Livinus Obidike
8 November 2009
opinion
Lagos — There is a sense of optimism in the serial media hype regarding the Appeal Court ruling on the matter of Andy Uba seeking to take the governorship mantle after the incumbent governor, Peter Obi, quits office March 17, next year.
The ruling which would have happened last Thursday but had to be postponed, had like other electoral issues in Nigeria , generated so much controversy. The most acerbic of all the commentaries was the statement credited to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) presidential flagbearer in the 2007 election, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Ojukwu is not a stranger to brickbats and acrid criticisms. In fact, he had over the years cut the picture of a man with a king-size penchant for controversy.
The man more commonly addressed as the Ikemba Nnewi was at the epicentre of the 30-month civil war which threatened the very existence of the nation and caused untimely deaths to millions of Nigerians. Many still remember that needless war with a feeling of 'never again'. In some quarters, it is being argued that the outcome of that war which pitted the Igbo nation against the Nigerian government is at the core of the perceived marginalisation being meted out to Ndigbo.
During the war, millions of casualties were recorded. In Igboland, there is hardly any home that did not lose either a close relation or a distant one. The same misfortune graced many homes across the country. By the time the war was over, the nation had retreated several years into backwardness. Till date, many speak of that war with a tinge of regret particularly the Igbo.
It was therefore a rude awakening and something thrust on the borderline of disbelief when the same mastermind of that war was reported to have inclined himself once again on the tethers of another war. Ojukwu was reported to have said that the nation risked being consumed by the conflagration of another civil war if the Appeal Court sitting in Enugu rules in favour of Andy Uba. To complete the ensemble of political clownishness, many political jobbers in the state and a motley crowd of media hirelings have jumped into the banal bandwagon of chanting anarchy in the place of the rule of law. The outrage that greeted that anarchical prescription fittingly measures its asininity and anathematised value. It is utterly reprehensible, odiously condemnable and patently distasteful to hear men and women pour vile and venom on judicial officers just so they would be intimidated into making pronouncements that would only serve their own skewed interpretation of the law. It is wrong for a statesman of the stature of the Ikemba to belch out highly inflammatory remarks especially on matters concerning Anambra, a state that has defied every known therapy for peace.
But why is the Ikemba no longer at ease with himself and the polity? Why would a man who had flown the flag of a political party in a presidential election not have confidence in the court of law? Democracy thrives on the burnished crucible of the rule of law and the place of the law is in the court of the law. This explains why democratic nations across the world, particularly the first world nations, do not denigrate or pour scorn on their courts. They are held as sacred sanctuaries and treated with utmost reverence and respect. In like manner, the officers of the courts are not subjected to verbal ambush and brazen intimidation. Judges are not perfect beings; no one is. In the same vein, presidents, statesmen like the Ikemba, clerics and other persons of repute and exalted social standing fall far below the bar of perfection. Judges are mere mortals prone to the dictates of emotion and other human frailties including intellectual obfuscation but the moment they make a pronouncement in the chamber of their courts, we are all bound to abide by that pronouncement.
When in 2000, the American Supreme Court stepped forth to break the deadlock in the presidential election involving Republican George Bush and Democrats' Al Gore, not many considered it a popular judgement but nobody invoked fire from hell. Though the Supreme Court agreed that Gore had a case, it gave victory to Bush in the spirit of national interest. Pronto, all the feuding camps retreated into their conclaves because the rule of law had spoken.
Democracy is supported by the strong ramparts of institutions chief of which is the judiciary and Americans, the British, the Germans and other advanced nations have come to respect their judiciaries even when the judgement is not palatable. Nigeria has had a turbulent democratic voyage. Now is the time for her to come good. This is how democracies are built - by adhering to the tenets of the rule of law and not the descent to the cesspit of judicial thuggery.
Anambra presents us another opportunity to show the world that we are willing to submit to the rule of law and not to the invocations of vile men. The Appeal Court judges must hold their nerves in the face of the orchestrated campaign to stampede them into going contrary to the dictates of their conscience. They should ignore the chants of war and the twangs of anarchy. Anambra had been in ruins. But it cannot remain in chains forever. All men of good will look to the judiciary to salvage this state of great promise and hope.
The confusion in the state barely three months to a governorship election is only a preface to the political armageddon which the politicians are on a hot rally to plunge the state into. The judiciary must arise and stave off this looming apocalypse. Peter Obi came into office by the grace of the court. Why then have we suddenly become loathsome of the same court of law just because we may not be a beneficiary this time? This is the strange thing about Nigerian democrats. They hail the judiciary only when the judgement suits them and deprecate same when it rules against them. But the hallmark of a democrat is that he or she must trust and have faith in the court of law no matter the judgement. This is the same spirit that should prevail in the Andy Uba instance. Anambra people must stay calm and allow the law to speak. They should resist the pressure to serve as part of the rented morbid mob. All the camps, from Andy Uba to the disoriented platoon of PDP guber aspirants should accept the verdict of the court even when it hurts them. That is how to show you are a democrat in spirit and in truth. To act otherwise is an invitation to mobocracy. And history would not be kind to those who walk this path.
Obidike wrote from Awka
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