Some Judges don’t learn from the past. That’s why they allow their courts to be flooded with frivolous cases and their courts turned into amusement parks for government, DSS & police to play legal ludo with ease there for time wasting. Well, may be they are paid special allowance for time wasting ludo game. If not, how can peaceful protesters, photographers and writers be charged for Treason and a judge will sit in judgment and be wasting his court’s time over a case with no convincing proof evidence, or no material evidence at all, but just to use their courts to legitimize illegality of indefinite detention of activists or having treason charge hanging on them perpetually as “the lord pleases”.
Judges don’t live in the mortuary so they can’t pretend to be dead, deaf, dumb and blind to the reality in their environment and timely take judicious notice to do the right thing to uphold human rights and good governance as a major ingredient of democracy. May be I was wrong then to have thought that after the DSS and police over dramatisation of Sowore’s abduction and the over three years of DSS tragicomic court episode of long period of yeye prosecution without prosecution but court delay, no judge in Nigeria would ever allow their court as a theatre of absurdity where sane educated law professionals would be considering “Revolution Now” slogan as a material evidence for treason prosecution for three years or not.
Laughable! “Kootu Asipa” television court drama presided by Baba Oyin Adejobi, the late very creative actor, producer and embodiment of wisdom won’t allow such travesty of justice.
Now another set of activists, the EndBadGovernance activists including Adaramoye Michael Lenin, Daniel Akande, Mosiu Sodeeq, Angel Love Innocent (female), Bashir Bello, are facing treason charge, the same routine blackmail against activists and peaceful protesters just to criminalise protest in Tinubu regime of pains. . The charge has been unleashed on them almost a year now and with the same court drama of deliberate delay by the prosecution, judge not available, court on recess and several adjustments.
Ordinarily, when the prosecutors want to turn the court into a circus show arena for amusement, a good, disciplined, conscientious judge will call them to order to behave well in his court and prosecute expeditiously, failure which he will strike out the case. I had been a beneficiary with others of such disciplined “no ludo game drama in my court” judge in the 1980s.. The judge saw through the antics of the school counsel, a SAN for that matter, who came with a frivolous application that the high court judge had no jurisdiction to hear our case of illegal rustication without fair hearing. The honourable judge didn’t waste his time to even “rise” for few minutes, or allowed any adjournment sought by the prosecution before he pronounced his judgment of having jurisdiction immediately. There and then, he proceeded with the main case… I know that such “don’t waste my time” conscientious judges still exist because nature abhors a vacuum. But government knows the judges to look for who will allow “Apala Syncro” to be played and danced in their courts for as long as the prosecutors want the case to last.
I still remember debating with some friends who are Abobaku senior lawyers blindly loyal to Seriki Integrity Buhari during the trial of Sowore for leading Revolution Now group, that the whole sham trial was a comedy of error. Nothing would come out of it than to detain and delay Sowore’s trial because chanting Revolution Now and protesting peacefully against bad governance can never and will ever constitute TREASON as a charge or a thought. Lawyers thinking like Carpenters because of blind loyalty to master, partisan politics and personal gains are better respected as “Suegbe Lawyers”. (Approximating Fela Anikulapo-Kuti)
Now the same ridiculous legal rigmarole antics are being enacted under Tinubu despite having one of the acclaimed best lawyers in Nigeria as the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF. Like Malami, Like Fagbemi. That’s interesting.
Free all EndBadGovernance activists of any charge now. Protest is a Right Not a Privilege and it should never be criminalized. Protest is the Oxygen of Democracy and Good Governance.
Adeola Soetan
08037207856
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