By Abdul Mahmud
One month in the past, in Abuja, a small circle of mates, literary fanatics, human rights activists, politicians, public intellectuals and thinkers gathered to take heed to Chidi Odinkalu learn from his newest providing, The Selectorate: When Judges Topple the Folks. It was a non-public studying, however the concepts Chidi graciously espoused belong within the public area. They concern us, residents of this ruined Republic.
Odinkalu is not any stranger to judicial criticism. I’ve usually described him each as a stressed ruffler of the judicial nest and a flamethrower who scorches the darkish recesses of our judicial quarters, casting gentle into corners lengthy hidden from public view, in order that residents might, if just for a second, glimpse the shadows that dwell inside. Rightly so. He has spent the higher a part of his sterling profession within the academe and public activism, exposing the inconsistencies, betrayals, and quiet capitulations of the judicial department. However The Selectorate is greater than a critique. It’s a mirror, held as much as a rustic whose judicial department is in utter disrepute.
Odinkalu’s rendering is in line with the Selectorate Principle popularised by Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph Siverson, and James Morrow of their landmark guide, The Logic of Political Survival. They divide society into three teams: the nominal selectorate (everybody with formal rights to decide on leaders), the true selectorate (those that really vote or take part), and the necessities – the essential few with out whom no chief can maintain energy.
In functioning democracies, the “necessities” are normally the voting public. In our case, Odinkalu argues that the courts have quietly taken over that function. The judges, particularly these presiding over electoral disputes, now decide who governs. Not the individuals. This shift means energy is not derived from the consent of the ruled however from the choices of judges that always defy logic or regulation. Judges have grow to be kings who sit on imperial thrones the place they measure justice by the Shekels.
Odinkalu lays out his arguments methodically.
He doesn’t scream. He squares the bull’s eye and scores it nicely, with out being vindictive. He lays accusations the place he must. He illustrates. Case after case, election after election, state after state, he reveals how the judicial department reworked itself into a category of The Selectorate. Judges now act each as kings and kingmakers. They wield extra affect than ballots. They determine contests that residents thought they’d settled on the polling models. He advances the explanation, amongst different causes, for this, or to place it extra merely, he offers an account for the state of affairs, concluding: “This mixture of things was nicely suited to encourage the onset of a brand new pattern within the cultivation of clientelist relationships between politicians and judicial officers underpinned by bargains, each implicit and typically specific”.
Odinkalu’s place isn’t based on authorized abstractions. He excavates the higher crust of judicial adjudication with the dexterity of the Foucauldian archaeologist, looking for to uncover what lies beneath the floor of mere observations, thereby exposing bargains hidden by consumer relations.
What he exposes presents itself as the true, clear, current and rising hazard to our democracy. However, there’s a degree about hegemony and energy to be made right here, a degree that he didn’t allude to, which underpin his arguments. The Italian scholar, Antonio Gramsci, argued in his Jail Notebooks that energy could be seized, constructed, and sustained by means of the delicate structure of hegemony. He confirmed that ruling lessons rule by drive and in addition by manufacturing consent to legitimise its authority. As soon as energy is seized, it doesn’t serve the widespread good, however solutions solely to those that possess and perpetuate it by means of doubtful means, because the Selectorate Principle explains. The hazard, once more, is that the ethical foundations of the state are hollowed out and the establishments of justice are lowered to performances for the highly effective. It’s by means of these doubtful performances for the highly effective that judicial hegemons have taken our nation’s democracy.
Drawing from political science, constitutional regulation, and Nigeria’s political historical past, Odinkalu makes a robust case for restraining the judicial department as a substitute of exalting it. His critique is interdisciplinary, and there lies its energy. He doesn’t merely level out errors of regulation; he explains how these errors consolidate energy within the palms of some, and the way that consolidation hollows out our Republic. He tells the reality many dare not whisper: that judges now choose councillors, chairmen, governors, senators, representatives and presidents. Nigeria’s residents have been became mere topics with out the ability to determine who represents them. Merely put, they’ve grow to be a formality within the democratic rituals. They queue within the solar to vote, however the true verdict emerges later from obsequious courts and choices delivered by judges who don’t “act justly, love mercy, and stroll humbly”, as Prophet Micah expressed within the Holy E-book.
