Public Official Missing-in-Action

by Eze Eluchie

Has anyone seen the man whose image appears in the photograph below?

His name is Mohammed Bello Adoke and he is supposed to be the current Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In the course of the past few weeks, several acts which would have benefited from the intervention and counsel of the office the man in the picture holds have occurred, and continue to take place, without the slightest murmur from either the man or the office he holds. Some of these include:
1. The deportation of Nigerians within Nigeria by some component State Governments in the Nigerian federation;

2. State Governors inciting Military Officers against the President Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces - particularly the Niger State Governors address to the incoming Brigade Commander in Minna this week;

3. Refusal of most of the component State Governments in the Nigerian federation to conduct Local Government Elections as directed by the Nigerian Constitution;

4. Institutionalized and rampant acts of discrimination on basis of ethnicity and religion by some component States of the Nigerian federation against fellow Nigerians perceived as being ‘non-indigenes’ in clear violation of trite constitutional provisions;

5. Infringement by some component States of the Nigerian Federation on matters solely within the purview of the federal government;

6. Brazen criminal duplication of structures of lawfully recognized political parties in Nigeria – at going rates, there may be a duplication of political offices such that we may have two or more persons contending to be Legislators representing same constituency, or Governors of same State or even Presidents of Nigeria; and so many more events and occurrences capable of truncating national cohesion and stability.


The man whose photograph appears below was last seen entangled in issues pertaining to the murky deals surrounding the multi-billion dollar Malabu Oil and Gas Limited in respect of Oil Block OPL 245, and has since then apparently foregone what ought to be the main thrust of his office.

Resulting from the very loud silence emanating from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in the course of the aforelisted issues, the Nigerian state appears rudderless and is subjected to the wimps and caprices of all and sundry.

Anyone who sees the said Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, supposedly the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice of the federal Republic of Nigeria, should please implore him either sit up and assume the responsibilities expected of his office or give way for others willing to be responsible.

Or better still, inform the President of the Federal Republic.

Picture: Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke 

Syria chemical weapon attack - Whodunit?

by Eze Eluchie

Whilst congratulating the leadership of the United States and Russia for their sensible and ambitious efforts at a resolution of the Syrian chemical weapon use crisis, one cannot but reflect that when peace seemeth most likely, the prospect of violent escalation looms most. The leadership of the two countries have shown exceptional foresight and pragmatism, in the present process, more particularly so with the US leader who risked domestic popularity and respect but eventually ended up charting a path that has allowed the world a fresh vista at peace in the face of a most atrocious escalation of the Syrian crisis, at minimal cost and wastage of lives.

I have always opined that though despotic in his reign, Syrian President al-Assad may not have, in the face of increasing gains against rebel forces in the weeks preceding the chemical weapon use, ordered his forces to use chemical weapons. The agreement currently brokered by the US and Russia fails to address the likely other sources from whence the chemical weapons attack could have emanated nor does it make any efforts to address a cessation to the Syrian civil war which has killed over 100,000 people and rendered several million Syrians either internally displaced or  refugees in neighbouring countries.

The crime committed by the use of chemical weapons has unfortunately, in the heat of the passion generated by the images of hundreds writhing in pains as they died slow and painful chemical weapon induced deaths, not been adequately investigated. One basic rule in investigating crimes and ascertaining culprits thereof, is to ascertain who would have the greatest interest in the proceeds of the crime, had opportunity and resources to execute same. You then begin to look up each option and eliminate based on evidence available.

In addition to fringe and terrorist elements amongst Syrian rebel forces, other international players hell-bent on seeing the demise of the al-Assad dynasty in Syria also constitute likely suspects who were not investigated in the rush to vilify a valian. It may be in the best interest of the world to extend the search for who spearheaded the use of chemical weapons to amongst others, foreign governments with links to some rebel groups who would have given anything to see the demise of al-Asssad.  Some of these countries include: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its appendages in the Middle East, and the Republic of Egypt under the current military dictators.

I am particularly intrigued by the prospect of further investigating the Egyptian angle to the crisis. In my opinion, the present authorities in Egypt are looking increasingly suspect. The shift of international attention to Syria since the 21^st August chemical weapon attack has allowed General Sisi and his gang in Egypt to get away with all manners of atrocities in their merciless crackdown on opposition to their rule. Did the Egyptian rulers benefit from and have opportunity to execute or order the execution of the Syrian chemical weapon attack? Could they have done it or sponsored or supported it? Was it the Saudi’s? Was it any of the al-Qeada linked terrorists embedded with the rebels? Was al-Assad devilish and dumb enough to have done it? Whodunit?

