ON Wednesday, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Olisa Agbakoba doubled down on his claim of an alleged existence of Mafia in the Supreme Court of Nigeria, at a Lagos interactive media session, themed “Governance Strategies for President Tinubu”. You want to ask if he is now a commissioned thinker for the President? But we digress.
Well, he first went public with the allegation at a birthday colloquium for Senate President Godswill Akpabio in Abuja on 15 December, 2023, with Tinubu attending. On both occasions, he also described the Justice Kayode Ariwoola-led Supreme Court as the worst in his 45 years of practising law. Called to the Nigerian Bar in 1978, Agbakoba, famed as a maritime lawyer, is right about being around long enough, to know what should be known and competent enough, to do a comparative analysis of now and then. By May 29, he will be 71. Today, the oldest justice of the apex court, the CJN, is junior to Agbakoba, both in calendar count, (though ‘football age’ is rampant among judges) and bar seniority. His wig and gown, had witnessed three seasons, before the CJN was handed his. I understand seniority is fetish in the judiciary and this possibly explains Ariwoola keeping mum on the damaging allegations, especially the one on the apex court, being the worst in 45 years, on his watch. The alleged existence of Mafia in the apex court, may not count as a direct indictment, because Agbakoba’s narrative of how he came to that conclusion, makes whatever existing, predating Ariwoola, though his suggestion that the Mafia is subsisting, indicts the CJN.
Both in law and layman terms, silence has never been golden. Ariwoola is certainly familiar with the principle of “Qui Tacet Consentire, of Latin origin, translated as “silence gives consent” or “the silence of a party implies consent”.
When ex-Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen refused to apologise for calling a court ruling “kangaroo judgement”, NBA sued her and was barred from holding office until she apologised. She did, last Wednesday. It is curious NBA singled and singed her for disparaging the Judiciary, among the multitude that daily assail the system, but at least, it wasn’t silent in her case, though muted in its ex-leader’s.
Ariwoola was the second calabash, to then-CJN Tanko Muhammad, when the same apex court, which now decides to play dumb, in the face of a very embarrassing verdict of a bar leader, promoted Hope Uzodinma from third runner-up in the 2019 Imo governorship election, to the first position, because the curious winning numbers he brought before the court, weren’t challenged by the winner and INEC. Their alleged silence, a claim disputed, cost Emeka Ihedioha a genuine mandate.
Thankfully, penultimate Friday, the apex court was in a self-redemptive move, even chastising the Court of Appeal for embarking on a similar mandate misadventure in Plateau, Kano and Zamfara. Well, there was a Supreme Court to knock sense into Monica Dongban-Mensem’s men, but there was no institutional rebuke for the apex court when it made someone who wasn’t on the ballot governor in Rivers State and magically moved number four, to one.
Yomi Alliyu, Senior Advocate, was unapologetically acerbic in scolding the apex court, for using Court of Appeal’s wotowoto (utmost indignity) to shine, when the rest of the inner bar was doffing hats. Hear him, “The justices of the Supreme Court have succeeded in using the Court of Appeal as canon fodder, forgetting that when you bend down to spy at the anus of another in a dunghill many behind you are starring at yours too!
“On the above premises, the Supreme Court in making statements and/or holdings on a matter not before it, acted unsupremely against the interest of the judiciary. “Their comments are nothing but self-serving apart from dancing to the gallery! The judiciary and the profession stand to suffer for this aberration in the minds of right thinking persons”. Whoa!. That was worse than being labeled a Mafioso. It would fit into Agbakoba’s claim that Ariwoola is leading the worst set of jurists in 45 years. And to think they are just nine, with the CJN, rounding the figure to ten.
Clearly, Agbakoba is sour-graping. The refusal of successive CJNs to open the apex bench to the inner bar, is no doubt, a simmering lava and being the first to suffer rejection, alongside Chief Wole Olanipekun, still rankles him, though it was multiple years back. A wise counsel says if you must offend, don’t pick those who never forget, because they hardly forgive. That Agbakoba is openly lobbying Tinubu and Akpabio (also a lawyer), to legislatively throw open the apex court, despite being age-barred from benefitting, shows he is a tenacious opponent not to have. Maybe that is why Ariwoola thinks silence is better. Or maybe, because Agbakoba, which sounds like agbako ba in Yoruba language (trouble jam am) is speaking the truth, especially on the shadowy Mafia claim, though history may not completely agree with him, on the Ariwoola era verdict. For a couple of years, Agbakoba was a member of the NJC, the highest-decision maker in the Judiciary, on paper. In reality, the sitting CJN is the NJC. Apart from being the chair, he handpicks majority of the members and the Council Secretary holds his job at the pleasure of the CJN. According to now-retired vice chairman of the Council, Musa Dattijo, an average CJN functioning as chairman, hardly consults on issues, no matter how pivotal. He was very pointed about Ariwoola not consulting and I guess, he meant, not consulting him as No 2. Multiple inside sources confirmed his solo-run allegation against the CJN. Maybe the one-head-is-better-than-10 policy of the CJN, is one of the routes that took Agbakoba to his depressing verdict.
A dictionary definition of Mafia,says it is “an organized (international) body of criminals…having a complex and ruthless behavioral code”. One hopes Agbakoba didn’t use the term lightly and he is sure of his facts, because he has written a page for history. Researchers in decades, would still rely on searches like this, since internet doesn’t forget, to tell the story of this era, especially when there isn’t a counter statement, whether official or otherwise, to the claims. And Agbakoba won’t be a nobody to history, especially if God grants me a long life, which will help age to easily confer the “elder statesman” title on him.
Instead of electing to keep quiet on behalf of the apex court and his colleagues who were reportedly displeased by the characterization, Ariwoola, at least, could have challenged Agbakoba in a dignified way, to state his premises and facts. I suspect, the outgoing CJN, is planning to make his valedictory his Big Moment, like his bellyaching deputy, who became a sensation in just 24 hours.
Saving whatever Big Speech, including a needed and needful response to Agbakoba, for some Big Moment, will be a moment lost, even if Ariwoola decides to reinstate the six-month terminal leave of old for CJNs, which the likes of CJN Geroge Sowemimo used for farewell tour of courts nationwide, and yields the seat to his deputy, next month.
I personally disagree with the learned SAN that Ariwoola’s administration is the worst in recent memory. My pick would be Tanko and Sons Limited, an era of the incomprehensible odiousness, of what eyes hath not seen, ears not heard and not crossing the hearts of decent men and women. It was an era of undiluted official brigandage and resurrected Hophni and Phinehas with a Tanko last name, on a roll. Anyway, Ariwoola was the deputy then and there is something known as guilt by association. Maybe silence is golden for him, afterall.
…to be continued.
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