reign, in October 2016, Buhari ordered an unprecedented midnight raid of the homes of judges, for being allegedly corrupt. There was global outrage.
Before then, his administration had hauled some former state actors, especially those who served in the previous administration of Goodluck Jonathan, into detention on the account of corruption allegations, disregarding the rule of law, in the course of bringing the weight of law, against them.
The President then, on Friday, 25 January, 2019, threw the country into a meltdown when he suspended Walter Onnoghen as Chief Justice and brought in Tanko Mohammed as his replacement. Onnoghen was finally forced to retire, before time.
Incidentally, Buhari, was also instrumental to forcing Tanko too, to retire before time, when his colleagues, rose up against his poor administrative style at the apex court.
Historically, Buhari wasn’t the first to fire a CJN. That record belongs to the Murtala/Obasanjo regime which ousted Taslim Olawale Elias as the CJN. But no President in history, got the tenures of two CJNs abridged, by forcing them out.
Incidentally, the adversarial relational has paradoxically translated to a historic funding of the Judiciary, by Buhari, with the sector receiving its largest annual appropriation of N150 billion for the 2023 spending, from his administration.
From the N73 billion envelope he inherited from the Jonathan administration, Buhari initially shaved off the N3 billion in his first budgetary allocation to the Judiciary in 2016, before adding a N30 billion raise, to make it N100 million in 2017.
Then another raise of N10 billion in 2018, bringing it to N110 billion envelope and before freezing the envelope for three years running; 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Then another N10 billion raise in 2022 before the monster raise of another N40 billion, bringing the main envelope to the current N150 billion.
To its credit, the administration improved on the funding of the Judiciary, four times in its eight-year life-span, marking a positive unprecedented trend.
There are however cynics who queried the effect of the raise in the light of the galloping inflation, threatening the relevance of the country’s currency.
Stakeholders’ verdicts.
Many Nigerians expressed displeasure with the Buhari administration in the area of protection and promotion of human rights of Nigerian citizens. There are alleged cases of gross violations of human rights by security and law enforcement agents under his watch without appropriate punishment for the perpetrators.
Constitutional and human rights lawyer, Prof Mike Ozekhome (SAN) scored the President below average on protection of human rights, anti-corruplion, rule of law and insecurity, saying his performance is dismal.
While scoring the Buhari’s administration 40 percent on human rights, Ozekhome said, “In spite of the euphoria that greeted his (Buhari) coming by many Nigerians, he appeared very, very unprepared for the job of being the president of a multi, of a pluralistic society like Nigeria, he appeared in every indices unprepared.
“When you limit it to human rights record, it is not only dismal, it is dismally dismal, because he made it clear early in the day that the government believes that rule of law should be subordinated to the national security and what they always call national aecurity is solely security of the government of the day, not security of the nation. So they never believe in the operation of the rule of law.
“Dasuki was held for years in spite of several court orders, rullings and judgements setting him free or at least, granting him bail. Raymond Dokpesi was held for long until I got him bail. Bello Adoke was held for long until I was able to secure his bail. These people in Kaduna, El-Zakzaky and his wife have several judgments and rullings in their favour that they be set free, as I speak to you, they are still in federal government detention.
“Nnamdi Kanu, a man the federal government was trying and he was on bail, they went to attack his ancestral home at Afaraukwu Ibeku, Umuahia, Abia state on the 17th of September 2017, and he had to escape and 28 Innocent Nigerians were gruesomely mowed down during that operation.
“They kidnapped Nnamdi Kanu in Kenya, where he went to as a British citizen and forcefully renditioned him back to Nigeria. I got justice Binta Nyako, who dismissed eight of the 15 count charge against him, I got the Court of Appeal which dismissed the remaining seven counts and ordered that Nnamdi Kanu be discharged and to be set free and should never again be detained and should never again be tried in any court in Nigeria on the same criminal matters. As I speak to you Nnamdi Kanu is still being held by the federal government, unconstitutionally, illegally unquestionably, whimsically capriciously, arbitrarily, just as they want” the furious Silk said.
Speaking of the consequences, he noted, “They don’t obey rule of law, they don’t obey court orders. And when the case comes up at the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals, they will file series of frivolous motions to stop proceedings, to ensure that the case does not go on. A whole Federal Government staying execution of the liberty of its own citizen instead of protecting its citizens.
“So in terms of fundamental rights, this government’s performance is below 30%. Not even up to 40%. They don’t obey court judgments. They don’t even obey international recommendations, like the ruling of the African Union, telling them to set Nnamdi Kanu free. Like the ruling of United Nations Organization of 2021 in July, that Nnamdi Kanu should not only be set free that the federal government should pay him compensation for illegal detention. Of course, they look at these rulings and judgments of international courts and tribunals and laugh as if Nigeria were an island unto itself.
