This newspaper takes it as an article of faith that sustained socio-economic growth and enabling each Nigerian to live well for as long is founded on the rule of law and the administration of justice by an independent, impartial and corruption-free judiciary. Sadly, we believe that the Nigerian Judiciary has not met this standard. This has heightened investors’ perception that the rule of law does not prevail in Nigeria, thus increasing the risk premium they will demand for their investments in Nigeria.
It is undeniable that Nigeria’s judiciary has for a long time been perceived to be open to political bias and undue influence and bribery. This perception, whether in corporate suites or out on the streets, has recently heightened significantly, the more so with the recent decision and consequential orders of the Supreme Court that implicitly determined the constitutionality of the acclaimed defection to the APC by certain members of the Rivers State House of Assembly voted in on the platform of the PDP. Certain facts support this perception. A 2022 Report of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) on “Tackling Judicial Bribery and Procurement Fraud In Nigeria” (a link to which can be found in our online edition), was recently serialised by this newspaper. The Report found from its survey in 2022 that about 61% of respondents believe that judges in Nigeria are likely to accept bribes to influence their decisions. It also found that despite this prevalence, 88% of respondents disapproved of judicial bribery.
More recently, a July 2024 Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) titled “Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends” presented results of the third Nigeria Corruption Survey conducted by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. A highlight of the report was the finding that approximately =N=721bn was paid in bribes in 2023 with the judiciary taking the lion’s share and reported to be the most corrupt institution in Nigeria. These realities create the impression that many Nigerian Judges are amongst the best that money and political influence can buy; a perception worsened by the finding in the UNODC Report that the proportion of Nigerians expressing confidence in the Federal Government’s anti-corruption effort has declined significantly, from more than half in 2019 to less than a third in 2023.
The implications of these perceptions and supporting findings are dire. When courts are believed to be available to the highest bidder and to political manipulation rather than be arbiters of justice, society loses its last line of defence against tyranny, impunity and lawlessness. As judicial integrity erodes, Nigeria’s economic recovery and stability, the belief in democratic governance and the reliance on civic trust are endangered, with consequences that reverberate for generations.
Judicial corruption takes different forms. Court officials manipulate case files, delay proceedings, or “lose” critical documents in exchange for illicit payments. Nepotism, favouritism and subterranean connections, rather than merit and integrity, become the determinants of judicial appointments. Nigeria has an opaque and ineffective disciplinary system in which the National Judicial Council (NJC), responsible for the appointment, promotion and discipline of all judges, as of 2022, had only penalised 129 judges out of 941 complaints (14%) investigated since 2005.
The most alarming form of judicial corruption is political interference, the perception of which loomed large in the recent Supreme Court decision in the Rivers State political debacle, earlier referred to. Some of Nigeria’s best legal minds, including Femi Falana, SAN and Fidelis Oditah, SAN (also a King’s Counsel in England and Wales) have commented and cited judicial precedent supporting the conclusion that the Court’s decision in favour of the Amaewhule faction of the Rivers State House of Assembly and its directive to withhold FAAC allocations from the State Government until another 2025 budget is passed by a House of Assembly including this faction, amounts to a judicial coup.
Read also: Rivers: Ibas sues for peace as opposition questions emergency rule
In 2015, the Supreme Court held that lawmakers who defect from their political party automatically lose their seats unless their political party is hopelessly factionalised beyond repair. In 2005, another Full Court held that the Federal Government had no power to withhold the allocations due to the local governments of Lagos State from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (the FAAC allocations). Obviously, what applies to the local governments of a State apply to the State as well. Yet, in the Rivers case, the same Court refused to apply these precedents. Worse still, the Supreme Court granted orders that were reportedly neither sought nor addressed in arguments before it. All these happened without the foundational deeply reasoned analysis that must precede the overturning of historic judicial precedents of constitutional law.
The fact that judicial precedents, including from a full Court (7 Supreme Court Justices instead of the usual 5), clearly support the opposite of what this Supreme Court ordered, the scant legal/jurisprudential rationale for the decision in such an important case under public scrutiny and the unprecedented speed with which the case made its way through the court system, raise concerns about undue external influence on the Supreme Court of Nigeria. It begs the question: if the courts can undermine a duly elected Governor and judicial precedents established by the full court of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, are they not a short step away from becoming an outright weapon of political retribution?
The rule of law in a liberal democracy is predicated on the principle that laws and institutions, not individuals, govern a society. When the judiciary allows the public to perceive that judicial decisions are transactions dictated by considerations other than the facts and the legal merits of such facts as determined by settled principles of law, the very concept of legal certainty collapses. The Supreme Court’s Rivers State ruling exemplifies this.
