By Danjuma Lamido
Mr Chidi Odinkalu's write up is not journalism. It is not analysis. It is not even credible criticism but modus of mob/ touting, orchestrated to sway the hoi polloi and his myrmidons.
It is a scurrilous, tendentious, and intellectually bankrupt concoction, designed to assassinate character, desecrate the judiciary, and intimidate independent cum unbiased judges into submission to political hysteria.
It deserves not applause, but categorical repudiation, with hereinafter analytical reasoning:
1. THE PREMISE IS PREPOSTEROUS AND PROFOUNDLY IGNORANT*
Mr Chidi Odinkalu, begins with a fundamental misapprehension of judicial administration, and proceeds to build an edifice of calumny/ his shangri-la
Case assignment is an administrative function, exercised under established rules, workload considerations, expertise, availability, and the exigencies of the division.
To transmogrify routine administrative discretion into a conspiracy is the hallmark of a mind intoxicated by paranoia and multi faceted mischief.
The insinuation that assignment equals predetermination is an insult to every judge who has ever decided a case on its merits. It is an insult to the intelligence of Nigerians. It suggests that judges are automatons, incapable of independent reasoning, and that judgments are dictated rather than reasoned.
That is false. That is libellous. That is ludicrous.
2. THERE IS NO CLOSED LIST, ONLY A CLOSED MIND*
The fanciful invention of a "closed list of acolytes" and a "coven of political hitmen" reveals more about the Mr Chidi Odinkalu than about the court.
Where is the evidence? Where is the document? Where is the witness? Where is the proof?
There is none. There is only innuendo, embellishment, and the reckless deployment of sinister adjectives to mask an embarrassing absence of facts.
To label cerebral honourable judicial officers as acolytes, surrogates, and hitmen is not criticism. It is character assassination of the most despicable kind. It is an attempt to delegitimise judgments simply because they are unfavourable to a preferred political faction.
Disagreement with a judgment is legitimate. Demonisation of the judge is despicable.
3. JUDICIAL DECISIONS ARE JURISPRUDENCE, BUT NOT JOBBERY AS CAPTURED IN THE WORLD OF MR CHIDI ODINKALU
The catalogue of decisions attributed to Justice Lifu is presented as though deciding a case is itself a crime.
It is not.
A judge is appointed to decide. A judge is bound to interpret the law, evaluate evidence, and pronounce judgment, even when that judgment displeases powerful politicians and their vociferous apologists, and in recognition of the immutable facts- that no two cases are identical.
To declare a leadership illegal, to nullify an emergence, or to invalidate a nomination is not rascality. It is adjudication. If a party believes a decision is wrong, the law provides a remedy: appeal. It does not provide a licence for public lynching on social media (court of public opinion).
The author conveniently ignores the existence of appellate remedies, because appellate remedies require legal argument. Social media calumny requires only vitriol.
Furthermore, the claim that Justice Lifu disregarded the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court is a gross/ deliberate distortion of facts. Judicial hierarchy is a matter for appellate courts to determine, through reasoned judgments, not for commentators to declare through hashtags. If any error occurred, it will be corrected on appeal, as the system contemplates. It will not be corrected by mob intimidation.
4. THE ATTACK ON CHIEF JUDGE TSOHO IS AN ATTACK ON THE INSTITUTION ITSELF*
Chief Judge John Terhemba Tsoho is a jurist of considerable learning, experience, and unimpeachable integrity. To accuse him of collusion, corruption, and servicing an unnamed patron, without a shred of verifiable evidence, is an act of unmitigated recklessness.
It is easy to allege a patron. It is easy to whisper about political wind. It is cowardly to do so without naming, proving, or substantiating anything.
What the author calls a pattern is, in reality, a pattern of his own prejudice cum imagination: every decision against his favoured party is corrupt, every judge who rules against them is compromised, and every administrator who assigns the case is a conspirator.
That is not the language of justice. That is the language of entitlement. It is the language of those who believe the court exists to validate their political ambitions, rather than to uphold the law.
It unequivocal self evident that this Mr Chidi Odinkalu's venomous virtupuration and vilification of most revered profession that raised him to prominence and relevance, is not only derisory and cretinous but an inane, asinine, fatuous and preposterous display of obtuse nescience.
Let the courts decide cases. Let appellate courts correct errors. Let commentators learn restraint. And let the masquerade of malicious falsehood be unmasked for what it truly is: -a disgraceful assault on the rule of law.
Danjuma Lamido writes from Wuse 2. E-mail: danjumalamido2011@gmail.com