The answer seems as distant now as on the day the attacks were launched. The earlier concrete responses are arrived at and appropriate international sanctions bequeathed on the perpetrators, the earlier the current peace brokered will have a chance of real success.

With the tentative agreement worked out between the US and Russia  it will not be totally out of character for the instigators of the original attack to carry out a more extensive and deadly chemical weapon attack - this would automatically rubbish the present feeling of amity and peace over the Syrian crisis and bring us all back to the precarious situation experienced in the days after August 21^st .

Let's brace for the worst and hope for the best.

Picture: Meeting between Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and Egypt’s interim President Adli Mansour, in Cairo, soon after the attacks on September 1, 2013. © REUTERS

Redreaming the Dream.

by Eze Eluchie

When Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in an op-ed in the New York Times, wrote that the United States of America and its peoples were not exceptional, he stated an untruth.

The United States of America and its peoples are quite exceptional!

From its origins founded on the desire for freedom and egalitarian precepts  through its formative years when it had to grapple and even war with itself on fundamentals of the equality of its peoples to its role in the two World Wars where its interventions served to preserve the sanctity of our humanity and the various contributions of its brains towards human development in fields of science, arts, sports and whatsoever, the US has, is and will probably continue to be exceptional.

In times of disasters and crisis in other climes, again the US has always proved exceptional in its empathy, contribution of relief materials and personnel where required and funds towards ameliorating the plight of others in territories far removed from theirs.

Itself, founded by immigrants and now comprised of peoples from virtually every ethnicity and nationality across planet earth, the US has at several times opened its doors to the persecuted and those whose home countries were engulfed in crisis: in such relocation's  often times offering start-up opportunities to peoples of diverse nationalities, creeds and color, magnanimous gestures which cost its tax payers dearly, monies that could in other countries have been used for the citizens. A land of opportunities where immigrants can aspire to all but the highest office in the land and in which a man can dream his way to becoming a national icon. 

When other countries choose to use their strength to rule and colonize others by various dubious tactics ranging from ‘divide-and-rule’ to 'assimilation', faced with similar opportunities, the US aided countries they had totally vanquished in times of war to get back on their feet and even become rivals (ask Germans and Japanese folks about this). 

In its exceptional interventions in other countries, did the US have motives that will eventually benefit it and its peoples? Sure, and there definitely is nothing wrong with that. The fact  remains that such deeds served to alleviate human sufferings when no other country bothered to render assistance.

Obviously, the US is no paradise, if it were; it would have been populated by Angels – but no, we have mortals in charge who come with their own nuances and  it has its own problems and vices, amongst which includes its treatment of its African American population and other racial minorities, the refusal of its President and political establishment to hearken to the call for a Marshall Plan for Africa in line with what was extended to Germany/Europe and Japan at the end of World War II (http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com/2013/04/marshall-plan-for-africa.html) and the moral crisis it is facing as a result of over liberalization. Part of its exceptional nature is that these vices are well recognized, openly debated and efforts continually being made to address and tackle them - very much unlike what happens in other climes. Certainly the US is exceptional.

Without doubt, the missteps (yes indeed, the US government has mishandled its reaction to some conflicts in the Middle East) the US has thus far made with regards to the crisis in Syria which prompted Mr. Putin’s misstatements also take bearing from the exceptional nature of the US – to reach out and ensure security in a region where some of the entities seem irrevocably geared towards extreme fanaticism and a perpetual desire to exterminate one of their neighbors, the Jews, a people who are equally entitled to a homeland and a right of existence.

In the absence of a US in the present world order, which country appears close to replicating its role? Britain or France? God forbid! We would all be colonized all over again. China? Russia? The suggested alternatives are nightmarish. Do I wish I could have mentioned an African alternative? Nigeria? South Africa? Certainly! But this is a serious piece, not fiction.

So President Vladimir Putin, truth be told, the United States of America and its peoples are exceptional!

