By Roland Yusuf
Let us separate noise from law, and activism from adjudication.
The attack on Justice Peter Lifu and Chief Judge John Tsoho is not a critique of judgments. It is a campaign against judges who refuse to deliver judgments to order.
1. On case assignment:
Every Chief Judge in Nigeria assigns cases. That is not a secret, it is the law and the practice of the Federal High Court. Assignment is administrative, not a verdict. If assignment alone predetermined outcomes, then no judgment would ever be appealed, reversed, or upheld. The fact that these ADC cases have gone through appeal proves the system works.
In every court in the world, including those that use algorithms, a human still designs the algorithm, manages the docket, and handles urgent political cases. To turn a routine administrative function into a conspiracy is to misunderstand how courts work or to deliberately mislead those who do not.
2. On Justice Lifu:
A judge does not become a “hitman” because he decides against your preferred faction. Read the judgments:
Did the ADC follow its own constitution in constituting its caretaker leadership? Did it follow INEC guidelines and the Electoral Act in its NEC of July 27, 2025? Did it conduct valid primaries?
Those are questions of fact and law. A judge who answers them against a powerful political coalition is not compromised. He is independent.
If Justice Lifu was wrong on precedent, hierarchy, or the Court of Appeal’s stay, the remedy is simple: appeal. And appeals were filed. That is how the judiciary corrects itself not by X threads, hashtags, and name-calling like “Judicial Rascal” and “coven.”
3. On precedent and hierarchy:
No serious lawyer will tell you that a trial judge who distinguishes a Supreme Court precedent on the facts is automatically in contempt of precedent. Distinguishing is what judges do every day. Whether Lifu distinguished correctly is for the Court of Appeal to decide, not for a social media tribunal to declare.
To claim he “sat as his own court of appeal” over Liman J. ignores a basic point: courts of coordinate jurisdiction deal with overlapping suits, abuse of process, and conflicting interim orders every day. If there was an abuse, the appellate court will say so. It has not pronounced Lifu guilty of anything an appellate criticism of procedure in one case is not a life ban from hearing related cases.
4. On Chief Judge Tsoho:
Where is the evidence of a “closed list” and a “political patron”?
No document. No assignment memo. No witness. No proof of a meeting, a call, a bribe, or an instruction. Just innuendo: “it is now clear,” “it is easy to figure out,” “he knows it.”
That is not evidence. That is gossip dressed as analysis.
Chief Judge Tsoho oversees over 100 judges across divisions nationwide. Political cases go to different judges every week. To single out Lifu because ADC keeps losing before him is to admit the real complaint: not that the process is rigged, but that the result is unwelcome.
5. The real danger:
What is being demanded here is not judicial independence. It is judicial obedience to a political camp.
If a Chief Judge starts reassigning cases because a commentator dislikes the judge’s decisions, that would be the real politicization of the bench. If judges start ruling to avoid being called “masquerades” and “hitmen” online, that would be the real end of justice.
Justice Lifu did not create the ADC crisis. He was asked to decide it. Tsoho did not create the ADC factional war. He was asked to manage a court confronted by it.
Disagree with the judgments? Appeal them.
Think the law was misapplied? Brief it.
But do not attempt to intimidate the bench into delivering the judgments you want by destroying the reputation of judges who dare to rule otherwise.
That is not defending democracy. That is bullying the judiciary and it will fail.
