I know a few things, confidentially shared with me, about the drawn-out political and judicial (yes judicial) crises rocking my beloved Osun State I should not print here. Yoruba will say “gbogbo aso ko la nsa loorun” (not all fabrics are meant to be dried in the sun). The message therein is, as good as full disclosure is, there is something called circumspection. Even in this social media age of oversharing for clickbait, discretion should still remain a better part of valour. Yoruba will also say “ti eti o ba gbo yinkin, inu kii ba je” (it’s shared bad news that brings sorrow). I have literally been on the neck of some older friends who participated at high levels of governance at different times, in varying capacities, but with expansive influence during their reigns (isn’t ours a monarchical democracy?), to write either their autobiographies or at least, memoirs about their service to motherland. One of them, won’t even dare. And he didn’t have to tell you he knows a lot about Nigeria and her troublers. Those in the know, know he knows a lot! He played so deeply, not to. And providence brought desperate men of power to him for critical help, especially when the Peoples Democratic Party held sway. During casual conversations, he would just say “forget him (referencing the subject). If I tell you his story regarding so so and so”. Then he would trail off, leaving my whetted appetite dry. Then we would be back to “Oga, write this memoir now” and he would regularly respond “Lanre abeg o, let me enjoy my rest. I’m now an old man. Leave Nigeria to its wahala”. I understand him. Just like police would say while bringing someone under the caution of arrest; anything one says at this politically-charged period can be used against him in the court of law (or more like in the corridors of power).
The second person, another old man, is trying to put “something” together which I doubt would see the light of day anytime soon. He abhors controversies but knew and still knows a lot. He once said to me, “there are secrets I will take to my grave”. And there flamed out my blockbusting expectations.
Yes, high-quality men rarely do kiss-and-tell but whatever God isn’t keeping secret will always be in the open no matter what. Jesus says to His own in Luke 8:17 “For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest, neither any thing hid that shall not be known and come abroad”.
Matthew 10:26 renders it thus; “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known”.
At God’s appointed time, toes of the hurriedly buried, must stick out, though Yoruba will usually groan when justice seems delayed that “kile to pa osika, ohun ginni ginni a ti baje (before the wicked receives his comeuppance, there would have been irreparable damage). But Psalm 37:10 comforts with “A little while, and the wicked will be no more, though you look for them, they will not be found”. It’s the word of the Lord and it’s yea and amen.
The most tragic of Nigeria’s current democratic experience is politics controlling every facet of both public and private life of the citizenry. And it is so, because government has remained the biggest player in the economic life of the nation and politics, by implication; the largest and most profitable industry. A former senator boasted recently about his incurable acquisitive disorder for eye-popping automobiles. Before politics, what was his commerce track record? Now, that he is attempting to be a professional, opening an office and employing his seniors-in-practice, against the practice of the profession, we wait to see how far he would go without politics; without government patronage.
On October 25, 2007, a judicial tone was set in Nigeria. A man not on ballot was pronounced governor by a court whose pronouncements are unchallengeable. It was unprecedented. Decades down the line, the “strange” ruling has almost become a norm. Infact, a “smart” politician from the East kept showing up at the National Assembly as a member without actually running for the seat he occupied. It took a while before the judiciary took judicial notice of him as a perennial election litigant profiting judicially from electoral loopholes and halted the charade. These days, nobody hears about him again. He simply disappeared.
In the first-of-its-kind supreme ruling referenced about, the main lawyer to the man who became governor without actually vying, is today’s Nigeria’s Chief Law Officer. He is someone you can describe as “oju to ti ri okun, to ti ri osa”, (as Yoruba will describe someone with experience and a panoramic view of issues under consideration) in legal practice and the Nigerian justice system. If he weren’t in office on the bill of an interested party in the Osun imbroglio, I would have loved to have his mind and take on the crisis so protracted the apex court in the land, couldn’t resolve. For I know, he is a just and jolly good fellow. Or maybe if he was just the Chief Law Officer (of the Federation) and not a ministerial appointee of the president whose loyalty is to his party that provided him with the platform that yielded the presidential power. But the Chief Law Officer is now a knotty part of the logjam. His legal opinions can no longer be strictly jurisprudential or even reliably prudent. He is as partisan as the rest of them.
In my neck of the woods, there is this age-long peace-sustaining saying about not returning from judicial adjudication as friends: “anhin ti kootu de sore”. It is meant to warn friends off unrestrained beef.
Before the December 5 last year’s Supreme Court ruling that still leaves Osun reeling in daily crisis over a simple issue of the lawful council chairmen in the state, the gladiators were never friends. No doubt, they returned as bitter enemies and the state is worse off for it, with billions meant for grassroots development in some kind of limbo. As of today, except for UBA Plc, which has also become part of the state’s problems and which has the local government funds in its custody, those receiving the monies from Abuja (definitely not the governor who has been in severe pain since the council allocation was withheld) and those allegedly surreptitiously, albeit arguably criminally, drawing from the suspiciously-stored billions, it is difficult to say how much the withheld funds had accumulated to, how much has been legally taken away and how much is being pilfered from the storage. How can a supposed public system run this opaque?
No doubt, all the federal characters in the Osun tragic drama are obeying just a master. But Nigeria hasn’t matured into a society holding the puppeteer to account. It is always the puppets, answering for the “sins” of the big man. In doubt, ask Sambo Dasuki. Even when stripped of presidential immunity, out of office, Nigerian Presidents are still like air that can’t be imprisoned. Regardless of his own agenda, did Godwin Emefiele authorize himself to redesign the country’s currency? Even when alive, did anyone touch Mai Gaskiya? The untouchables of yesterday are being harried, hounded, haunted and hunted today. Let the untouchables of today remember tomorrow.
As a judicial reporter for Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, I remember now-retired Justice George Oguntade magisterially declaring that pronouncing a man not on ballot as governor was 360-degree justice. If he was the lawful candidate, then he must be the lawful governor, the apex court reasoned. The Epe-born jurist was a leading voice on the adjudicating panel. The men and women of wigs were not going to subject the benefitting state to another round of political strain. By the next day, a new government was in place.
Almost two months after Osun returned from the same court of 360-degree justice precedent, its crisis has become more enervating. From tussling for ascendancy, control and I believe revenge (because the person who lost the last time had full control of the councils when badly trounced as an incumbent), what is ongoing in the state now is existential, tugging at the heart of the survival of the people, especially those of the grassroots who look up to the “downstream” governance at local councils for their lives to be directly touched.
For federal officials swaggering over constitutionality and swaddling illegality in partisanship, there is always a Pharaoh that won’t know Joseph. For state and non-state actors, gallivanting because of certain connections, I’m whispering to them, no empire lasts forever. What is standing today might be crumbling tomorrow.
Then the apex court. Six of the seven-man panel ruled only the council chairmen had locus to bring the case about the withheld fund since they now have autonomy, though they still declared the seizure of the council funds by the Tinubu administration patently illegal and constitutional.
I remember the man who became governor without being on the ballot was not even asking he be made governor. He just wanted the K-leg (Obasanjo is a case) in his candidature removed and be pronounced the lawful candidate of his party. Then the court went 360, suo moto, bringing in issues that, well controversially, resolved the crisis.
Oguntade is long retired. All other men and women of that era are also gone; all retired, some alive but completely forgotten and some dead, back to rendering accounts of stewardship to their Creator.
The dissenter in the Osun judgement, Emmanuel Agim, is a future CJN, expected to lead the judiciary between April 16, 2030 and April 26, 2030. Maybe the era of 360-degree justice will return. But can he Make Judiciary Great Again in just 10 days?
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