“…Democracy’s most trusted guardian – the courts- is sometimes the weapon used to destroy it.”
This quote is the synopsis of the 2026 Harvard’s Institute of Quantitative Social Science (QISS) doctoral research on the topic: Why Courts Sometimes Undermines Democracy.
The doctoral research by Andrew O’Donohue, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University and a Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focused on the 2016 coup in Istanbul, Turkey and how the people resisted the putsch. However, while democracy won through the people’s resolve to preserve it, the researcher discovered, to his amazement, that the principles, ethics and ethos of democracy started depreciating rapidly.
O’Donohue, therefore, returned to Turkey in 2022 to complete his doctoral research fieldwork on two theses: ‘Why do democracies fail, and what can we do to protect them? He arrived in Istanbul with the American notion that the courts, especially judges, are democracy’s impartial referees; and the dangle sticks on the necks of those saddled with State matters.
The assumption, however, dissolved like a vapour, when O’Donohue’s respondents, who were mostly Turkish High Court judges and senior lawyers, affirmed that it was totally “crazy” to assume that courts “are defenders of democracy.” The truthful senior court officials, matter-of-factly, submitted that in Turkey, the judiciary is “like a gun – the weapon used to control the media, opposition, and civil society.”
The researcher also discovered that the Turkish courts did not undermine democracy on their own but because someone had taken ‘hold’ of them. He labelled it “court capture”, while submitting that “there was an interesting story to tell about how courts can be captured by political parties, ethnic groups, militaries, business interests, and many other actors who can weaponize courts against democracy.”
How relevant are O’Donohue’s findings to today’s democracy in Nigeria? How well have the Nigerian courts helped to advance democracy here? And how devastatingly has Nigeria’s judiciary eroded democracy and democratic principles in this part of the world?
On Thursday, October 5, 2026, Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, gave a judgement that ruptured the nation’s political firmament and sent all the Celestial bodies scampering for safety. Seventy-two days to the January 16, 2027, general election, My Lord, Justice Lifu ruled that the retired General David Mark-led Caretaker Committee of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) was illegal!
The simple implication of the judgement is that all actions taken by the Mark-led ADC Caretaker Committee became null and void. The simplest layman’s interpretation of the judgement is that all candidates of the ADC in the forthcoming general elections are no candidates. Simply put, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the ADC cannot contest the election in accordance with the classic Latin legal maxim, Ex nihilo nihil fit (From nothing, nothing becomes)
The English jurist who made the maxim popular, Lord Denning (Alfred Thompson Denning), popularly known as the Master of the Rolls, in a 1961 English civil case of MacFoy vs. United Africa Co. Ltd., stated: “If an act is void, then it is in law a nullity. It is not only bad, but incurably bad… And every proceeding which is founded on it is also bad and incurably bad. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there. It will collapse.”
Barely 24 hours after Justice Lifu’s judgement, Festus Keyamo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, posted on his X handle that “Heavens WILL NOT FALL IF A CERTAIN ATIKU ABUBAKAR IS NOT ON THE BALLOT IN 2027.”
I have often heard lawyers calling themselves ‘Priests in the Temple of Justice.’ I confess my ignorance here: I don’t know what that expression means in the lexicons of the ‘learned’ people. However, my uptown upbringing tells me that it is the gravest abomination for priests, which in my dialect means Àòrò, to set their shrines (umòsanyìn) on fire!
In deference to the sanctity of the courts, we shall not attempt an analysis of the merits and demerits of Justice Lifu’s judgement here; his court being a court of first instance, and the defendants being entitled to their rights of appeal to courts of superior records. That notwithstanding, in treating Keyamo’s Waffi (typical Warri) boast of nothing dey happen, we shall return to O’Donohue’s findings that “the courts- is sometimes the weapon used to destroy” democracy and that the courts don’t act that way unless “someone has captured them.”