Odinkalu’s work strikes on the core of Nigeria’s political dysfunction. It speaks to the query of legitimacy. A authorities chosen by judicial fiat isn’t a authorities of the individuals; It’s a authorities of the courtroom. He isn’t the primary to look at this, however he could be the first to border it so sharply and so brilliantly. By situating his evaluation within the Selectorate Principle, he reveals that the issue isn’t solely corruption or incompetence. It’s also structural and systemic. It’s also about how political actors engineer political survival in Nigeria by means of the manipulation of authorized devices by counting judges amongst their favourites. On this manner, the judges have additionally reworked themselves from kingmakers into kings.
This isn’t an assault on the judicial department. It’s a name to conscience. Judges are supposed to be impartial arbiters. In Odinkalu’s providing, too many have grow to be embedded within the enviornment of electoral battle. They don’t interpret the principles; they modify them and enter fudged scores on outcomes’ sheets. They act as if democracy begins and ends of their courtrooms. Whereas inside the world of battle, their roles aren’t about reviewing the actions of burglars of elections; it’s merely about taking sides with election bandits and increasing the geography of banditry and the boundaries of judicial conquest.
Odinkalu highlights the notion of “judicial necessities”: these judges whose choices decide whether or not a political actor rises or falls. In a rustic the place elections are steadily flawed and the place the method is usually tainted by violence and rigging, it’s straightforward for judges to say the function of ultimate referee. However what occurs when that referee takes sides? Odinkalu solutions this with readability.
Democracy collapses not with the squeal of “Fellow Nigerians”, martial music, and the bang of a coup, however with the gavel of a decide. Quietly. Slowly. Fatally. He doesn’t argue that each one judges are corrupt. Quite, he reveals how a politicised judicial course of invitations corruption. When judges are seen as gatekeepers to energy, the temptation to affect them turns into overwhelming. The judiciary, as soon as the final hope of the widespread man, has grow to be a market of elite bargains.
There are those that will say Odinkalu exaggerates, however the proof says in any other case. He paperwork circumstances by which politicians whose names weren’t on the poll ended up being our representatives – with assist from the courts, in fact. He paperwork circumstances by which political careers had been extinguished, not by voters, however by panels of judges whose choices stretched the boundaries of interpretation. A few of these rulings contradicted precedents. Others ignored the proof. All of them had political penalties.
What makes The Selectorate compelling is that it doesn’t finish in despair. Odinkalu presents ideas. He requires transparency within the appointment and disciplinary processes for judges. He urges the Bar to be extra assertive in defending judicial integrity. He needs the general public to demand higher. Most of all, he believes the judiciary should return to its correct function: decoding the desire of the individuals, not supplanting it. And the residents should be on the coronary heart of electoral disputes, as events. It’s a troublesome ask in a rustic the place establishments are routinely hijacked. However it’s mandatory.
As I listened to him learn that Saturday, I used to be struck by his calm tone. There was no bitterness. Solely resolve. He has written this guide to not condemn, however to warn compatriots. He asks residents to reckon with what the nation has grow to be and to confront how that changing into has trumped electoral justice. What was as soon as a noble train of the ability of selection on the poll field has, in his providing, became absurdity. Right here, energy is not secured by means of the alternatives of residents on the poll field, however by means of the meticulous choreography of authorized arguments staged not for the individuals, however for these robed in black who now maintain the ultimate say. The desire of the voters has been displaced by shenanigans, which play out in courtrooms which have grow to be the true closets of judicial corruption. Ours is a democracy the place the individuals vote, however the judges select.
It’s straightforward to look away; and simpler nonetheless to rationalise. However the penalties are already right here. Disillusionment. Voter apathy. Cynicism. When residents not imagine their votes rely, democracy dies. Odinkalu is urging them to struggle again; not with violence, however with vigilance. Not with slogans, however with civic braveness. The judicial department is significant. Its independence should be protected. However that independence is meaningless whether it is used to serve energy as a substitute of the residents.
The Selectorate isn’t just a guide about judges. It’s about us: our passivity, our complicity, and our silence. It urges us to take a look at the judicial department and ask, “Whose pursuits does it now serve?” In that query lies our destiny, our nation’s destiny and the destiny of democracy.
A lawyer and a author, Abdul Mahmud is President, Public Curiosity Legal professionals League (PILL)
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