Nigeria is potentially the greatest nation of the world. She has all it takes to recommend her. Anyone who has anything to the contrary should not shy away from presenting his facts. Those so-called facts wont be anything short of artificial and determinable occurrences. One such thing would be the prevailing al1eged judicial malpractices at the apex of the Nigerian judiciary. Well, it is worth investigation.The investigation could be on. But who is investigating what The situation could be worse than the case of a husband reporting the misdeeds of his wife to her mother-in-law, the carbon copy of whom the daughter is. The husband has got his due judgement via his chosen due process.But that may not be completely right! There could be a nononsense grandfather-in-Iaw that could bamboozle both the mother, the daughter and even the father. This big daddy could be the live wire of aIl concerned. Then, all concerned would have to listen.When a thief steals and another one snatches the loot, the original thief is simply done for. But who is the original thiefWho is the ultimate one Who is the thief and where is his lootThere is so much noise about judicial corruption in Nigeria. The latest one now rocking the nation is the allegation of judicial bribery at the layer two apex court where judgments are said to be purchased by the wealthy ones. A panel of judges is being set up to investigate the alleged judges.A judge is a judge. A professional would always do everything possible to defend his profession. Which of the judges is the holier than thouPersonally, I do not have any reason or concrete evidence to believe that anybody bribed or ever attempted to bribe any judge in the governorship cases recently decided by the Court of Appeal. This is the same thing as saying that I do not believe that any judge, judges and their agents or cronies took any bribe from or sold any judgement to any individual or group concerned or involved. This is, however, not to say that any or all of these did not happen.For the sake of argument, lets assume that bribery did effectively take place. The logic is that at least one judge of the court of appeal accepted bribe from at least one individual in this matter. This is to say that at least one so-called honourable judge of the Nigeria Court of Appeal must be corrupt.If one honourable judge could be corrupt, it means this judge must be dishonourable, corrupt and capable of doing any evil.Syllogistically, this presupposed that all judges of the court of appeal in Nigeria must be either corrupt or corruptible and therefore capable of perpetrating evil.Going by the fundamentals of the logic of validity and truth, it will be analytically inconsistent, and in fact unjust, to appoint an analytically determined corrupt judge, even if not factually so established, to handle the investigation of other individuals (even if they were not co-judges) in a case as sensitive as this. If one judge, having been potentially determined to be corrupt and therefore unjust, could be bought, another one could equally be purchased. The extension is logically free of bounds.There is yet another scenario. This is the situation under which the integrity of the judiciary is at stake. All judges are under the judiciary umbrella. If a house is to be demolished because there is a leper hibernating therein, all other residents would rather hide the leper in an inner room to protect the building. The leper could be dealt with after the structure might have been rescued.To appoint some judges to investigate the case that affects the entire judicial institution is an aberration. It is like allowing one to be a judge in his own case. The fly would always be on the side of the sore bearer. All beings are selfish by nature. Any hypothesis to the contrary would be un-nature and therefore rejected.For purposes of counter-argument, lets assume that no judge ever took one kobo from any party involved in the gubernatorial appeal cases. This would further assume that the allegations against the judges were fabricated and therefore false.That this particular case was fabricated, however, does not logically suggest that the Nigerian appeal court judges are not corrupt even if there are no a priori cases of corruption against them. Even if there are a priori cases of corruption against them, it is neither an evidence nor a factual proof of entrenched corruption. It could be a theoretical establishment at best but never a factual evidence.This being the case, for purposes of extension of argument, lets agree that the judges were truly honourable and not involved in any malpractices in these set of judgements. This is further to say that they must have been wrongly alleged.Should the investigation of the new panel of judges prove that the appeal panel of judges are innocent of the accusations, the general public would not be convinced. But this is the ultimate judge. The investigating judges would be perceived as a bunch of cover-up team because of the circumstances of the fundamental doubt surrounding the suspicion of being judges in their own case. The judiciary would be further battered and badly wounded.Are we in a fix in this matter Definitely not! The first prescription is that the judges should not be involved in the investigation exercise. The lawmakers in the tripod layers should be involved from the state assemblies to the lower and the upper houses of the national assemblies. The state assemblies should present one speaker per zone. The House of Representatives and the Senate each to present one member per zone. The president of Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to present a representative each. The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to present three members including one woman. The Chairman and the Secretary should be chosen from the presidents nominees. The 23-member team should present its findings within six weeks.There must be enough revelations of all avai1able facts and figures through the media to inform and educate the general public. With this at the background, the outcome of the investigations would be no more than a mere formality of a pack of fairness and justice.Whatever the findings of the team would be considered just and acceptable to the general public including the outer world that is keenly watching the events. The image of the judiciary, whatever the findings are, would have been redeemed once and for all. The public anxiety would have been relaxed with the prevailing judicial tension considerably doused. Nigeria deserves no less.Dr. Folayan wrote in from Ikere, Ekiti State.
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