The law in Nigeria favors the rich. Bribery and corruption bend the law in favor of the rich.
The foundation of the justice system rests on the notion that rich and poor are treated equally. But in Nigeria, access to justice depends on how rich you are.
Poor Nigerians are more cruelly discriminated against by the justice system than the rich, the powerful, and the well connected. The law is supposed to serve the rich and the poor.
The law in Nigeria favors the rich. Bribery and corruption bend the law in favor of the rich. In Nigeria, the rich are the most successful manipulators and the most enviable breakers of the law. Our laws serve the wealthy and the powerful first.
The way and manner Dele Farotimi, lawyer and social justice crusader, was abducted and whisked from Lagos to Ado-Ekiti shows that Nigeria has two justice systems: One for the Afe Babalolas and another for Dele Farotimis.
I watched with disbelief and disappointment how some journalists and pundits on Nigerian television tap-danced around the barbaric abduction of Farotimi. The analysts spuriously defend and justify Babalola's action: “He’s a legal luminary,” “He’s a global icon”He’s a SAN whose chamber has trained or mentored millions of lawyers and judges.”
No one is saying Babalola hasn’t the right to reclaim his name. Of course, he does. It is the way he goes about it. On the orders of Babalola, the police invaded Farotimi's law chambers. Like a wanted fugitive for murder, Farotimi was yanked away and put in jail. The presiding magistrate refused Farotimi bail. How many poor Nigerians have such a right to order the police at will to abduct whoever defames them?
How many criminals among the ruling class who stole billions were given the humiliating treatment meted out to Farotimi? The “legal luminary,” the “global icon” and the grandfather of the Nigerian law and justice, ought to know better that he should have sued Farotimi for defamation and let the law take its course.
Instead, he constituted himself as the police, the court, the jury, and the judge. His lawyers boasted and threatened that Farotimi would remain in purgatory until he purged himself of the unpardonable sin of defaming the granddaddy of Nigerian judiciary.
Farotimi is being held in Ekiti against the law that doesn't exist. Criminal defamation has been decriminalized in Lagos, Edo, and Ekiti States. even the so-called cyber law, defamation has been taken out. The concepts of laws, rules, and morality have meaning when they are based on equality. From the way the law was executed on behalf of Babalola, three lessons are instructive that Nigeria's legal system has failed its promise of equal justice.
First, When money speaks, truth goes silent. Second, when power speaks even money takes ten steps back. Third, those who create the rules are often the first to break them. Fourth, rules are chains for the weak, the poor, tools for the strong. Babalola took the advantage of his power, wealth, influence to bend justice in his favor.
In 2024, Nigeria continues to re-enact her not too distant primitive past in all areas of human civilization. Every opportunity is maximized by the powerful and the wealthy in Nigeria to push Nigeria further and further into stone age. Fifty-one years ago, Minere Amakiri a journalist and the Port Harcourt based Correspondent of the defunct Daily Observer was publicly flogged by the aide-de-camp to the military governor of the old Rivers State, Alfred Diete-Spiff. Amakiri had published a story on the plight of teachers in Rivers State who demanded better conditions of service.
The publication of the story coincided with the governor's birthday celebrations in July 1973. The governor, his family, his state executive council, and state security operatives felt embarrassed by Amakiri's story.
The governor didn't waste time. He sent for Amakiri to report at the State House. Amakiri was queried by the aide-de-camp to the governor, ASP Iwowari over the "offensive publication." Amakiri, citing professional ethics, adamantly refused to disclose his source of information to the ASP. On the orders of the ADC, Amakiri was detained, hair shaved, and flogged with cudgels.
Soon after he regained his freedom, Amakiri wasted no time by enlisting the services of Nigeria's foremost legal surgeon, Gani Fawehinmi. Gani, in his characteristic no time for foolery, dragged the ADC to the Port Harcourt High Court and sought a declaration that Amakiri's detention by the defendant was illegal and unconstitutional. Gani asked for N10,000 (big money at that time) as damages for false imprisonment, assault, and battery.
The presiding judge, acting Chief Judge of the state, Justice Allagoa ruled that the "plaintiff should never have been flogged because whipping as a mode of punishment was abolished by Section 385 of the Criminal Procedure Law as far back as 1960. The defendant is therefore vicariously liable for the acts of the soldiers he gave orders."
Here is the most interesting part of Justice Allagoa's ruling: "... although there is a military government in power and some democratic provisions of the constitution were consequently suspended, the fundamental human rights touching personal liberty, and other civil liberties were still provided in the Constitution."
The judge declared that Amakiri's detention by the defendant was illegal and unconstitutional and contrary to Section 21 of the 1963 Constitution.
Justice Allagoa gets more furious. In granting the orders sought, the judge said: "The courts are the watchdogs of these rights and the sanctuary of the oppressed and will spare no pains in tracking down the arbitrary use of power where such cases are brought before the court."
Justice Allagoa awarded Amakiri N200 for every stroke of the cane the journalist received, N2,600 for being detained illegally, and N2,600 for the shave and pain he got from the defendant. The total amount awarded to Amakiri was N10,000. That was 51 years ago.
Fifty-one years ago even under military dictatorship, we still retained our freedom of speech, press, and protected human rights and particularly, the judiciary assured the poor and the powerless that justice was accessible and affordable. In 2024, what is more depressing and frustrating about Nigeria is the fact that Nigeria under a representative democracy remains more decadent, more oppressive, more terrorizing, more horrible, more retrogressive, more unlivable, more of a jungle, more of an open sore with odor and stench of hate, poverty, backwardness, fear, and total disdain for human rights and human life. Farotimi’s case and other acts of political terrorism and political malpractice by the elected representatives of the people, the powerful and the wealthy, are brand new evils under Nigeria's brand of democracy.
How far and how low can Nigeria descend into revolting baseness? The outcome of Farotimi's case will tell.