Picture: The United States:

The Russian breather - but for how long?

by Eze Eluchie

When Russia's Foreign Minister (Sergey Lavrov) invited his Syrian counterpart (Walid al-Moallem) to a meet in Moscow, scheduled for a date when United States federal legislators were scheduled to reconvene to formally begin consideration for President Barack Obama’s request for congressional backing to found military attack against Syria, it was obvious that some form of announcement geared at resolving the buildup against Syria would trail from the Moscow summit of Russia and its major ally in the Middle East. Two options seemed viable from the Summit: One, an announcement increasing Russian military assistance to Syria to fortify its protégé against what seemed an inevitable attack from US forces, a move that would certainly have upped the ante as it would have meant that strikes against Syria would also signify US strikes against Russia. The second projected outcome of the Moscow summit had been an announcement that Russia would support a broad based open ended dialogue process which would, whilst offering a chance of peace in Syria, ensure face-saving safe passage for the al-Assad dynasty, which had been allied to the Russians for decades.

The absolutely brilliant and totally unanticipated offer of international control and demobilization of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal announced after the Moscow summit, and which was instantly welcomed and agreed to by the Syrians completely took the wind out of the sail of the build-up to a needless and wasteful military operation being orchestrated against Syria.  With details of how the disarmament process would be pursued still hazy, and most probably extremely difficult to effect, in view of the fact that Syria was still engaged in a protracted civil war, world leaders nevertheless saw no qualms in falling over themselves in a bid to grasp at what seemed the sole dignified lifeline to all parties at avoiding a crisis that was brought about in part by an apparent senseless addiction to self destruction by the Syrians and in another part by the 'red line' political gaffe of US President Obama (see http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com/2013/05/when-tail-wags-dog.html). 

From UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, to Chinese, British, French and US governments, the sigh of relief that there could be a political solution to the Syrian impasse which spared the world the gory spectacle of watching cruise missiles bombarding defenseless civilians in Damascus and other Syrian cities, and the ensuing damages and fatalities that would result from likely retaliatory strikes Syria and its allies may unleash at their foes, reverberated across the continents.

The offer from the Russians was indeed stunning. And like all 'successes', soon enough, it had many entities claiming ownership and credit for it.

At last someone had hearkened to the call to put on a reasoning cap.

But for how long will the sense of relief last? Unfortunately not for quite long. 

The very forces which unleashed the initial chemical weapon attack in the suburbs of Damascus on the 21st day of August, be they fringe elements within al-Assad's army or rouge rebel commanders, will certainly be miffed that their objective of expanding the conflict by drawing in more combatants has been rubbished by the brilliant offer proffered by the Russians. Those who deployed the chemical weapon attack have neither claimed credit for the deed nor have they informed anyone that their stock of such lethal weapons would be handed over for containment and eventual destruction - there will most likely be further chemical weapon attacks in Syria.

In the euphoria of a time for rethink and deeper reflection brought about by the Russian offer, several questions seem to have been temporarily swept under the carpet. These include:

1. With denials from all sides of the Syrian conflict as to origin of the use of chemical weapons, what happens in the event of another chemical weapon attack before or during efforts to contain and demobilize chemical weapons officially under the control of al-Assads forces?

2. With Russia's claims that Syrian rebels had used chemical weapons in the ongoing conflict, who will contain and demobilize the chemical weapons at the disposal of the several real and fringe Rebel elements? If only one sides chemical arsenal is demobilized, the problem is merely half addressed, which in the context of this unfortunate episode, means the problem has not been addressed.

3. Will a new 'red line' have been crossed in the event of a new chemical weapon attack?

4. Will the already assembled armada in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea be put to instantaneous use in the event of a renewed chemical weapon attack without prior efforts at identifying with certainty, the culprit?

5. With the expertise for chemical weapon development available at the click of the mouse on the internet, and so many desperadoes out there, can it be ascertained with any element of accuracy who deployed what, when and where?

It is suggested that a comprehensive global ban and destruction of all stockpiles of chemical weapons, held by all countries, irrespective of stature or perceived might,  and entrenchment of regulatory mechanisms under the auspices of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to prevent the production and stockpiling of such weapons will erase the likelihood of the world being pushed to the brink over usage of such lethal weapons.

Vladimir Putin's masterstroke has given the world a breather, but for how long?  

Picture: Russian President, Vladinir Putin, basking in and seemingly enjoying his new found role as global peace maker.

