Muslims, Blasphemers and the Rise of Jungle Justice in Nigeria

25^th August, 2016

By: AmirAbdulazeez

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he phenomenon of jungle justice in Nigeria is not new even if recent incidences in Kano, Niger and Zamfara States have unfortunately brought it back to limelight. It didn’t started with the blasphemy-induced actions of some so-called Northern Muslim mobs burning or killing the abusers of Prophet Muhammad and Islam or those who  killed for allegedly refusing to fast during Ramadan; and it is not going to end with them. While we must worry about the causes and genesis of jungle justice, we must be more worried about its rise and why it keeps thriving as well as what it is turning our society into as a whole.

Without mincing words, the Nigerian justice system hasfailed almost completely to the extent that ordinary people seek to find justice through their own ways, and in a society where majority of the people are hungry, angry, idle and ignorant, jungle justice can just be one out of different barbaric methods people can resort to in stamping their authority. For almost every problem in Nigeria, disadvantaged people have developed an equivalent of jungle justice to get solutions. For unemployment, some are into prostitution, stealing, begging and cheating; for a collapsed education system, some have resort to exam malpractice; for an unstable economy and an uncertain future, some have resorted to pillaging our commonwealth; for a failed police and civil service, some have resorted to bribing their ways out of trouble. All these are jungle justices in their own rights.

When people feel so strong about issues in a system that is not working properly and with ignorance so prevalent, they resort to jungle justice. For instance, the phenomena of burning an alleged market thief alive using tyres became very popular in South-eastern Nigeria and Igbo-dominated places elsewhere for a reason. The Igbos have no better profession than trade and won’t allow thievery to constitute any threat to that profession especially when they are almost certain that under the justice system in the land, such thieves will manipulatively go scot-free, get lenient sentences or spend years without their trials concluded. What more then do you expect from a people who feel very strongly about their faith and see its defence even if ignorantly and lawlessly as one of the sure ways to heaven? Until and unless people begin to see the justice system as reliable and effective, we shall continue to witness jungle justice not just for blasphemy but for many other things, many of which may even be insignificant.

Defending Islam is not part of the objectives of this article as doing so would be futile especially when so many non-Muslims, particularly Christians have stubbornly refused to mark the difference between actions of some misguided Muslims and Islam itself. If you say jungle justice is part of Islam and not the action of few thugs masquerading as Northern Muslims for instance, it is just like you are conceding that blasphemy and abuse of others’ religion is part of Christianity and not the actions of few stupid profanitists disguising as Christians. However, many Muslims themselves have not helped Islam and had left Christians and non-Muslims with no logical option within their grasp than to blame Islam for the unislamic actions of some Muslims.

In the Islamic context, Prophet Muhammad is the greatest man in history; he is the greatest of all creatures that were created by God. Even among non-Muslims who may not categorically agree with this, there are many prominent people including renowned Christians who have acknowledged his exceptional and rare divine-given greatness; many among them agreed with his prophecy and message even if they didn’t agree in its superiority over their own faiths. Every Muslim who has a basic history of Prophet Muhammad’s character and adventures should learn a lot of positive things and conduct his own life base on them.

The problem with most present day Nigerian Muslims is their pretence of Islam. While they are Muslims in identity, hardly do you find any Islam in their actions and character. For instance, the prophet teaches us to be honest, caring, well-mannered, trust-worthy, peaceful, hard-working, just, tolerant, etc and we all know that the best way to show love to someone is to obey and adhere to his teachings. Why then would people who have largely ignored all the good things the Prophet stood for be barbarically killing others in the name of ‘protecting’ him without any recourse to law and order? People who stand for everything the prophet disparaged and prohibited; people who do not even adhere to Islamic teachings and principles; people with no regards for law and order are the same people trying to defend the religion with jungle justice without trial? How can this be acceptable? How can one be cowed into feeling that these people represent Islam? The irony is that some Muslims will exhibit a stiff intolerance to the abuse of the Prophet from non-Muslims and even from fellow Muslims as we witnessed last year in Kano, but they themselves will go on to betray and abuse all what he stands for. Alas! Many of them don’t even know what he stands for.