“But the consequences are always there. And it manifests in several ways. One of it is that Nigeria is almost a pariah nation amongst the comity of nations. When you are going through any airport in the world, you will see the way the security will glare at you, then they will do extra checks on you, they will tell you to fall out of the line, they will check you extra, because they profiled us, they have typified us because of the government’s lackluster performance, dismal performance, lack of respect for rule of law, lack of respect for human rights, poor governance template. Those are some of the consequences when the government has not done well, as we have seen in this template”, he explained.
A note to successor.
When asked of his message to the incoming government, the professor of law said, “Any government that will come in place after May 29, based on what the Supreme Court will finally decide because I know that, there are election petitions against the presumed president elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is that, such a government must know that Nigeria is a fractured country, more divided, more disunited, more troubled, more hemorrhagic than ever before. So, unlike Buhari who inherited a country that was at peace. President Goodluck Jonathan handed over and said, I will not contest the elections, he even conceded defeat, because he said my second ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.
“Unlike Buhari who came in, with a near cult followership, where a young man trekked from Kaduna to Abuja another one rode a bicycle from from Lagos to Abuja, the president-elect is coming with plenty baggages, a lot of electoral challenges to antecedents, to his pedigree, how he surmounts them is left for history and God but when he does surmount them, we must know that he is not coming in like Buhari that enjoyed euphoria, he is coming in as a president whom at least two thirds of Nigeria say no to because he got eight point something million votes, Atiku got seven point something million votes, Obi got six point something million votes. If you add Atiku’s own to Peter Obi’s own, its over 14 million to about eight point something. So he actually scored less than 10% of the board of registered voters and less than three and half of the votes of the entire population of Nigeria which is over 220 million.
“So, a President like that coming in with such baggage will do everything possible to unite a broken country, a fractured nation, to pacify, to hit the ground running working for the Nigerian people. I heard them already flying the kite of so-called removal of oil subsidy, which they argued in January 2012 through their operation shutdown Nigeria, that there was nothing like subsidy. When I heard them talking like that, they want to throw the country into more chaos and anarchy. They want Nigerian to gnash their teeth more, they want Nigerians to suffer more.
“They want further impoverishment of Nigeria. And then, instead of reuniting Nigeria, you’re already thinking of things that will further anger Nigerians, then such a president must do one thing, to quickly convoke a national conference for the people of Nigeria to have their own home grown, indigenous, respectable, credible constitution that enjoys the legality, the legitimacy, the credibility, the respectability of the Nigerian people, not the present schedule attached to decree number 24 of 1999, which is what actually is the 1999 constitution.
“Another way of doing it is by looking at the over 600 recommendations made by the 2014 National Conference attended by 492 Nigerians from all strata of the society, from all walks of life. Pick out that recommendations, I anchored the writing of how the government can bring about a people’s constitution. I anchored it in our subcommittee on judiciary and human rights.
“This report is there. They should bring out that one and quietly bring it forward, set up a commission or a committee as to how to subject it, the recommendation there, the people’s constitution, to the people, through a referendum, a popular plebiscite, then we will say yeah, we have a new constitution.
“It was done in Libya. It was done in Egypt, it was done in Tunisia, it was done in Eritrea and in South Africa. It was done in Iran. It was done in Iraq and also in Bangladesh. So, why are we afraid of the New People’s constitution? Driven by the people”?, he submitted rhetorically.
Questionable rights record?
In his own comment, Mr. Emmanuel Onwubiko, a former national commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria and the National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA) of Nigeria said Buhari’s regime has no regards for human rights of Nigerian citizens because of his military background.
According to the human right writer, Buhari was a brutal military dictator in the mid 80s when military decrees were promulgated, when drug offenses became punishable by death penalty, and those who were arrested prior to the promulgation of that so called military decree were executed by his junta.
Onwubiko lamented the way and manner human rights were being violated during Buhari’s administration without culprits, being punished by relevant authorities.
He said the last eight years have been the worst in the political history of Nigeria since 1960, adding that, within eight years, a lot of people have been killed by freelance armed bandits, terrorists and that the Buhari led government seems to be grossly incompetent in enforcing the law and incapable of carrying out the primary duty of government, which is to protect lives and property of Nigerians.
“So, if you have a government that cannot protect the life and property of its citizens, which is the most fundamental of all the human rights that Nigerians are entitled to, how do you described such a government, it is a failed government”, he said
Freedom of speech, he said became endangered, with so many journalists arrested and detained, on many occasions, even across the country, not only by the federal government, but even state governors, noting, “the President was so intolerant of people’s opinions on Twitter, they had to cut off Twitter, from over 80 million users in Nigeria, and for more than six months, people were not allowed to use Twitter in Nigeria. And so many businesses folded because a lot of businesses rely on online marketing for their survival.
