What we are used to in Nigeria and other “developing” democratic governments around the world is the executive using their executive powers to unleash havoc on the citizenry or anybody that is found to be against the government. It is common in Nigeria for the Mr. president or the Mr. governor to arrest and detain an opposer of his government arbitrarily without following the due judicial procedures but not in this modern age could we ever imagine that a judge; a senior judicial officer, a custodian of the rules of the land, the last hope of the common man, the gatekeeper of rules and regulations of the country will use her judicial power to unleash horrendous mayhem on a lawyer or any other person over personal grievances.
This is the attestation to the assertion of an old English historian, Lord Acton after studying humans and how they act when they are in a place of power and authority, he hissed and said; power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Her Lordship has become a record breaker. She has smashed the record and set a new record that a judicial officer of her caliber has the power to prosecute and detain a lawyer because of mere disagreement.
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This is nothing other than abuse of power and abuse of office, maybe drunk with her judicial power that she had no regard for the judicial procedure of trying a lawyer accused of contempt of court (if we are to even go by her accusations against the lawyer).
She ordered his arrest and sentenced him to one month of committal in prison without obeying the constitutional and natural rule of fair hearing, giving the accused the chance to be heard. If that is not flaunting the laws that she as a judicial officer is meant to uphold then I don’t know what that is.
She secondly refused to make available the judgment of which she sentenced the lawyer, also breaching the constitutional rule of making judgment available for the accused so the accused can have what to appeal on.
She has been accused also of secretly varying her judgment as in recent days the lawyer was transferred from the previous prison he was sent to another prison of maximum security.
She subjected a lawyer; a co-minister in the temple of justice, to be treated as a common criminal over a mere disagreement.
The Nigerian Bar Association has applied diplomacy and even begged her Lordship to show mercy but it all fell on deaf ears.
We can all assume that maybe her Lordship had had enough from the lawyer to have made her hardened her heart against the lawyer and every other diplomatic move from other interested parties including that of the NBA and some other senior lawyers but Whatever grievance her Lordship has against the lawyer or whatever point her Lordship wants to prove is it enough for her Lordship to sacrifice and sabotage her judicial career in her prime and rubbish the legacy she has built all her life over this.
Everyone is watching and imagining what will happen next, what will be the fate of her Lordship as this case goes on.
Let’s all watch and pray!
Inibehe Effiong: A lawyer can be sent to prison by a judge for contempt