THAT the machinery of the judicial process in Rivers State has literally been under lock and key these seven or so months now is probably no news to the bewildered residents of Port Harcourt and no cheering development to hordes of distraught or bemused litigants, the un-polarised or un-tainted civil society platforms and the truly disinterested intelligentsia regarding their expectations under a written constitution and of constitutional guarantees.
What is most disconcerting about the unsavoury development is the abuse of authority by temporary wielders of power. The element of restraint and limitation which ordinarily is the hallmark or symbol of a stable society has taken leave of the contemplation or consideration of the dramatis personae in this saga of upturned wits. Or may be we are suffering from the basic paradox of all unstable societies; an excess of authority co-mingling with an insufficiency of stability and order.
It is, however, instructive to reflect that traditional society did not just vest enormous powers or authority on rulers but rather fashioned an intricate web or network of institutional, constitutional, ritual and social balances and restraints on the exercise of power. The checks on the abuse of power tended to be informed by the fear of a probable overbearing, absolutist, power-drunk leadership. Our traditional political system did not support or encourage abuse of authority.
If the truth must be told, we must open by saying that at the root of this crisis is the abysmal failure of party politics or the smug or nonchalant disregard of its age-long ethos. The struggle to continue to control or take over the reins of government in that beleaguered state is the un-stated prognosis of the “war” in Port Harcourt which manifestation is the curious dismantling of the judicial system in that clime.
While parties might fight theoretical battles over what they conceive as their programmes, their right in this regard is gravely circumscribed to the extent of their desire to impose their inanities on all of us. Their actions must be purposive, practicable and reasonable if they desire to carry us along.
The principal cause of the dilemma in Port Harcourt has to do with the complexion, composition and structure of the political parties we run. The APC with all its expressed populism is a far cry from being a party based more concretely or specifically on the interests and needs of the ordinary people. Its major pre-occupation seems to be how to be comfortably ensconced at the centre, so much so that nothing else matters.
Its mish-mash membership is a sad reflection of this opportunistic desire. Its arch-rival, the PDP, on the other hand, makes no pretension regarding its lack-lustre or dismal performance in government. Its actions have been largely criticised as being destructive of economic efficiency, turbaned in large-scale or monumental corruption and clothed or arrayed in unmitigated abuse of free enterprise.
Between the two parties, the saner issues of culture, the worrisome progressive decline in party system and the requirement to identify or locate the national interest have become secondary matters unworthy of serious consideration or confrontation. Theirs is the case of the mooted or proverbial difference between 12 and a dozen.
An ordinarily innocuous provision in Section 271(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as altered) has become a subject of impassioned rhetoric. The section plainly provides:
“The appointment of a person to the office of the Chief Judge of a State shall be made by the Governor of the State on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council subject to the confirmation of the appointment by the House of Assembly of that State.”
The framer of the Constitution creatively envisages a possible vacancy in the office and so provides that “until a person has been appointed and has assumed the function of that office, or until the person holding the office has resumed those functions, the Governor of the State shall appoint the most senior Judge of the High Court to perform those functions.”
It will appear that what we are being treated to in this macabre dance drama in Port Harcourt is not purity of morals or disinterestedness but willful total disregard of elemental rules. One may ask, probably naively, who is hurt by a rule which shares powers or functions among a number of public office holders?; by a rule which owes its establishment or formulation to the requirement to diffuse powers of Government?; or one which makes a pre-emptive provision for an unforeseen circumstance?
The many attempts to resolve the unfortunate impasse through the courtroom process have dragged on interminably in the light of the many booby traps in the way of litigants in our court system. The respective gladiators are well versed in the inhibitions and restrictions that are the lot of the average seeker after justice. They have skillfully invoked its invisible fangs one-way or the other.
Only a political option seems the way out of the imbroglio. But that option has yet to wait to be exercised until elections are held and the electorate decide whether they conceive of the curtailment or abridgement of the bundle of rights inherent in the invidious closure of courts as important, germane or consistent with their daily pursuit of happiness or daily bread; whether all that we are concerned about here bears any relevance to them.