Another angle to this problem is that, in all of this blasphemy controversy, one question many people fail or deliberately choose not to ask or at least not asking publicly is why would a sensible human being abuse someone who is regarded to be the greatest personality ever by more than 1.5 billion people across the globe? What do you stand to benefit by abusing the Prophet of Islam and how does that promote your cause? Why would you live in the domain or stronghold of Muslims and still choose to be so careless while you know so well of the possible consequences? No matter the stupidity or rascality of the so-called Muslims engaging in jungle justice for blasphemy, one thing we are yet to hear or at least has not become common is someone among them publicly abusing Jesus Christ in a Christian dominated area. Have we also noticed that these jungle justice mongers’ actions are not exclusively restricted to Christians and non-Muslims; their actions extend even to fellow Muslims?

One terribly disturbing issue about this jungle justice versus blasphemy affair is the difficulty in ascertaining whether the accused victims did actually commit the blasphemy or the mob did committed their heinous acts sincerely for the sake of Islam. What is only certain is that all of us make prejudiced and highly subjective conclusions. This whole issue is gradually proving to be more socio-ethno-political than it is religious as it keeps polarizing Nigerians along their traditional weak lines. The Nigerian media have also not helped matters with its misinformed reportage. False as well as twisted stories with half-truths have been reported only for the actual versions of what happened to emerge later. The true versions never go viral as the initial false ones. One terrible fact also is that no one can predict when, how or where it is going to happen and therefore, we stand virtually a zero chance of preventing it. Before we blame anyone for not preventing it, we must understand the complexities involved. What we may however complain is about the failure of authorities to decisively deal with culprits even if doing so is also a little bit difficult as it is sometimes difficult to fish out the specific culprits out of a crowd.

Muslims must exemplify the love of Islam and Prophet Muhammad in their character and conduct. If many Muslims truly and sincerely adhere to the teachings of the prophet, Islam would not be suffering from its current battered image. They must report any suspected blasphemer to the law enforcement agencies and must never seek to take laws into their hands under whatever circumstance. Christians involved in blasphemy must understand that it is against their own religion and they stand to achieve nothing except chaos with such silly actions. Christian leaders can help by enlightening their followers and disowning such blasphemers publicly instead of defending them. It is only the collective actions of the good elements in both religions that would produce the desired results. Government on its part must strengthen its security response apparatus and the justice system to stand any chance of eliminating jungle justice from our society.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

May God Save the Nigerian Judiciary

11^th August, 2016

By: AmirAbdulazeez

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ew weeks before the end of the year 2015, some political pundits in Nigeria made a series of analyses on the major events and institutions that could shape the then upcoming year in the country. Some of these analysts emphasized that 2016 would be the year of the Nigerian Judiciary. It would be a year they said, that will serve as a litmus test for the Nigerian Judicial Arm of government as an institution that can self-reform not only under President Buhari but under a relatively new era ushered in by a critical election that has swept away many of those who are seen to have negatively dictated the course of politico-judicial events in the country from 1999 to 2015.

In the build up to 2016, major election cases that caught the public eye had reached advanced stages and were due for judgements at various times of the new year; many corruption cases especially those involving the arms deal scandal had begun as well as a host of others. Eight months into 2016, we can conclude from events that the judiciary has not lived up to expectation. President Buhari himself had said the judiciary so far was yet to perform its functions to the satisfaction of Nigerians.

With the remarkable progress made by the 2015 polls, the judiciary had the opportunity to end impunity, violence and rigging in our electoral system once and for all but however gave all of them a lifeline with those Supreme Court gubernatorial judgments of Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and a host of other states. The judgements were widely condemned even by the most neutral of neutrals. With the nature with which the Nigerian electoral system had been bastardized since 2003, there was no way a successful 2015 elections alone could cleanse it. Many expected the judiciary to not only consolidate the gains of 2015, but to perfect it.

The lower election tribunals performed fairly but not up to expectations and the appeal courts did a job that was a little above average and would have done better if not for the different conflicting decisions made on similar cases that dominated their judgements. The Supreme Court upturned everything in what looks like exploiting some narrow loopholes for upholding the theoretical law at the expense of practical justice. The card reader which received wide appraisal as the major instrument that ended electoral impunity in the country was portrayed as ‘illegal’ or ‘unconstitutional’ by the court. Unfortunately, the seeds of those Supreme Court judgments have yielded the fruits of more violence, desperation and attempted rigging in many re-run and gubernatorial elections that followed the 2015 elections leading to so many inconclusive and suspended elections. A hitherto determined and confident INEC has been rendered helpless once again. The ‘win-at-all-cost’ and the ‘it-is-better-to-be-taken-to-court-than-to-go-to-court-on-election-matters’ mentalities have carried the day.