O’Donohue says “there was an interesting story to tell about how courts can be captured by political parties, ethnic groups, militaries, business interests, and many other actors who can weaponize courts against democracy.” Is the senior advocate, Keyamo, aware of any such stories in our immediate environment? If he doesn’t know of any, then permit me to quickly impose on him this short moonlight tale?
Long time ago, when the ant was bigger than the elephant, a deity summoned three master potters to mould a giant clay water pot from which all the Igba Irúnmolè (200 deities) would drink from. The winner, it was said, would become the ruler of humanity, whom nobody would be able to challenge. The trio was the best of their epoch; they were also rich. But the first potter was the richest. He was not just the richest, he was the most ruthless, most manipulative and most calculative.
Before the remaining two potters woke up the day following when the contest was set, the richest potter had hired all known potters in the neighbourhood. He also went ahead to buy all the best clay fields, leaving only the sinking sand areas for the other two. He crowned his strategy by sending his best pots to the homes of the three deities assigned to assess the pots that would come out of the competition. The other two potters could only lament; protesting that the first potter was corrupt and not fair-minded.
While the shenanigans were going on, Èsù, the trickster deity, maintained a loud silence. He watched as the first potter changed the playing field such that it became useless for the other two to participate in the contest.
The D-Day came. The three potters came to the village square. The richest one had all the clay kneaders at his disposal. From water haulers to diggers, kneaders to mud throwers, he paid everyone a wage the other two could not afford. With the best clay at his disposal, kneading the clay to a good texture was easy. But just as the workers set to work, Esu struck.
The one who weeps more than the bereaved (A-bé-lé-kún-sun-kún-kí-èrù-ó-ba-el’ékún) stretched his magic wand on the mountain of kneaded clay and turned it to ashes. As the hired potters take mounds of clay to form a pot, they break. They applied all measures, but nothing worked. The richest master potter used all the tricks in the book, his pots kept breaking.
For the other two, there was nothing they could do because what they had as clay were mountains of sinking sand; a material useless in pottery! The assigning deity studied what was going on. He knew something was amiss. The senior deity turned to Èsù for explanation. Èsù responded that if the mouse is not allowed to eat the harvested pigeon pea, it will make a waste of it (kàkà kí eku má je sèsé, á fi se àwàdànù).
At the setting of the sun, the contest was called to close. No single pot was standing. The crowd asked the leading deity why the richest master potter could not mould a pot from the finest clay he had. The deity responded with the axiomatic submission of the elders: Èsù ló se amòkòkò tó ńmo eérú (It is the Esu who hypnotised the potter to mould ashes).
The final verdict was that no winner emerged. The implication is that the human race would never have a leader to whom everyone would subordinate their sovereignty. This is why, to date, no matter how vicious a ruler is, there are people, known as kòko’kú (he who does not fear death) to challenge him.
A time was in Nigeria when the expired dark-goggled General Sani Abacha, ruled the nation with the barrel of the gun. Many were killed, many ran away. Among those who sought refuge outside Nigeria then was the incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But many more Nigerians dared Abacha. They challenged him and his gun-toting killer squad. Those heroes and heroines swallowed fire so that Nigerians could drink water. They prevailed. Abacha died suddenly, and democracy was restored for the benefit of the returning refugees.
It is the same democracy that is under threat today. It is the same endangered democracy that Keyamo boasted would not fall if all other popular candidates were disqualified and only the minister’s principal, President Tinubu, is left as the sole candidate for the January 2027 presidential election. Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), would rather have a coronation for his master than have a competition where Nigerians would have the opportunity to choose among the potters on the field. One wonders how many times he has gotten default judgment such that he would not want any competition come January 2027!
Like the richest master potter of our fable, Keyamo’s principal has bought over all the good clay lands. President Tinubu has 31 governors out of 36 in his All Progressives Congress (APC). He has more than 95 percent of the members of the National Assembly, led by the most amenable Senate president Godswill Akpabio, in his kitty.
