Halting the Ravages of Venal Judges

By Victor Agusiobo

A story which has gone so viral appeared recently in the Peoples Gazette. The story reveals that the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics NBS in its corruption pattern and trend in Nigeria for 2023 ranked judges as first among collectors of cash bribes among other public officials.

Since the story started trending, one is yet to hear of any reaction on the matter from any personage or institution closely or remotely representing the judiciary or the bench.

While the story that summarized the miasma that reeks from the nation's judiciary was sailing, the three major political parties have been busy scheming how to take over the reins of leadership from different states. Apparently unperturbed!

The survey elevated judges in Nigeria to the ignoble station of being the most venal public officers in Nigeria and the entire country is totally mum. No doubt, this is depressingly unbelievable

It's no brainer to conclude that most public officers don't take bribe in order to do good.

And that most bribes come in cash to avoid trace. So, it's not likely that the unenviable position of the judges in the cesspool index will be altered by any other variable.

What the survey means is that public officers that probably encouraged the most deviousness, crookedness, perfidy, profligacy and general criminality in Nigeria in 2023 were judges. Of a truth is the fact that people take bribe most times in order to do the wrong things; lighten the weight or consequences that should attend to wrong behavior or indeed manufacture a new culprit to bear the burden of the bribe-givers' malfeasance. Bottom line, there is something evil about bribery that comes out stronger within the precincts of a group of professionals who sometimes approximate God.

In sane climes where lunacy is taking as a serious ailment, the NBS report should be a palpably strong vote of no confidence on the judiciary of a nation. But no, not in ours. We live in a society that takes little note of such weighty revelations and their damning consequences for society as a whole. Instead, here we mollycoddle these offenders of our moral and legal sensibilities with state money.

The NBS report has sparked off this chilly feeling that extant in Nigeria are many judges who appear in their various courts with that spurious air of ancient majesty only to dispense the skewed and devious justice which only bribery can contrive.

Simply, if judges were truly the highest bribe takers in Nigeria last year, it means that substantial injustice must have been dispensed on Nigerians and their institutions. It means that justice must have been VIP based against a benighted citizenry. It means that going forward more and more persons would resort to self-help in search of justice since the courts have become for the highest bidder. The implications are grave for all the parameters of human civilization.

So, when ordinary Nigerians in churches, beer parlors, conferences etc suspect that justice is compromised in election matters, land matters, chieftaincy and even divorce matters etc, they may afterall cite a new authority in NBS report to authenticate their suspicion.

Are there some honest, principled judges out there? Definitely yes. But we may never know how the weight of the scarlet of their colleagues overwhelm their call and attempt at dispensing justice.

Why should we be worried? We worry and must worry because judges are not ordinary citizens. We worry when the temple of justice is so awfully desecrated. We worry when men and women who have the powers of life and death, the powers to make and remake institutions are so mired in depravity in such a way that would make justice a mere pendulum propelled only by pecuniary cues. We worry when the supposed chief defenders of the law turn round to be its chief defiers. We must worry when the power of money have enlivened judges not to manifest but to conceal truth. We must worry when some of the judgments emanating from our courts are like mephitic vapours that benumb our finest sensibilities. We must worry when the last hope of the common man and the sanctuary of the poor is dashed. If the food of hope and succor from our putative hallowed chambers are thrown unto swine, we must worry because society as we know it is soon gone.

It is therefore time the NJC, NBA and any other body of benchers woke to the reality and seriousness of the NBS report. They must swiftly find ways to recreate a fair and just legal system; embark on pragmatic judicial reform, ensure penal responsibility for corrupt judges, insulate the legal system from easy corruption and possibly achieve fair and impartial serving of justice.

The time for action is now, for they may never know how soon or even how bitterly the very ingredients of their poisoned chalice will be commended to their own lips.