In a brutally frank assessment of Nigeria’s judiciary and electoral body documented in his new book, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future’, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, lampooned the two institutions for lacking integrity and riddled with corruption thereby threatening national stability.
Newsmata.com.ng reports that President Obasanjo called out the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for making “a charade” of our elections by “making losers winners and winners losers” and then advised the victim of the cheating to go to court, which he described as “a court of corruption rather than a court of justice”.
Warning that the erosion of integrity within the system threatens national stability, the former president noted that “The reputation of the Nigerian judiciary has steadily gone down from the four eras up till today”, stressing that “the rapidity of the precipitous fall, particularly in the Fourth Republic, is lamentable”.
While citing an instance whereby a governor showed him six duplexes allegedly owned by a judge, said to have been acquired from proceeds made as chairman of election tribunals, Obasanjo stated that such cases reflect the depth of corruption eroding the justice system.
Picking on INEC, the former president accused Prof. Yakubu of undermining elections since 2015, adding, “No wonder politicians do not put much confidence in an election which the INEC of Professor Mahmood Yakubu polluted and grossly undermined to make a charade,” while the tribunal, appellate, and supreme court judges have become the ultimate arbiters of electoral outcomes, often above the will of the people.
Obasanjo did not spare late President Muhammadu Buhari who he claimed colluded with the judiciary in past election cases, rewarding judges who ruled in his favour with financial inducements and appointments.
According to him, “After a false declaration of results, making losers winners and winners losers, the victim of the cheating is advised to go to court, which is a court of corruption rather than a court of justice”.