The consequences of such judicial inconsistency, banality and carelessness are profound. Investors rely on a predictable legal system to enforce contracts and settle disputes. If court rulings can be dictated by money and/or political influence rather than legal reasoning, Nigeria ceases to function as a country governed by laws. Businesses will be reluctant to invest in a country where legal protections are arbitrary. Citizens, losing faith in the courts, may resort to self-help, leading to increased lawlessness and insecurity. In Rivers State, the drumbeats of tribal strife are already sounding and in our recent history examples abound of how this can destroy prosperity irretrievably. Consider the decline of the former city of Warri, whose growth was anchored on a teeming oil and gas ecosystem anchored by Shell Nigeria. With the outbreak of tribal strife in the early 2000s, driven by Ijaw/Itsekiri fratricide, Shell packed up and left and took with it the various other oil E&P and service companies that had put down roots in the city since 1973; leaving behind a gutted city. The same fate now looms before Port Harcourt with reports already filtering in of politically motivated killings in the city. Thus, judicial corruption is not merely a legal or political problem—it is also a socio-economic disaster.
This newspaper believes that to prevent total collapse, urgent reforms are needed to restore integrity to Nigeria’s judiciary. We propose the following, amongst others. First, Accountability: The NJC must be restructured to ensure transparent and effective disciplinary measures. The appointment of all Judges by a Council 78% of whose membership is determined solely by an all-powerful CJN eventually creates huge opportunities for the absolute abuse of such powers. The small proportion of members of the private Bar who are nominated to the NJC to represent the Nigerian Bar Association seldom dissent or act as a check on an overbearing CJN because they are fearful of marring their own career advancement. Similarly, the procedural rules on discipline are so mechanical that they appear to favour technicalities over genuine accountability. Sanctions meted out by the NJC should also be graduated to match the established misconduct, including dismissal, forfeiture of assets and prosecution.
Second, Political Independence and Decentralisation: The appointment process for judges must be insulated from State or Federal political influence. The Chief Justice of Nigeria’s powers over appointments should be curtailed. We see no constitutional basis, in a true federation, for a single Federal Judiciary appointing Judges of all superior courts, Federal or State. We also see no rational basis to believe that appointments from faraway in Abuja are more credible than appointments by State Judicial Commissions that are made to do their work in the full glare of the local populace.
Third, Financial Transparency: While we fully support the financial autonomy of the Federal and State Judiciaries, we also believe that court budgets and judges’ assets should be subject to full annual disclosure and audit with the results of such audits published. Transparency in judicial finances can deter corruption and restore public trust. At the same time, however, we propose that Judges remuneration and pension should rank with those of senior corporate executives of blue-chip companies and be made tax-free or at least given tax rebates.
Fourth, Public Oversight and Citizen Action: Civil society, the media and legal professionals must be encouraged to intensify both formal and informal scrutiny of judicial conduct. Public disapproval of judicial corruption is already high—this sentiment must be harnessed into collective action against corrupt practices.
Fifth, Legislative Reforms and Ethical Conduct: Laws and rules of ethics governing judicial conduct must be updated to reflect modern anti-corruption standards and published. The Supreme Court of Nigeria’s code of ethics, if it has one, must be published and its enforcement overseen by a board comprising retired Chief Justices and Justices of the Supreme Court, retired police officers of the Inspector-General grade and very senior human rights and civil society activists and high-achieving private sector professionals, all of whom must be acknowledged to be persons of the highest and most impeccable reputations. Stringent penalties should be imposed for bribery, political interference, and misconduct in judicial office.
This is not to write off the entire Judiciary as corrupt. Not all the apples in the barrel are bad but the truth is that good and upright Judges are often overlooked for preferment to the appellate courts. Nevertheless, it is also the perception that good judges are increasingly the exception rather than the rule and the few who have risen through the ranks often have to play along even as they try to remain unblemished. These few are proof that the judiciary can still be reformed and rise once again as an institution of impeccable integrity and a high degree of competence.
To conclude, Nigeria’s judiciary stands at a crossroads. One path leads to further erosion of the administration of justice, whereby courts degenerate even more into being extensions of political power and corruption is entrenched deeper. The other path demands urgent reform, where judicial independence is safeguarded, corruption is punished, and the dignity of the rule of law is restored. If Nigeria fails to address the crisis in its judiciary, the consequences will surely be devastating. Without a fair and impartial judiciary, our democracy will not survive, and our society will slide further into lawlessness and economic decline. The judiciary must not be allowed to become a weapon in the hands of the powerful. Nigerians must demand better, because justice is not merely a worthy ideal or jurisprudential-philosophical concept—it is the bedrock of a free and just society and the enabler of the country’s socio-economic wellbeing.
