In new book, Obasanjo alleges judiciary compromised, says politicians rely on judges’ will

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigeria’s judiciary has been “deeply compromised”, warning that corruption among judges has turned courts into “a court of corruption rather than a court of justice.”

In his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, published by OOPL under the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, the former president lamented the “steady decline of the judiciary’s integrity”.

“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,” he wrote.

He warned that justice had become commodified in Nigeria, with dangerous consequences for the nation’s stability.

“The great fear of most well-meaning Nigerians and good friends of Nigeria is that where ‘justice’ is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope,” Obasanjo said.

“I went to a state in the North about ten years after I left public office. Next to the government guest house was a line of six duplex buildings.

“The governor pointed to the buildings and stated that they belonged to a judge who put them up from the money he made from being the chairman of election tribunals.”

He accused Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, of undermining the electoral process since 2015.

“No wonder politicians do not put much confidence in an election which the INEC of Professor Mahmood Yakubu polluted and grossly undermined to make a charade,” he added.

“Most politicians believe in the will of the tribunal judges, court of appeal judges and supreme court judges.

“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.

“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.”

Obasanjo directly accused the late former President Muhammadu Buhari of colluding with the judiciary during his election cases.

“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.”

“After a false declaration of results, making losers winners and winners losers, the victim of the cheating is advised to go to court, which is a court of corruption rather than a court of justice.”