Terrorism and blackmail as political strategy.

by Eze Eluchie

All over the world, in territories where periodic elections take place to enable persons intending to rule over a people have an opportunity to market themselves to the populace and canvass for votes, it is common occurrence to see politicians engage in whatsoever they deem necessary to endear themselves to their constituency to secure victory at the polls. 

In genuine democracies, electioneering periods, when the politicians canvass for votes, are always a sweet period for the electorate – the people rightly feel their power, albeit for a very short time-span, as the politicians swoon over themselves in desperate efforts to get each and every single vote they can possibly amass. Stiff necked politicians who ordinarily would not be caught dead with persons they consider as classes beneath their status, are forced to shake hands, embrace, and mingle with ordinary folks. 

To convince the electorate of their ability to better the lot of society, politicians in ‘real’ democracies often times go the extra mile to do good. In their daily public lives, the mannerisms, actions, policies and projects executed or initiated in previous and or present offices held, such politicians strive for excellence – as a basis to convince the electorate to entrust them with greater political and public responsibilities and offices.

When however persons aspiring to rule over a people, resort to threatening the populace and exhibiting their linkage and control over a terrorist organization that has bombed and killed thousands of people over a three year orgy of violence, inclusive of bombing the United Nations Headquarter complex in Nigeria, several Churches across northern Nigeria and several military and para-military facilities across the land, as the reason why they must be allowed to rule over a people, then something is obviously terribly wrong. 

On February 28th, 2013, a  day when terrorists elements detonated bombs in three locations across the city of Maidugri (Bornu State), a city which had attained notoriety as the heartthrob of Boko Haram terror activities, in the process killing some Nigerian soldiers and citizens, some politicians who had repeatedly claimed an ability to ensure the end of terrorist activities if they are elected into office, had the temerity to take a victory walk down major streets and a market place in Maidugri – as planned and expected, the terrorists under the control of these political actors allowed ‘smooth passage’. A logical equivalent of such despicable spectacle would have been for members of the Democratic Party in America to have taken a victory walk down the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, in the midst of efforts by the Republican Party controlled United States governments efforts to quell militancy in that city or for opposition politicians in any of the European countries contributing troops to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to parade down the streets of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in a move to spite and show the government ‘back home’ as unable to address terrorism.

Again, one can only place part of the blame on the desk of President Goodluck Jonathan, more particularly so on the Minister for Justice of the Federation and the various security agencies charged with internal security, for allowing such criminality to go without adequate sanctions. When I last checked, we still had laws in Nigeria which prohibit terrorism and support for terror organizations. No doubt, President Jonathan is trying to show an accommodating spirit, openness to criticism and acceptance of opposition antics, but there is a limit to rascality – that limit is clearly crossed when, under the guise of opposition politics, terrorist activities is endorsed, championed and used as a tool to blackmail and manipulate the population.

As the countdown to the next general elections in 2015 begin, in keeping with the various threats made by some of the opposition elements to the effect that ‘the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood”, one can only advise that the Federal Government has to be alive to its responsibilities for the protection of life and property of Nigerians and residents of the country as we are certainly looking forward towards what portends to be very dire days ahead.

Capitulating to terror and blackmail can never be an option.

Restructuring and renegotiation of the contraption will wade off the ensuing descent into abyss. 



Muhammed Buhari affirms that come 2015 general elections:  “if what happens in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, ‘the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood. ”,  “God’s willing, something will happen in 2015.”
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/buhari-blames-fg-for-security-challenges/115819/
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/05/2015-ll-be-bloody-if-buhari/

An opposition State trumpeting their sway over the terrorist enclave
https://ekitistate.gov.ng/2013/03/apc-governors-meet-in-maiduguri-reiterate-commitment-to-merger/


Picture: ‘Opposition’ APC Governors- Babatunde Fashola (Lagos), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Adams Oshiomhole (Edo); Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun); Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), Kashim Shettima (Borno) and Tanko Al-Makura (Nassarawa) walking down the path of infamy in Maidugri, Bornu State on the day when terrorists, ostensibly under their control, unleashed bloody mayhem across the city resulting in numerous fatalities.

Borrowing To Rig Elections

by Eze Eluchie

Question: How do you raise the billions in slush funds required to bankroll the purchase of elective offices in a skewed democracy, such as monies to hire thugs and bribe election commission officials prior to and during elections and purchase favorable judgments in the event of loss at the polls?

