Okorocha, Madumere and judiciary

IF Nigerian democracy is embroiled in controversies, it is not because the constitution is so irredeemable that it cannot be managed, amended, or even understood, notwithstanding its hidden nuances and the perennial conflict between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. If democracy is endangered in these parts, if it appears not to be working, it is because those saddled with implementing it, rather than those saddled with interpreting it, have shown little appetite for discipline. This sad, undisciplined orientation has accounted for the many malfeasances woven around the constitution, particularly the hasty and angry resort to the tool of impeachment. The constitutional provision relating to impeachment is probably one of the most misused.

Imo State is the most recent example of the use of that problematic constitutional provision. Before that state, a number of states during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency had repeatedly deployed the otherwise sensible, fail-safe device in such an acrimonious and unlawful manner that the image of Nigeria and its standing in the international community were sullied. The courts reversed nearly all of the impeachments; but the reversals have not proved a sufficient deterrent. It is not clear what it will take for politicians to use the provision sensibly as demanded by the constitution, but in any case,  a few weeks ago, Imo State’s Governor Rochas Okorocha was not dissuaded by constitutional strictures from malevolently deploying the same provision to sack his disputatious deputy, Eze Madumere.

The misunderstanding between Mr Okorocha and Prince Madumere did not begin a few months ago. They began much earlier, only intensifying existing fissures in the relationship between the two politicians, fissures that are probably connected with determining who wields supremacy in the party and who succeeds the governor in 2019. Importantly too, the ruling party in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is fractured because of the obvious determination of the governor to have his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, succeed him. Prince Madumere and other leading Imolites, however, seem set to thwart the governor’s intentions. It is unlikely peace will reign without either the politicians submitting to the governor or the governor submitting to the apparently powerful and intransigent wing of the party. The problem is not that Mr Nwosu desires the succession, he can desire anything he fancies; but the problem is how he and the governor are peremptorily plotting the succession.

But beyond the fractures within the party and the amateurishness with which the governor has plotted the succession is the judicial net being woven around the dispute. The party schism will endure for some time; but what is more important is how the case is being tried in the courts and the courage and erudition judges have brought into it. Without prejudice to the ultimate end of the case, or whether the lawmakers who have acted like mannequins so far could still find novel ways of frustrating or neutralising Prince Madumere in case he surmounts all judicial hurdles, it is important to note one or two issues that have drawn public attention.

First is the ruling of the trial judge, Benjamin Iheka, of an Imo High Court. Justice Iheka ruled that the chief judge who empanelled a seven-man committee to look into the House of Assembly allegations against Prince Madumere erred in law, describing the steps he took as “invalid, unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect”. The point, it must be restated, is not that the chief judge erred or that the trial judge had the courage to contradict his boss, but that the impeachment demonstrated the urgent need to delink the judiciary from the executive arm, to ensure that judges can call their souls their own. If the legislature and the executive are not obeying the law, as the impeachment case showed embarrassingly, a chief judge must have the courage to resist their blandishments or pressure.

Second is the benumbing desperation shown by Mr Okorocha himself. He has the legitimate right to support anyone he pleases; but he has a bigger responsibility as a political leader to project his biases and preferences within the ambit of the law, within the boundaries of common sense. Not only did Mr Okorocha pervert the law in his quarrel with his detractors, as indeed he did in 2013 when he orchestrated the sacking of his former deputy governor, Jude Agbaso, he inconsiderately dragooned the legislature and a section of the judiciary into his controversial cause. He has acted as though there is no tomorrow, unmindful of the kind of legacy he wishes to leave, as if sometime in the future he could not be ensnared by the same subversion of the law authored by him. Hopefully, now that the judiciary has been virtually freed from the stranglehold of the executive in terms of their funding, they should be able to withstand the unconstitutional assaults of politicians like Mr Okorocha.