Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has launched a fresh attack on Nigeria’s judiciary, accusing judges of turning the courts into marketplaces where justice is sold to the highest bidder.
In his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, published by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), the former leader lamented what he described as the “precipitous fall” of judicial integrity since the return of democracy in 1999.
According to him, the courts have drifted from their constitutional role, becoming what he called a “court of corruption rather than a court of justice.”
“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.
The former president warned that the commodification of justice poses grave danger to Nigeria’s stability.
“Where ‘justice’ is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope,” he cautioned.
Obasanjo recalled visiting a northern state where a governor pointed out six duplexes allegedly owned by a judge who had amassed wealth through election tribunal cases.
Obasanjo did not spare the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), alleging that since Professor Mahmood Yakubu assumed office in 2015, the electoral process has been “polluted and grossly undermined.”
“No wonder politicians do not put much confidence in an election which the INEC of Professor Mahmood Yakubu polluted… Most politicians believe in the will of tribunal judges, appeal judges, and supreme court judges, rather than the will of the people,” he said.
He accused Yakubu of making his own will “greater and more important than the will of the people.”
Obasanjo also took aim at the late President Muhammadu Buhari, alleging that he colluded with judges during his election petitions.
“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,” he alleged.
He claimed that the judiciary, instead of correcting electoral fraud, often rubber-stamped false results.
“After a false declaration of results, making losers winners and winners losers, the victim is advised to go to court – which is a court of corruption rather than a court of justice,” he wrote.
The 88-year-old elder statesman said the situation has eroded public trust in both elections and the courts, warning that unless urgent reforms are undertaken, Nigeria risks sliding deeper into political instability.
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