Answer (as per a government led by an alliance of professional criminals - APC):  Enrich your ‘leader’ with an obscenely lucrative 'infrastructural' concession agreement; then re-purchase same spurious concession agreement; reconvene the rubber-stamp State House of Assembly to speedily and with all due claim to ‘urgency’, approve a ‘supplementary budget proposal’ which allows the State government to approach the capital market to obtain loans (further mortgaging the future of the State) to once more ‘buyout’ the ‘leader’! And pronto, you have enough funds to go into (s)elections and capture the votes! 

In order words, use the people’s money to buy power to rule over the people – wow, not even Abraham Lincoln would have anticipated this devilish translation of his eternal definition of democracy.

As election period approaches, there will be a noticeable rush for various strata’s of governments in our various contraptions, as exemplified by the present dubious pursuit of the Lagos State Government of southwestern Nigeria, who having exhausted public funds for non-existent or white-elephant projects and to fill personal accounts in offshore havens, rush to the capital market, and in some instances, international lending agencies, for financial facilities geared towards further mortgaging an already impoverished and hapless population and sourcing funds to prosecute electoral campaigns.

The absence of regulatory mechanisms in our polity exposes the peoples of our contraption to manipulation in the hands of smart alecs.

A fundamental question surfaces – is it possible to have a democracy in a polity without established regulatory mechanisms? Could this be why the concept of democracy has always seemed light years away in societies where regulatory mechanisms are non-existent or extremely weak?

Again, I call on the Federal authorities to exercise powers vested in it to checkmate the obvious bare faced criminality going on at the State levels in the name of ‘governance’. The issue crops up, ‘’who checks excesses at the Federal level?’

A restructured and renegotiated contraption will easily put such smart alecs where they need to be – behind steel bars.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/national-news/131845-posers-for-lagos-over-n253b-road-concession-buyout-plan

Picture: ©Alfredo Martirena cartoon

Corruption obviates democracy 

With regards to the judiciary - our lowest points.

by Eze Eluchie

The level of stability, development and advancement of any society, can often times be ascertained with some measure of precision from the level of independence, transparency and predictability, based on the rule of law, of its judiciary. The less independent, more opaque and unpredictable the judiciary is, the more likely a society is retrogressive, lawless and subject to the whims and caprices of whomsoever has temporary custody of the instrument of force or purse strings of the particular enclave - in other words, the more likely a society can be termed a 'banana republic'.

Under the Nigeria Constitution, the Judiciary is eloquently and lavishly described and portrayed as an independent third arm of government - this pretence is very far from the reality. The judiciary in Nigeria in practice acts like and could rightly be termed an appendage of the Executive branch of government. The cup-in-hand approach of the judicial branch to the Executive arm for virtually all needs of the judiciary sector, ranging from salaries for Judges and other personnel, to requests for operational vehicles and office stationery and other overhead and infrastructural expenses, makes the concept of an independent judiciary in Nigeria clearly a figment of the imagination. This hallucination, it must be pointed out is more prevalent at the State level of Nigeria's purportedly federal system, where State Governors get away with blue murder in their treatment and control of the judicial arm.

The near impossibility of aggrieved litigants to secure judgments holding State Governments accountable for civil transgressions in State High Courts and ability of officials of State governments to use the instrumentality of courts controlled by such States to ensure the prolonged detention of their adversaries or those who happen to ‘cross their path’  is clearly indicative of the allegiance of the judiciary (at the State level) to the Executive branch of government as opposed to the Constitution, law or justice. At the federal level, the pendulum of justice swings more with the personal idiosyncrasies of a presiding judicial officer and at times the preference of those who control the seat of power as opposed to any known concepts in our domestic statutes or justice generally.

The uncanny practice of shopping-for-'justice', whereby litigants strive to institute matters or accused persons insist on being tried before judicial officers who will grant them a particular desired judgment evolved. Some litigants took the practice to extreme lengths by crossing State and regional boundaries in desperate efforts to procure favorable judgment. In a particularly gross instance, a judicial division of the Federal Courts was surreptitiously created in the home State of an ex-Governor who was standing trial for monumental fraud for the purpose of ensuring acquittal. The ex-Governor (James Onanefe Ibori of Delta State) was acquitted, but as providence would have it, this ex-con had cause to travel outside Nigeria where he was finally arrested and is presently serving term in a British jailhouse for some of the same crimes for which ‘his’ Nigerian court had acquitted him.