The prosecution of corruption cases began in earnest with some improved pace which made it appear as if the reforms through the Administration of Criminal Justice Act were working on one hand and the change mantra of the Buhari Government is positively affecting judicial proceedings on the other, but that had since slowed down and now cases are taking the familiar path of time wasting, endless adjournments and giving priority to technicalities against merit. However, apart from the internal court problems, the attitudes of lawyers as well as the prosecutors themselves have not helped matters. 

The number of reported judicial scandals involving judges that broke out in 2016 is a serious cause for worry. The reported scandal involving the renowned Lawyer Ricky Tarfa and Justice Ibrahim Auta of the Federal High Court is still fresh on our minds. Tarfa is among other things being accused of introducing and using his clients who have their families standing trial before the court of Justice Auta to donate money at a book launch in honour of the judge, thereby violating the code of conduct for judges in Nigeria. This is coming at a time the Justice Ayo Salami and ACN saga is still not forgotten. There are many other resolved and unresolved scandals involving judges that keep denting the image of the Nigerian Judiciary. There are perhaps hundreds of others that we may never hear of.

Recently, courts were reported to have given seven different conflicting judgements and rulings on the leadership saga of the People’s Democratic Party involving the two factions of Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi. From May 12, 2016 to July 28, 2016, the Federal High Court in Lagos, the FCT High Court (twice), Federal High court Abuja (twice) and the Federal High Court in Porthacourt have delivered one judgment, ruling and injunction or the other in favour or against the two factions and nobody knows what court will give what judgement or injunction on the same matter tomorrow. Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, a pro-democracy activist believes that judges listen to radio and read newspapers and if they do not, they should be forced to. He wondered why judges who are aware of previous rulings and judgments accept new cases on the same issue if the issue of compromise is not at stake. Jibrin also added while also citing Justice Akinola Aguda from a lecture he delivered in 1986 saying that, it is apparent today that we have moved beyond the power to acquire quality lawyers which in itself makes equality before the law impossible since others can’t afford such, to the purchase of judges.

The saga in Abia is the most recent example of how the judiciary are causing confusion and political instability. A Federal High Court in Abuja sacked Governor Okezie Ikpeazu on June 27 on tax fraud and ordered INEC to issue fresh certificate of return to his runner-up opponent in the primary elections, Mr Sampson Ogah. Within hours, another court in Abia State (which is not a Court of Appeal) barred the state’s Chief Judge from swearing-in Ogah. It took the efforts of an Appeal Court which asked the parties to maintain status quo pending the determination of the case to douse the heated atmosphere in the state and restore temporary calm and stability.

Though many judges still maintain their integrity due to their exceptional individual conducts, but the integrity of the judiciary as a system has gradually eroded; the common man no longer sees it as his last hope, it is the special man that does. The abuse and disregard for court orders by those in power may not be unconnected to the general degradation of judicial integrity. It seems, the judiciary can no longer assert its full authority to protect itself from the incessant abuse of court orders by the executive and powerful individuals because it commands little respect in the eyes of many. While the legislature checks the excesses of the executive, the judiciary checks the excesses of both as well as itself. These are some of the things the National Judicial Council must look into and address. The allegations that corruption has eaten deep into the court registries and judicial administrative systems must also be addressed. The reported cases of alleged bribery and corruption among courts’ registrars, staff and officers who frustrate the smooth administration of justice must be investigated and dealt with.

Despite all these, it is fair that we acknowledge some external factors largely beyond its control that have led the Nigerian judiciary to find itself in its current state. The issue of inadequate manpower and poor funding are twin obstacles drawing it back. The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mohammed Mahmud last year, when the members of the Senate Committee on Judiciary paid him a visit lamented that: ‘there are only 1074 judges of superior courts in the country, meaning that only one superior court judge adjudicates for 158,287 Nigerians based on conservative estimates. At the appeal courts, we now boast of one judge for 1,888,888 Nigerians and it is one Supreme Court judge for every 10 million Nigerians.” With these figures, one must understand the difficulties experienced by judges in discharging their duties. Other problems are excessive executive threat and political interference, corrupt system, general high cost of legal proceedings and a host of numerous others.