Meanwhile, tension has continued to rise regarding the practical consequences of a cavalier closure of the court system. A broad philosophical conception based on an elevation of law and order above other forms of social management paradigms will appear to be the correct position at law as it should be in policy. There is abundant provision for enforcing the requisite authority of law as it is enacted and as it requires obedience; and for maintaining the conception of the supremacy of law as essential to orderly government.
It is disheartening however, to observe that many holders of public office do not subscribe to the philosophy which prescribes personal liberty as the doctrine of self-restraint. The grace, the charm, the empathy and sensitivity that are required of a true leader of men and materials are brusquely exchanged for brute force and crass opportunism in our land.
One deplores the selective cheap demagoguery, which is going on about the conduct of the government at the centre. While a lot of people are truly dissatisfied with the administration, the best information one obtains appears inconsistent with the media hype or propaganda that the kettle is cleaner than the pot.
The general abhorrence of violence or the morbid fear of it makes it increasingly difficult for people to justify the probability of change. The Boko Haram scourge, the widespread kidnappings, un-abating armed-robbery, the maniacal abduction of girls from institutions of learning, the spectre of rape, forced marriages, paedophilia, etc. are manifestations of the culture of violence which have become routine today.
The people seek to learn what change is being brandished or offered them. For all their force and eloquence, the media campaigns or press accounts have obvious minimal effect on the people. The media blitz is in fact achieving its purposed or projected effect in the reverse.
The Nigerian Bar Association, an otherwise effective medium for plying affairs and events respecting legal practitioners and of matters pertaining to the judiciary, is embarrassingly caught in the affray or cross-fire regarding the correctness or otherwise of the actions of the traducers of the law in Port Harcourt.
The body’s concupiscent romance of public office holders and the acutely-correct public perception of its officers’ envious eye for public office even as they occupy positions yet at the Bar have not earned it the corresponding respect which otherwise should have attended its interventions in matters the type that are evinced by the lock-down in Port Harcourt.
Its views are suspect or spurned, if they are not out-right dismissed for partisanship. Evidence of morbid partisanship among its members is manifested each time a policy position supposedly adverse to or hurtful of the political interest of their “clients” is enunciated or proposed. Manifestations of hysteria are provoked or promoted thereon in the media.
The curious decision of the Supreme Court in 2008 regarding the untenable conclusion that a person who was not the named candidate of his Party at the Governorship election at which the Party was declared the winner is the person the electorate voted for still dogs the entire election petition stratosphere. The decision flies in the face of good reasoning or unrelenting logic.
Ironically, it is the beneficiary of this strange jurisprudence that is up in arms against the very institution which upheld his fancy in a matter in which no equivocation, no matter how ingenuously presented, would be deemed proper or helpful. If that decision were to be regarded as oozing exclusively from a strict point of law, there is much left to be said for the requirement of social kinesis or cohesion and the aftermath effect of its severity on the public psyche respecting common sense or reasonableness even as the case turned on or raised a difficult question of considerable public importance or interest.
While the ratio decidendi of the court in this case may have revolved around a narrow compass, it is suggested that its decision is inconsistent with the broadview that a political party stands or falls only by the fortune or otherwise of the candidate it presents at an election.
As we speak, a large body of civil servants who had been trained at great public expense to run or administer various departments of the judicial system in Rivers State has been rendered idle or jobless; has been forced to stay at home as their operational offices have been barred to them. It is not unlikely that their salaries, allowances and other emoluments are being regularly paid them for abiding or keeping faith with the employer’s command or predilection even in a widely-reported situation of dwindling material and financial resources.
We close by advising that it is of value or a great advantage to all the parties to the dispute, which has conduced to the lockdown of the court system in Rivers State to learn or recognise that what they are doing in that part of the country is increasing the remoteness of government from the people.
We identify the weakness of our system of government as consisting in a fawning, sycophantic legislature, an overweening executive and a weak or shackled judiciary even as the people are left bemused or distracted. There is a requirement for an exhaustive overhaul; not token twitches deceptively clothed or adorned in the socially acceptable paranoia of “Change!”
No comments:
Post a Comment