The situation in the Nigerian judiciary is clearly inseparable from the general decay in the Nigerian society. Though the entire situation is murky and near hopeless, three instances of judicial pronouncements in the course of our experimentation with civil rule could very rightly be described as when we attained our lowest points - these are:

1.    The Justice Ayo Salami Scandal: The felony (interference in the judicial process) allegations leveled against the then Chief Justice of the Federation (Justice Aloysius Kastina-Alu), by the President of the Federal Court of Appeal (Justice Ayo Salami). In belatedly making the allegations against the Chief Justice, Justice Salami, who had been suspended from office based on allegations that he had been involved in unethical communication with litigants before his Court, had unwittingly admitted to the commission of yet another crime, concealment of a felony.

The putrid stench emanating from the ugly public altercation between the two highest judicial authorities in Nigeria was further prolonged by desperate efforts by Justice Salami to cling unto his office via court processes. 

-the shameless public acrimony displayed by the President of the Court of Appeals caused and continues to cause lasting injury to the perception of the judiciary as being above board.

2.    The Trial of Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu for Operating Foreign Accounts: The badgering of a duly constituted court of law (the Code of Conduct Tribunal under the Chairmanship of Justice Danladi Umar), by an armada of legal practitioners, into acquiescing to not having an accused person stand in the dock when appearing before the Court – and eventual discharge of the said accused person on technicalities without venturing into the merits of the charges. In all sane judicial environments, there are properly designated places in a court room where persons whose matters are being heard by a court will be located during the duration of a particular court session.

The inability of the judges who constitute the Code of Conduct Tribunal which was then trying the corruption cases and illicit maintenance of foreign accounts by a public officer (then Governor Bola Tinubu) to overcome the mob action of the horde of lawyers who besieged the Tribunal irrevocably tainted the efficacy of not just the Tribunal but the entirety of the anti-corruption efforts it represented.

- the war against corruption had buckled under intimidation and attacks against the Court by lawyers for the accused amongst whom had been sitting State Governors.

3.    Enthronement of a non-contestant as Governor by the Supreme Court: The third and perhaps most insidious judicial pronouncement of our current era is the 2007 decision of the Nigerian Supreme Court which enthroned as Governor of a State, a man whose name was neither on the ballot nor contested nor campaigned for the gubernatorial elections. This benefactor of the Supreme Courts benevolence never also nominated any person as a ‘running mate’, prior to the gubernatorial elections as expressly required by the Nigerian constitution.

In arriving at their odd decision enthroning Mr. Chibuike Amaechi as Governor of Rivers State, the Supreme Court Justices appeared to have been ventilating anger with former Head of State Obasanjo regarding an earlier disregard of the Courts pronouncement on a totally unrelated matter involving a totally different State. The vain efforts by the Supreme Court Justices to, in their judgement in the instant case, clothe their 'get-back-at-him' efforts in legalese, was not only a most pitiable failure but also left the people of Rivers State and believers in the rule of law in Nigeria greatly short-changed. . 

- total rubbishing of express constitutional provisions by the highest court in the land on account of personal feelings of the Justices had brought the issue of relevance and efficacy of the constitution to question

Our three lowest points as identified above  in no way represents the worst to which our judicial system seems set to degrade to - there are already indications, as evidenced by conflicting pronouncements on same subject matter by courts of concurrent jurisdictions in the ongoing Anambra State gubernatorial contest, that as we progress towards the general elections scheduled for May 2015, there will be judicial pronouncements that will make the examples cited above appear divine Socratic judgments.

Considering how entrenched corruption has permeated through our system, it is obviously wishful thinking to delude oneself in the hope that, per chance, the judiciary would be immune from its vile allure. Corruption, like every other cancer, could have been removed by precise surgical procedures at its inception. We have alas, allowed ours to metastasize and with its entry into and overwhelming of our judicial sector, we are now without doubt at a terminal stage of our societal cancer.

Unlike an individual cancer patient, however, restructuring and renegotiation of the contraption, will give us a fresh lease and opportunity at life. 

Let us restructure and renegotiate the contraption whilst there is still some life in it.

http://www.pointblanknews.com/News/os5520.html

Picture: Mr. Bola Tinubu contemptuously sits in the dock during his trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal session prior to the assault on the Tribunal.