 Unvailing Lady Justice on reforming the justice system in Nigeria. Lady Justice, you most likely have seen her stretch you in front of a court of law one time or the other. In the event you haven't seen or you don't remember her, she's that lady with her face covered with a veil. Usually she's holding a scale of justice in one hand and a sword in the other hand. The history of this justice dates back to Roman mythology. Justice was one of the virtues celebrated by Emperor Augustus. Since the 16th century, the justice has often been dictated wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality. The ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power or other status. Let me repeat that. The ideal of the blindfold is that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power or other status. Justice is a word that has been seriously criticized. In fact, it can be described as a relative term because in itself, in some occasions justice is to one person, sometimes an end result of injustice to another. So in Nigeria, how has justice fit in order the challenges of the justice system in Nigeria? What are the limitations and what status be taken to make justice available and fair to all who are in search of it? A little definition. My website dictionary defines justice as the process or results of using laws to fairly judge upon crimes and criminals. Going by this definition, it is clear and apparent that justice is still to a large extent a foreign concept on many of the issues that were grappled with in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, on the global rule of law index, Nigeria ranks 108 out of 128 countries, 108 out of 128 countries and 22 out of 31 countries in the sub-Saharan African region. Again, let's talk about the rule of law. What's the rule of law? The rule of law in plain terms implies that every person is subject to the law, including persons who are lawmakers, law enforcement officials and judges. In this sense, it stands in contrast to tyranny or oligarchy, where the rulers are held above the law. So now imagine again, the global ranking of Nigeria being 108 out of 128 simply means that Nigeria is trending more towards a tyranny than a country that respects the rule of law. Now what are the issues responsible for this? Recent in-depth research carried out revealed eight major issues to be dabbling the justice in Nigeria. The issues are one, the on forthcoming informants. I'm sure many of us have experienced that, let's not go and dive into that. Number two, funding. Number three, corruption. Number four, training of the investigating police officers. Number five, missing case files. Number six, delayed duplication of case files. Number seven, lack of forensic laboratories and insufficient number of trained forensic experts. And number eight, poor public records keeping. These are very obvious but very critical issues. And I advocate that the government should order to look at these issues for a quick resolution with the aim of getting back a country into a more civilized society. Well, you have the question and I think we should start with that, that in your view, how has the justice system fed? I think the justice system has been unjust. Point blank. You know, the justice system has been, it's, people don't have confidence in the system. And that is a big scare because no matter what you say, no matter what, it's like your appearance matters at times you judge a book by the cover. That's one of the first experience you have. No matter what you say or do, it matters a lot. The Nigeria's justice system, my biggest problem with the justice system is not just that the fact that it might not get justice is the process of the justice. And why do I say not the fact that it might not get justice? I've seen people who are ordinary people go to court with their facts and in one cases, that people have wondered, wow, so you could do this. There was a time I went to get passport for my son and when I got there, the man, I think I asked my wife to go, so I left her there or something. And the person there looked at me and said, wow, okay, both of you are here, say yes, say why are you asking? And he told me, he said last year, there was a case, somebody sued immigration and won. Why? The other family issue, the wife picked the kids, got passport for them and took them out of Nigeria, relocated. And the man wondering that how did my kids travel but they didn't have a passport. Realized that she did a passport for them without his consent, so he took immigration to court. Which is not... It's supposed to be both parents' consent. In the normal legal process. And he took the immigration to court, of course, prolonged. But he won. So at that point, immigration, that was when they were very harsh and said, no, you must come, both parties must come, sign and blah, blah, blah. What am I saying? I'm sure that has happened to so many people. And out of fear that I can't get justice, they haven't tried it. Exactly. That's why I use the idea that when it doesn't look convincing, when you don't see, you're not able to have confidence in the system, then you let so many things go. And that is bad for our system. But like I said, the biggest fear for me is the fact that you start a process. And I think of this program, I spoke about the injustice of Nigeria's justice system some time ago, where I said, listen, we all talk about the influence of the executive. That's even a lesser devil to what happens in the justice system. Because listen, I spoke about this, the kidnapper, what's his name again? Is it Imau, what's his name? The one that, Evans. Evans, yeah. That was arrested. I said, okay, when this guy was arrested, so many talks came about the crime he committed. People came, all the people he had kidnapped, came out and stopped. They were ready to testify. The case was solid. Within that time, Ipeba was charged to court, was accused of collecting bribe for fixing a match. He was charged. He lost the case. He appealed the case. I think he had the sentence reduced. Between that time, I said George Floyd, case came up. He went to court and came back. Between that time and now, Bill Cosby was sentenced. The thing was tried, his sentence was reviewed. All this has happened. Yet, we are still in courts over Evans's case. And that has nothing to do with executive power influence. This is just the process of the courts. So all the processes