The National Judicial Council has been doing some clean-up over the years, even though that has not adequately tackled the problems at hand. Some judges have been sacked, some compulsorily retired and others suspended or sanctioned. However, these have not significantly proven to serve as deterrent to other judges. Therefore, the council should step up its efforts to cleanse the judiciary of all negative elements for optimal performance.

After so many years of anomalies and with the startling events that dominated late 2015 to early 2016, many expected the judiciary to significantly and positively change by now, but with what we are witnessing, that change is far from close and not even the reforms brought about by the Administration of Criminal Justice Act has significantly changed things so far. The problems are stubbornly getting more and more complex by the day and some of them look to be almost beyond redemption. With President Buhari himself helplessly admitting at a workshop for Nigerian judges at the National Judicial Institute recently, that the judiciary is blocking his progress particularly in the anti-corruption campaign, the only action left for us besides continuing to press for genuine reforms is to pray to God to save the Nigerian Judiciary.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

When Citizens 'Can't' Exercise Their Powers

5^th August, 2016

By: AmirAbdulazeez

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”- Thomas Jefferson

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ver the last eight months, Nigerians have been very angry with the National Assembly. Although, the discontent of Nigerians with their national lawmakers over the past 16 years has become habitual and almost permanent, several events in the 8^th National Assembly have accelerated this discontent. From Bukola Saraki’s refusal to resign over corruption allegations to the purchase of cars for lawmakers at ‘inflated’ prices down to the inability of both chambers to make their budget details clearly open and lately, to the on-going budget padding controversy; Nigerians have never probably being angrier with their representatives in the legislative arm than they are now. Add all of these to the social media bill controversy, the lawmakers’ quest to give their leaders life pension and immunity and Abdulmumini Jibrin’s latest cameo; then you can say, the sore relationship between Nigerians and their federal lawmakers have reached a point of no return.

One thing that will amaze a typical observer in all these is that no single lawmaker has been recalled by his constituents. Infact, no single formal and significant recall process of any lawmaker is currently on-going throughout the federation and probably, there will never be any. The constitution empowers the citizens to recall any lawmaker whose performance they are not satisfied with, but we probably enjoy only being angry and angrier.

While some Good Samaritan activists have made some attempts to ‘occupy’ the National Assembly in the past, others have employed physical attacks by pelting some of their representatives with stones and other objects in what looks like a bid to hold them accountable. However, it appears all these are not necessary, the lawmakers themselves have become immune to all these. One unpopular lawmaker who was disgraced in one of the Northern States and was alleged to have been physically manhandled by his angry constituents during the constitutional hearings in late 2013 was bold enough to openly seek for re-election within the space of months in the following year because he probably feels that was the only thing the people could do. They can’t go beyond that, they can’t recall him and most importantly they’ll definitely need him for his money. Our failure to constitutionally hold our lawmakers to account also translates to the fact that we cannot also hold the executive arm to account. Though we can’t recall a governor or president, but we can make him fear and respect our representatives and we can control him through them. We ask them to impeach a governor who abused his office or we recall them, simple!

Since 2003, the major political parties in every dispensation have in most cases being imposing candidates and technically selling their tickets to the highest bidder against the wish of the generality of the people. At the end, these parties shut out popular candidates and leave citizens with the narrow options of choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea. For more than 12 years, Nigerians have been suffering from this without finding a way to free themselves. All we could do is to promote peoples’ candidacy by backing and massively voting for the smaller parties who have no money and power; after all it is through our votes that the big parties became rich and powerful. Popular candidates who decamp to smaller parties in the hope that their personal acceptability will see them through end up getting disappointed just because citizens only want to vote candidates in big parties. One funny thing is that, after deliberately making the wrong choice amidst other overlooked alternatives, people come back to complain of limited choices.

Well, one must wonder, how can such a feat be achieved in a society where the monumental electoral frauds of 2003 and 2007 was not only allowed to take place, but was also swept under the carpet with little or no resistance? You begin to wonder whether we have citizens or just people whose aim is to survive or whether the citizens are actually concerned? As helpless as we seemed at that time, we could still protest by boycotting all future elections in mass until authorities correct the anomalies of those elections. At the end, it took more of the braveness and critical reforms of an astute Attahiru Jega to sanitize the electoral system than the people’s discontent.