“So many businesses, billions of dollars were lost by Nigerians, even at the level of small and medium scale enterprises. That is economic genocide that he committed”, he pointed out.
Describing security as the greatest human right, he pointed out how grisly things have become under the current administration.
“You cannot drive freely from Abuja, for instance to Lokoja or from Abuja to Zamfara, without being kidnapped by bandits who are allowed to operate freely. The government has never, ever been committed towards wiping them out. They’ve been tolerating them, to a point that bandits and terrorists invaded the Federal Capital Territory, destroyed the medium security prison in Kuje and set more than 800 prisoners free”, adding that, some of them that were forcefully released are terrorists, killers, armed robbers and rapists.
Onwubiko further lamented that “They are all over the place in Nigeria now. Nobody has captured them. Those who are captured are not up to a quarter of the number of people who escaped from the prison. A lot of Nigerians have been killed. Churches have been burned, mosques have been bombed. Nobody has been brought to account and nobody has been prosecuted. Nobody has been punished severely for mass killings that have taken place in Nigeria and we have a government. So what are we talking about, the human rights situation in Nigeria has been so abysmal”, he said.
Asked what the National Human Rights Commission can do to improve on the current situation, Onwubiko accused the President of not having regard for human rights, disclosing that it took him, almost four years to reconstitute the governing council of the Commission when the tenure of the previous governing council expired.
He explained that the Human Rights Commission is autonomous by law, but not so in practice and that there are so many things that they needed to do, like the prosecution of human rights offenders, which they are not doing.
“They are just turning out reports and at the end of the day, they are just media reports. They have the rights, legally to prosecute human rights offenders. They can get the fiat of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) to prosecute offenders, but they don’t do that.
“So many people have been killed, there is a lot of domestic violence, so many house wives have been killed, so many little children have been raped and we have so many cases of harassment and other human rights violations on the part of Army and the Police happening all over the place and the Human Rights Commission is not doing anything about it”, he alleged.
The major way to stop human rights violation, he said, is by prosecution and going go to court to claim damages from the offenders, adding, “by the time you obtain a lot of damages from the police, the police finances will be crippled and the hierarchy of the Nigerian Police Force will be forced to train their people and to professionalize the Nigerian police force. But we don’t have that.”
He also counseled his former Commission.
“The Commission needs to follow the law. They have the enabling Act setting up the Commission. They have lawyers. The person heading that place is a senior lawyer. They know what they should do to protect human rights of Nigerians, but they just don’t want to do it. They are scared. They don’t want to enforce the law”.
He also shared his post-Buhari pessimism.
He said, “nothing will change, because, first and foremost, the judiciary is almost captured. You know that the judiciary is not independent, those guys are just hand-picked by governors and by the president. Most of them are children of rich people, members of the elitist class who don’t want their status to change, so nothing will happen. At the end of the day, they will swear -in somebody whose election is being challenged, whose election has been said to have been rigged or manipulated.
“There will not be anything positive that will come out from Tinubu’s administration. We keep talking so that when they listen, they need to reform the process. They need to reform the process of appointing judges to avoid making the process look like a process whereby only big men will be appointing their children. We have one big man or a woman who was a retired Supreme Court Justice and has two of her daughters as judges” he claimed.
He finally urged Nigerians to speak out when their fundamental human rights are violated.
“When you see something, you say something. Anybody whose human right is violated, should shout from the rooftops. You keep talking even if government doesn’t listen, you keep shouting, one day, they will listen or they will be very uncomfortable in the office”, he admonished.
NBA knocks President.
The 2nd Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Chukwuemeka Clement Ugo, identified the protection of lives and property of the citizens as one of the cardinal responsibilities of the federal government.
He said, the Buhari administration has completely failed in the area of ensuring the protection of human rights, adding, “it is for us to look up to those that are coming to now make amends and see how they can respect the Constitution and operate, according to what the Constitution says”.
He said the rights of Nigerians are being violated in several ways and perpetrators are not arrested and prosecuted, claiming that under the Buhari administration, people are dying unnecessarily, being anihilated and nobody is allegedly arrested for the crimes.
Speaking on expectations post-May 29, the Bar leader said, “Elections, have come and gone, and Nigerians are expecting a new government, while some people are agitating that their mandate was stolen, But come May 29 there should be no vacuum. Someone must be there. The person who was pronounced as the winner must be sworn in and we expect that the person will look at the situation and speak against impunity and get the country united so that everybody will be together in going forward”
Ugo expressed the hope that the judiciary would do justice in the petitions challenging Tinubu’s election, for Nigeria to move forward, from the acrimonious poll.
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