Obasanjo alleges in new book that Nigeria’s judiciary is compromised, and politicians rely on judges’ will

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has launched a scathing attack on Nigeria’s judiciary, accusing judges of widespread corruption and warning that the system has become a “court of corruption rather than a court of justice.”

In his newly released book, Nigeria: Past and Future, published by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Obasanjo lamented what he described as the “steady decline of the judiciary’s integrity,” particularly since the advent of the Fourth Republic.

“The reputation of the Nigerian judiciary has steadily gone down from the four eras up till today. The rapidity of the precipitous fall, particularly in the Fourth Republic, is lamentable,” Obasanjo wrote.

He cautioned that justice in Nigeria has become commodified, noting that “where ‘justice’ is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope.”

The former president recounted an incident during a visit to a northern state a decade after leaving office. He said a governor pointed to six duplexes near a government guest house, claiming they belonged to a judge who built them from proceeds made as chairman of election tribunals.

Obasanjo also accused Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, of compromising the electoral process since 2015. He alleged that Yakubu had “polluted and grossly undermined” elections, making them a “charade,” and said the INEC boss had usurped the will of the people.

“No matter what the will of the people may be, the Chairman of INEC since after the 2015 election had made his will greater and more important than the will of the people,” Obasanjo wrote. “And worse still is the will of the judges – two out of three, three out of five corruptly overriding the will of millions of voters.”

The former president further accused late former President Muhammadu Buhari of colluding with the judiciary during his election petitions, claiming he secured favourable judgments through financial inducements and political appointments.

“Buhari threw caution to the wind, no matter what had transpired between him and the judges who did his bidding. In his election cases, financially, he topped it up with appointments for them no matter their age and their ranks,” Obasanjo wrote.

He condemned a pattern where false declarations of election results make losers winners and vice versa, only for aggrieved candidates to be told to seek redress in what he described as “a court of corruption rather than a court of justice.”

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