Few weeks ago, when the price of a bag of Sugar suddenly sky-rocketed from around N9,000 to N15,000 within few weeks, I was compelled to pay a visit to a friend who was a trader in the popular Singer Market in Kano in order to clarify whether that was inflation or sheer craziness. In the course of our discussions, he confessed to me that it was the latter and that it was somewhat artificial and designed majorly by the marketers; then I kept wondering to myself on whether Nigerians or even Kano people can simply organize themselves and boycott sugar for a week or two and see whether these marketers would behave themselves? Nothing will happen to us if we boycott sugar even for months, we can use honey or just sacrifice taking sugar-sweetened foods for a while. It was from my discussions with him that I also understood that though the current bad state of the economy is contributing to inflation, but a chunk of it is been driven artificially by some traders and enemies of progress and this has been made possible because Nigerians have not thought of developing any significant resistance to all these kinds of illogicality.

The Nigerian leadership system has being taken people for granted for so many years simply because citizens have largely failed to develop a way of dealing with the problem. A typical public office holder feels he can get away with whatever actions he perpetrates while in power because he’ll face little or no consequences from the citizens. Some say we need revolution or an Arab Spring, but the truth is that we can make leaders sit up by simple civil actions without any violence. When you hear governments and leaders resigning over the fear of their citizens, you begin to wonder if such can happen in Nigeria. The Immediate past British Prime Minister resigned not because he had committed any crime or because he was asked to, but because his plans for his country’s future are contrary to that of his citizens and he fears the consequences of such a situation even after his party won massive support in the most recent National Elections.

It is worthy to note that there have been individuals and civil society organizations that have consistently and commendably stood against bad governance in Nigeria over the years. However, the actions of these individuals and organizations get drowned in the general lack of patriotism, support, awareness and inactions of the citizens. The citizens themselves have occasionally made things happen like in the 2012 subsidy removal protest for example, but that was a rare feat which no one can predict when such can be repeated with remarkable success.

Several factors contribute to citizens being unable to develop any resistance against bad governance and other atrocities against them. The chief among them, some will say, is ignorance. However, most of the actions we need to carry out to better our society need only basic knowledge and understanding to execute. What mostly is lacking is the patriotism and sacrifice. Ethnic, religious, political and regional differences are also a major reason why Nigerians fail to unite to fight for their cause. However, when problems come, they don’t select any religion or tribe and when leaders misgovern, they destroy the whole state and not only one region or two. Some other factors include greediness and money worshipping, poverty, laziness, lack of orientation and organization. Our general dislike for law, order and due process is also a major factor preventing us from holding our leaders accountable. It is only when citizens obey the law then will they have the guts and courage to question those on top. We have abdicated our responsibility as the ones who should primarily make our society a better place.

One wonders why public corruption continues to thrive and win in our society in spite of our so-called fight against it. The simple explanation is that we as citizens do not only encourage it, we also promote it. We condemn any appointed or elected public office holder who fails to get rich or distribute money. We demand money from public officers instead of accountability and transparency. We worship and revere looters and abuse those who retire with an unblemished record. If things go down like this up to the end (God forbid); the Nigerian story would not only be that of a failed leadership but of a failed followership as well.

We can change all these; we can make everyone in Nigeria accountable for his actions. Nigerian citizens are brave, strong and resistant. They could achieve many things if they unite, organize and dedicate themselves. The civilian JTF who rose against insurgency in the North east are Nigerians. The different activists and civil society organizations who have consistently and bravely fought bad governance are Nigerians. The people who blocked Obasanjo’s hypothetical third term bid are Nigerians. The people of Azare town who fought and defeated heavily armed robbers without guns are Nigerians. Goodluck Jonathan, the man who bravely sacrificed his ambition amidst uncertain consequences even if he could do otherwise is a Nigerian. Muhammadu Buhari, the man who contested four times and was allegedly cheated out on several occasions but still endured to serve his country is a Nigerian. The pregnant woman from Kaduna state who joined the queue to get accredited during the 2011 elections, went home to deliver and came back to vote is a Nigerian. Chief Ogbonnaya Onu and Bola Tinubu, who have resisted all attempts to join PDP and stayed put in opposition for 16 years are Nigerians. David Mark, possibly the longest consecutively serving Senator in the history of Africa is a Nigerian. Godsday Orubebe who summoned the super courage to outrageously ridicule himself before the whole world is also a Nigerian.   

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez