Fred Chukwuelobe

Fred Chukwuelobe

I don’t mean to offend anybody. I understand that some people are very angry, and some others are jubilant after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling firming president Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency. Each camp has the right to react as they deem wise, rightly, or wrongly.

There’s too much anger among the losers. There’s palpable jubilation in the camps of the victorious as it seems. Some of the president’s acolytes rushed into his office after the judgment was delivered to rejoice with him to the consternation of ‘the losers.’

But watching from the sides, I have been thinking about judicial pronouncements and our reactions to them. I have also thought about the elections that led to all the litigation. Were they flawed? Absolutely!

Today, it may favour us, and the judiciary is the last hope of the common man.

Tomorrow it may go against us and the judiciary is corrupt; has been bribed; should hide their faces in shame; will not escape the judgement of God; will go down in the infamy of history books. Etc.

I am not saying the judgement yesterday was the right one, given freely and without coercion. I am convinced the elections were rigged. They were neither free nor fair. They have never been free and fair.

Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of what transpired and if the appellants’ lawyers proved their cases beyond reasonable doubt for the courts to award them victory.

However, I wish to state that both Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi had at various times benefited from judiciary pronouncements.

At those times, both they and their supporters applauded the judges.

Nobody in their camps called on God to ‘punish the judiciary.’

None saw the judiciary as being corrupt. They all echoed in one voice how wonderful our judiciary was.

Many times, Atiku Abubakar floored president Olusegun Obasanjo in courts.

Many times, Peter Obi equally floored Chris Ngige and Andy Uba in courts. You may argue they won their victories meritoriously. Even that is debatable because you may not know what played out. You may not have been privy to the shenanigans. Just as I am not in the latest case.

Today, the tides have turned, and Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, another beneficiary of ‘judicial abracadabra,’ is singing his favourite song, “As e de sweet us, e de pain them. As e de pain them, omo e de sweet us.’

Please don’t get me wrong. No pun intended.

In my little corner as an armchair critic, there are many things that don’t add up in the tribunal pronouncements and the Supreme Court affirmation. But I’m not capable of saying what they were and if they weren’t.

I’m not a lawyer. I’m not God. I can’t see beyond what I read and reason about. Like everybody else, I have an opinion, which I am free to express.

I know that the law is an ass. It can be twisted under technicalities and legal jargon to give victory to either parties in the disputes.

Like the Bible and the Koran are interpreted and used differently by the different adherents, so is politics played according to the dictates of politicians.

In any court case, both the litigants know the truth. It is only the judges that are on trial. Even they, too, know the truth. But they must dispense justice as they deem fit.

That brings me to the issue of God.

Many of us have appropriated God selfishly and to be called upon as it suits us.

We ask him to punish our enemies and fight our battles, forgetting we also have enemies who also have their own battles to fight.

I must advise, however, that we must note that God does not play politics, even though He presides over the affairs of man, or so we believe.

God is not a politician. He’s a spirit. If we ask him to punish our enemies, He will also punish us because we are other people’s enemies.

Were the courts right in awarding victory to Tinibu and denying Atiku and Obi? I don’t know. Did the litigants’ lawyers prove their cases beyond reasonable doubts in order to sway their courts in their clients’ favours? The courts said they didn’t.

In our civilian dispensation, only the courts have the right to determine who proved cases before them beyond reasonable doubt to be awarded victory.

Is our judiciary corrupt? Yes. And so are all of us. Unless we want to be economical with the truth, which in itself is one of the three constants of life.

Was the judgement of the PEPT the right one? The Supreme Court says it was. And so shall it be, and as the lawyers will echo, “as the court pleases!”

As it was yesterday for some, it is today for others.

Finally, as many of my friends have said, let the consciences of the judges and lawyers judge them.

As for God’s judgement, I don’t know about that because politics is a dirty game, and God does not play a dirty game.

Today it favours them. Tomorrow, it does not.

Finally, “there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” – William Shakespeare

I only pity the masses who are at the receiving end, that is, those who have not been invited to ‘come and eat.’

*Fred Chukwuelobe is a journalist and fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations