The clog in our national evolution

If a national survey is taken to identify where the clog lies in the wheel of national progress, the lot will fall on the judiciary as the killjoy of our evolution, noted veteran broadcaster, Jones Usen in his radio news talk, Kubanji Direct.

That is not indicting the judiciary alone as the survey no doubt applies to other government institutions, inclusive of the customs, tax agencies and uniformed services where corruption smells.

Why the judiciary’s own sticks out like a sore tomb is because every case of corruption is either trashed out there or ‘ordained’ literarily.

In a town hall interactive session with the Nigerian community in Ethiopia recently, President Muhammadu Buhari revealed his secret pain of his in the assault on corruption at home. In his estimation, Buhari told his fellow countrymen that the judiciary is the killjoy in our match towards greatness as a nation.

Going down memory lane, the President recalled that three times in Buhari’s quest to assume the presidency, the Supreme Court had been his Kilimanjaro Mountain. In 2003, he said he was in court for 13 months; again in 2007 he spent 20 months and finally in 2011 the process gulped nine months.

Corruption gravely damages the judicial systems and thousands of people worldwide are denied access to justice and protection of their individual rights. The political class in Nigeria has immorally comprised the judiciary in Nigeria, an institution that is an essential pillar in a democratic state.

In this part of the world, it is not a taboo to be referred to as a billionaire judge. A South-South governor is reputed to have said that ‘What more money can do, much more money can do even better,’ and he is correct.

What we then have from the Supreme Court in Nigeria is political judgments. It would be recalled that a former governor of Rivers State is relishing a perpetual injunction from the Supreme Court, and some folks insist this is coming from the fact that his wife is on the apex bench. The uninitiated should appreciate the uphill task ahead, vis-à-vis the war on corruption.

To underline this seriousness in the frontal assault on the war on corruption, the President sent two executive bills to the National Assembly recently. One is the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Bill 2016, and the other is the Criminal Matters Bill 2016.The former aims at providing adequate penalty for money laundering, while the other aims at expanding the scope of the anti- money laundering agencies.

The recent trips of Mr. President across the world have helped to elicit the support of many governments moreso in the area of repatriation of stolen monies and extradition of felons for prosecution.

Only last week the CJN, Mahmud Muhammed ordered that criminal and all corruption cases should be tried on day-to-day basis, something never before done here. He referredparticipants at a five-day workshop comprising judges from the 36 states to the administration of criminal justice Act 2015 which sole aim was to forestall situations where accused use frivolous interlocutory applications to forestall or frustrate trials. If judges key into the new impetus, then a new song and calls will rent the air and we can beat our chest and say with a tone of finality that a Daniel has indeed come to judgment at last.

If, after weeks of aerobatics and acrobatics the senate president, PDP publicist and Dar Communications boss amongst others have yet to open their defenses, then a rat is smelling somewhere. And make no mistake about it, corruption is enemy to development: it must be gotten rid of.

The time is now that the iron is hottest.