The greatest challenge to the administration of justice in Nigeria has always been the lack of autonomy for the judiciary. For the past two years, President Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law an executive order 10, which seeks to establish the financial autonomy for legislature and judiciary. This law, I strongly believe, will definitely stem the tide of undue influence the executive arm of government has on the judiciary, most especially at the state level.
However, the duty of judges is considered to be very pious, therefore the constitution has provided for independence of judiciary so that they can remain impartial to serve the constitutional goals, act fairly, reasonably, free of any fear and favor.
More so, judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary should be independent from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subjected to improper influence from the other branches of government, or from private or partisan interests.
Furthermore, giving the judiciary autonomy will help to ensure good performance without thinking about serving someone’s interest, especially in issues of litigation on election matters. In my dear Nigeria, when your election seat case is in court and you have a godfather like your state governor, definitely, there is a tendency the court verdict would be in your favour, this is simply because the governor would do all it takes to help you succeed.
In view of the aforesaid, the governor is in charge of his state, including the state judiciary. How do you think that if he interferes in someone’s case, he would not succeed? This is because all those working under the said sector are under his control.
In a nutshell, I would like to call the attention of the state governors to pledge themselves fully to giving maximum cooperation to the implementation of the said subject.
Mallam Musbahu Magayaki,
Bauchi state.
and then