Tinubu has the nation’s security architecture at his beck and call; he controls all the revenue agencies and appointed the leadership of the nation’s judiciary. Yet, the man, like the proverbial neighbourhood àkàrà fryer who does not want anyone to fry àkàrà, Tinubu and his gang want a coronation instead of a competition!
Unfortunately, our judiciary, like the O’Donohue’s ‘captured court’, is lending itself to the perfidy of a sole candidacy. How do we reconcile the fact that earlier, on July 2, 2026, a brother Judge to Justice Lifu, My Lord, Justice Musa Liman of the coordinate Federal High Court, Abuja, had ruled to affirm David Mark’s leadership of the ADC?
Who is the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, from where these discordant tunes are emitting? What is the position of the National Judicial Council (NJC)?. Who remembers June 12, 1993, presidential election and the various conflicting judicial pronouncements by courts of coordinate jurisdiction? Who can relate the outcome of the 1993 malfeasance to today’s shenanigans?
Going by the above, I don’t consider Keyamo’s reaction, less than 24 hours after Justice Lifu delivered his atavistic judgement, as a mere coincidence! Keyamo’s social media post on the matter, to me, is akin to the saying of our elders that. Òrò tí akúwárápá bá so, ará òrun ló soó (the words spoken by a man in a fit of epilepsy is as good as coming from a dead man). The tadpole dances not without percussion; its chief drummer is simply beneath the seabed!
This, also, is why I find the SAN’s allusion to the 2020 ruling of the Supreme Court on the Bayelsa State governorship matter which the APC’s David Lyon lost to the incumbent Douye Diri and the 2019 apex court’s nullification of the Zamfara State APC primaries across the state, most unrelated! We don’t have to engage in necromancy by invoking the spirits of Timi the Law, Chief F.R.A. Williams, and other late legal juggernauts to tell Keyamo the inappropriateness of his cited ‘authorities!’ He is a brilliant lawyer, I presume; his brilliance should radiate now!
Spoken words, the elders of my place say, will produce two results: yam tubers and yam seedlings (tí òrò ò bá ta isu, á ta ègún). The matter is like yesterday (òrò rèé bí àná); please pardon my transliteration here. Keyamo’s principal, Tinubu, six years ago, while campaigning for the APC on April 9, 2019, said: “Today, I will teach Atiku omo aláìgboràn a lesson.”
That statement, which had since resurfaced after Justice Lifu’s pronouncement last Thursday, showed a direct threat by Tinubu that he would teach Atiku, the recalcitrant child (omo aláìgboràn), a lesson! Again, those of old say iyán ogún odún a má jó’ni l’ówó (A twenty-year-old pounded yam can still scald the palm). The spoken words, in my place, have their efficacies. This is just as the Western Faith says: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). Pray, I ask for a friend: is this the lesson for Atiku?
Six years later, defying the sanctity of the old axiom, to wit: When a mother elephant trumpets, its calf must not do the same (Erin kìí fon kí omo tún fon), Keyamo has taken the Tinubu political lesson for Atiku to the level of “Heavens WILL NOT FALL IF A CERTAIN ATIKU ABUBAKAR IS NOT ON THE BALLOT IN 2027.”
Honestly, I am more than tempted to agree with Keyamo here. But I suddenly remember Èsù and his still-water posture while the richest manipulative potter changed the ethos of fair contest to a no-contest situation. If heavens do not fall should Keyamo’s principal, President Tinubu, emerge as the sole candidate for the 2027 election but Èsù decides to turn their clay sand to ashes, what happens?
Èsù, Pápáwàrà (The quickest, fastest, and most immediate one), Okùnrin kúkúrú Òkè Ìgètì (The short man of Igeti Hill), Òkiri òkò, kiri okó (He who hawks stone and hawks phallus at the same time), please note; I do not send you on an errand, bikoI!