of our courts, people's nonchalance, the person who has the carry, the far like we hear and says, you have to pay me this or this is missing and that is missing and that's a loom. Because this problem, because we are fine judges who criminals are scared to get into their chamber, their courts. They know that when they get into their courts, they've lost. We have so many fine judges. Yet, the system prevents and just causes a back and forth. And again, the way our police or our security agencies build cases makes a mockery of a justice system. Because some cases you go and you see in court and you're like, there is no nothing in this that you can use in winning a case. So a lot of things, if you're able to deal with this, then we'll be left with the executive arm of issues. And that will be amongst the big men. But for us as the average person, you can go to court and you know that you have justices when you're fighting one man. They're even, when you see average people on the street, they don't even have confidence in going to court. Even an average magistrate court, they would not attempt it because they feel you wouldn't get it. Even the way the officers, they will speak to you, the composure of the magistrate, everything just puts you off. And these are the challenges you are faced with. Well, this is a very serious issue. But I will say this first, who be just, he be lamenting on my guest, that's what you want to see, right? When there is justice, Mr. Tulu, who be just he be remedium, right? Please, we're not going to do it, it's politics. I don't want to work. She's describing, you are describing the woman, the woman that is carrying the balance. Yeah, the woman carrying the balance and then the sword. If you are found wanting, she cuts you. She's blindfolded because she's impassioned. Even if it's a child, she will still cut her child if the child is found wanting. So that's why they say when there is justice that is remedied, that is who be just he be remedium. That's what it is. So government should be of laws rather than of men. We watch movies, Nigerian movies, now I want to be specific, how justice are being carried out in the matter of weeks. But in reality, is this who? Is it supposed to be like that? You get to cause a case that will take a year or six months, will be lingering for several years. They keep back and forth. So we lose confidence in the system. There should be a total overhaul of the system. That is one number two. So I remember I had the opportunity of interacting with one law student while I was in university some years back. And then she was telling me that in Nigeria, our system is advisory. Justice system is advisory. Why in the US is investigative? I don't know that you've had something like that. So can we have a clear distinction with the job of the police, another law enforcement agent, and that of the court? But sometimes, I will mention the name of some persons of interest that are currently facing charges now in high courts or supreme courts in Abu Jannu. And you hear cases like people already mahandling them, government agencies, especially the DSS. We mahandle some of these people and almost treat them as though they were criminals as if they don't have any rights on their own. And the judges will be telling DSS, please do it this way. Yeah, they will not listen. So like everybody should know where your power stops and where your jurisdiction stops and respect it. And the other person or the other arm should do what they need to do. Let's make the system work, enough of all these back and forth. It's more like a ridicule now. You know, Tolu, I'd like to just say that why, I mean, it's a very interesting point that you've brought up, right? Why this hasn't really worked, right? Why he hasn't worked is because, and again, the offshoot of this is people are raped and they can't talk about it. People are unlawfully defrauded, battered, assaulted, physically abused. They can't come up because someone tells you the rape, I mean, I don't know if that is the right word to say rapist or something. So on that as rape somebody's moving free and making noise about it and being proud about it. In fact, moved on with his life and the rape victim is just there. So the process, like Kay said, is really so long, right? Again, bringing technology, how do we even really leverage for the legal system to bring justice quicker, faster, asexual, easier, seamless to the people? Anything that stresses us as Nigerians, we want to avoid it. We're tired, we don't want to get it. No, because talk, talk, talk and nothing happens. So that's why, I mean, that's even the history of, you know, let me just run it when there's no need for it because running away is easier than getting justice. Then I'm going through the whole process. And you know what even makes it difficult, which we've all alluded to it, but in a very silent way. Well, let's bring it out to the fore now is that the first line of justice is not the court. It is the security agency. Exactly. So whether, I want to share with you whether last ma or the uniform men, whether last ma or VIO, that's where you first experience justice before you can now, you know, elevate it to the going to court or whatever. And once you get that wrong, no, it will be difficult to believe in the court system. Well, if we have to talk for the country to be better, please let's keep talking. That is it. That's what we're just going to do. But Tolu, we can go on and on. How do we bring this home? So, I mean, so yeah, I mean, again, you can go on and on with express and things like that. But I mean, I personally feel very strongly that new breed of people, whether I would like it or not, they're going to emerge. People that in respect, the rule of law, people that care about the rights of citizens who are talking about rights now, talking about the rule of law. What is that? It's very simple. Just means that nobody's above the law. It's really as simple as that. True. You know, and the truth is there's no way in the world where they've gotten right 100% but can see some level of progress. Looks like, you know, never started. Looks like we're still, you know, we're still fitters. We don't even understand where we are. We don't even know where we are. So, at some point, you know, people start making those actions that take us to where we need to go. Okay. Please do stay with us. Elijah is next after the break.