Richard Akinnola On Judiciary Under The Military

AS I was saying the other day on the public presentation of “Testimony to Courage: Essays in Honour of Dapo Olorunyomi” and a “Conversation on the shrinking media and civic space in Nigeria” in Lagos, there was a revelation on the state of the judiciary too in the years the military ruled by a veteran judicial reporter and editor, Richard Akinnola who was a member of the panel on “Keeping Power in Check”. According to Mr. Akinnola, it was instructive and even curious that the judiciary appeared bolder under military rule than in a democracy. Hear him in part:

“In Richard Akinnola v. General Ibrahim Babangida and ors (1993) over the promulgation of Newspapers Registration Decree 43 of 1993, the government challenged my locus standi and the jurisdiction of the court due to ouster clauses in the Decree but Justice Hunponu-wusu of the Lagos High Court, ruled in my favour that l had locus standi and that the court had jurisdiction. On Guardian newspapers Ltd v. Attorney General of the Federation on same Decree 43 of 1983, the Lagos High Court ruled in favour of

nullified the

Decree.

There were others where the courts ruled against the military government -

* Military Governor of Lagos State v. Ojukwu (1986) 1NWLR (PT 18). It was in this case that Justice Kayode Eso of the Supreme Court, coined the phrase - “Executive lawlessness” to describe the actions of Lagos State government.

In State v. Akpabio (1993)4NWLR (PT 286),Justice Samson Uwaifo (then of the Court of Appeal), said of the roles of judges:

“The dispensation of justice is not left to the whims and caprices of of any judge, founded on shabby reasoning and perfunctory performance. It is not too much to expect the judiciary to set the pace in the quest for excellence in the discharge of public duty. But if the judiciary takes a back seat through unsatisfactory input by judges, even of superior courts, it will sooner became a lame duck and irrelevant in the reckoning of the astute or even the common man.”

Also, in the case of The Guardian newspapers Ltd and other five subsidiary companies located in the Rutam House, over the closure of the newspaper, the court of Appeal, while allowing the appeal of was unsparing in the manner it upbraided the government.

Justice Ignatius PatsAcholonu (who read the lead judgment), said inter alia on the issue of ouster clauses:

“It is frightening in that the military government is literally saying that any matter it states to be the law of the land in whatever way it is conceived, must stand unquestioned by the Court of law. I would even say that the type of injunction and the imperial language used in these laws, seem to place them, even above normal mortals.

“It is well known, even we mortals have sometimes questioned some divine laws like the injunction that we should love our enemies and do good to those who calumniate against us. If in an unlikely case (l hope I am wrong), of a Decree that states that every citizen should commence the act of destroying his own houses as it is for the efficacy and stability of the government, so the apologists of legal positivism, enthusing in Austinian theory of legal formalism, shall shout alleluia as court would then admit of such decree in the court of law… Should the court fold its hand when a law that offends the grundnorm established or set up by the military, is violated by the very revolutionary that sets it up…? “