A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Dr Olisa Agbakoba has alleged that there is a mafia in Nigeria’s Supreme Court, adding that for the country’s judicial system to work for the good of the people, the mafia must be broken up.

The former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), development law expert and founder of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), stated this at a media parley in Abuja.

According to him, the constitution of Nigeria is not so much the content but lack of acceptance and legitimacy, adding that if you allow people to speak and own something, you will be surprised they may arrive at the same answer.

He said: “What we need is to identify the owners of Nigeria before 1914. In previous national conferences, professional associations, such as the NBA, were invited. We (lawyers) have no ethnic stake per se. Invite those who were owners of Nigeria – Benin Kingdom; the emirs, the Obi of Onitsha. Excluding them from the development process is a huge error. We need to bring in Ohanaeze, PANDEF, Arewa, and Afenifere. These are the people that will shape Nigeria and give us political peace for development. The government needs to resolve critical national questions. Are we a country, state, or nation? Do we intend to live together as one country and how? Once these questions are answered, it will set the stage for a new political arrangement that can be articulated in a new constitution. Sub-national ethnic leaders (Ohaneze, Arewa, and Afenifere) have national appeal and can provide alternatives. The current National Assembly has powers to facilitate this process under the constitution.

“One of the things that is ignored in development discussions is law. Little attention is paid to the law. My background is development law, and a sub-speciality of it is governance, which is like a foundation. A country that has been struggling with the foundation for 23 years cannot be considered a serious country. So, there is a need for speed. The 10th Assembly must address the issue. The late Bola Ige once said, in a political arrangement like Nigeria’s, the first question is, just like having a wife: do I want to be married? In Nigeria, do we want to be one? It’s an assumption that we want to be. It’s a terribly big and wrong assumption. Croatia was one of the six countries that formed Yugoslavia. But they’re doing very well. Macedonia is doing very well. Slovenia is doing very well. It’s not sacrosanct that we must be one country if in being one country, you have all the killings. In looking at President Tinubu’s governance programme, I will remind him of a structural engineer who says: ‘I can’t build Nigeria based on a weak governance structure.’ It is a fundamental process if you want a country to grow. Nigeria’s governance structure is very weak.

“The Judiciary in my 45 years in the profession has never been as low as this. Even the Supreme Court – Justice John Okoro – castigated the Court of Appeal for the terrible judgment where they removed virtually everybody in the Plateau political system. We can’t grow if we have a weak judiciary.

“Therefore, the only way to grow is to break up this mafia in the Supreme Court. You have to break it up. It’s like saying no woman in Nigeria is entitled to political office. That’s what they’ve done to us in the judiciary. No lawyer is entitled to be appointed to the Supreme Court. It’s only them. They create a mafia, block us out, and appoint themselves – like an incestuous relationship. They cannot be at their best. So, the National Assembly should understand the difference between the administration of justice and judicial administration. In respect of judicial administration, the National Assembly can intervene. The Federal High Court, Court of Appeal Act and Supreme Act already have provisions relating to qualification for appointment and composition of courts. The only thing the constitution says is that you must have practised for 15 years, nothing else. We need a law, a Supreme Court Appointment Act, to regulate the appointment and composition of courts. The Court of Appeal Act for instance, provides that appeals from the Customary Court shall be heard by not less than three Justices of the Court of Appeal learned in customary law. Nothing stops the National Assembly from including in the Act that the Supreme Court shall be composed of Justices from the bench Bar and academia. To keep excluding the Bar and the academics will only result in a weak judicature. The National Judicial Council (NJC) is too strong an institution.

“I think all the tough decisions President Tinubu took were correct, painful as they are. What needs to happen is major legislation and major legislative action to cushion the hardship Nigerians face. The removal of the petrol subsidy was the right thing because it was a very corrupt policy. But where is the money? I don’t like these personal palliatives. I prefer institutional palliatives because they’re more transparent and the people will feel it more. For instance, if you say: that for all Nigerians under the age of 12, there will be no school fees. You will find the impact immediately. But where are the people being given N5,000 each? The President has got off to a good start on the runway, but the most difficult time for a pilot is when he’s climbing. An air return is a possibility,” the legal luminary stated.

On the economy, Agbakoba said- “The President has set a very ambitious goal to grow Nigeria’s GDP to $1 trillion in seven years. This is a huge task. Achieving these goals requires massive legislation and executive action. Two countries that achieved major turnaround by the enactment of major legislation and executive are the U.S. (Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal) and the UK (Margret Thatcher’s Big Bang). The primary tool Tinubu needs is governance. Governance is a critical tool in development planning. It is the equivalent of a building plan. Nigeria’s Governance structures are weak and so what is required is to strengthen them through critical laws and policies,” he said.