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Rule by Judges is Not Rule of Law – By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
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“The judiciary has immense power. In the nature of things, judges cannot be democratically accountable for their decisions. It therefore matters very much that their role should be regarded as legitimate by the public at large.”
Jonathan Sumption, Law in a Time of Crisis, 121 (2021)
For a cumulative period of 17 years between 1885 and 1905, Hardinge Giffard – who was better known as Lord Halsbury – served three tenures as Lord Chancellor. In this capacity he earned a reputation for having “appointed many undistinguished men to the Bench because of their political services to the Conservative Party.” In 1897, Lord Salisbury, one of the Prime Ministers under whom Lord Halsbury served, advised him that “the judicial salad requires both legal oil and political vinegar; but disastrous effects will follow if due proportion is not observed.” For having so manifestly got the proportions out of kilter, Nigeria could be on course for a date Lord Salisbury’s predicted effects.
Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, is a place where mutual intercourse between lawyers, politicians and judges is both natural and habitual. It is home to judges too numerous to count and host to the headquarters of many court systems, including the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT High Court) as well as of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. The headquarters of the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Court of Justice) is also in Abuja.
The pace of production and reproduction in the courts in Abuja has been rather dizzying recently. On the penultimate day of the past working week, Nigeria’s Supreme Court in a case instituted by the Federal Government against the states issued a decision designed to make it mandatory for local government to be run only by elected officials. This judgment has unlocked a predictable scrum of both political ululation and lamentation but the risk remains that its full benefits are likely to be undermined by the well-established jurisprudence of the Supreme Court in favour of bandit ballots which support the production of leaders at all levels who lack electoral legitimacy.
The day before the Supreme Court judgment, on the approach to the fourth anniversary of Nigeria’s #EndSARs uprising of 2020, the ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled that the conduct of the Nigerian government and its security agencies in their response to the #EndSARS uprising violated the guarantees of “security of person, prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, duty to investigate human rights violations, and right to effective remedy.” In effect, the Court said that the Nigerian government engaged in a cover-up of the violations that occurred during the #EndSARS protests, especially at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos.
Weighty as they were, both of these otherwise seminal outcomes were relative non-events in the political and judicial registers of Abuja this past week. On the same day that the ECOWAS Court delivered its judgment in the #EndSARS case to a near empty gallery and the day before the Supreme Court held forth on the destination of local government funds, all roads led to the Supreme Court where the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, presided over the inauguration of 22 new Justices of the Court of Appeal and 12 new judges of the FCT High Court.
Many people may have missed the number of Justices of Appeal inaugurated, however. Anyone who followed the reportage would have been forgiven for supposing that there were just two Justices of Appeal sworn in: “Wike’s wife and 21 others”, a reference to the wife of political bruiser and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. Also among the new Justices of Appeal is Abdullahi Liman, Kano’s self-appointed federal King-maker. The excess political vinegar in some of these most recent elevations to the Court of Appeal sadly detracts from the tasteful salad among some others. For the sake of their own professional and career advancement in a cynical system, it is best at this time to preserve the anonymity of those deserving ones.
Among the 12 new judges of the FCT High Court, at least seven were family members of serving or living judicial figures and three were family members of persons directly involved in the appointment process. Among these, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who presided over the appointment, had his daughter-in-law made a judge; the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court made his daughter a judge; and the President of the Court of Appeal got her daughter appointed a high court judge for the second time in three years. In 2021, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State had made the same daughter a judge of the Plateau State High Court.
Responding to these appointments, Access to Justice, a group that monitors judicial independence and accountability in Nigeria pointedly said that “three candidates were ineligible to be considered for such appointments in the first place at the time the vacancies were announced.” This was in reference to the daughter of the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court; the daughter of the President of the Court of Appeal; and the daughter-in-law of the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria. According to the group, these three appointments were a composite transaction between the CJN, President of the Court of Appeal and the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court best described “in local parlance as: ‘you scratch my back, I scratch your back.’”
To say that these three appointments clearly violate the judicial code of conduct as well as the regulations governing judicial appointments is to be kind to the lack of scruples at the helm of the current judicial appointments process in the country. It makes a joke of the judicial appointment process that someone in Nigeria can be appointed a High Court judge while holding a subsisting appointment as a High Court Judge.
In the days when the Nigerian judiciary was under credible leadership, these judicial inaugurations would passed almost as a non-event, attended only by select staff of the affected courts and by some members of the families of the new appointees. Reflecting the mood and mores of the times and consistent with the current tyranny of perverse incentives in judicial appointments, however, this swearing in was a carnival taken over by cavalcades of dubious politicians and insider dealers in perverse political influence. Following the formal swearing in of the new judges, Abuja was littered with “receptions” convoked by politicians and senior lawyers for many of the new judges.
There was good reason for the politicians to make an obligation of their noisy presence at the swearing in of the new judges. Section 14(2) of Nigeria’s Constitution loudly proclaims that “sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria” but under colour of “rule of law” and judicial independence, the judges have toppled the people and installed themselves as the ones who alone can elect politicians to positions of power and influence in Nigeria. Access to political office now, therefore, is a transaction that begins and rests with political access to judges. Having thus murdered the rule of law, what we now have is rule by judges under which both political power and judicial office have become bereft of legitimacy. The victim is the public good.
The week ended with a report which said that “[J]udges top [the] list of bribe recipients in Nigeria.” 15 years ago, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ rights warned that “the courts need the trust of the people in order to maintain their authority and legitimacy. The credibility of the courts must not be weakened by the perception that courts can be influenced by any external pressure.” In Nigeria, this is now a vain hope.
A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at [email protected]
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will on Saturday, August 1, 2026, publish the particulars of all presidential and National Assembly candidates contesting the 2027 general election for public inspection at its offices across the country.
The publication of the candidates’ details, contained in Form EC9, is in compliance with Section 29(3) of the Electoral Act, 2026, which requires the commission to make the personal particulars of nominated candidates available for public scrutiny within 21 days of receiving them.
Political parties concluded the online submission of the names, personal particulars and other required documents for their presidential and National Assembly candidates on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, after INEC granted a 72-hour extension to the original deadline. ExecutiveBranch
Under the commission’s revised timetable, nominations for presidential and National Assembly candidates were initially scheduled to be submitted between June 27 and July 11, 2026.
Section 29(1) of the Electoral Act, 2026, requires political parties to submit Forms EC9, EC9A, EC9B, EC9C, EC9D and EC9E, containing the names and personal particulars of their nominated presidential and National Assembly candidates, not later than 120 days before the election.
Speaking on whether the 72-hour extension would affect the publication date, INEC Deputy Director of Publicity, Wilfred Osilama Ifogah, said he did not expect any change, although he stressed that he was expressing a personal opinion rather than the commission’s official position.
“I doubt. It might not necessarily affect it. It’s just for the Commission to put the information together and submit it. This is my opinion. I’m not talking officially. When it gets to the time, you will see whether the Commission will publish it or not,” he said.
Meanwhile, the online submission of nominations for governorship and State Houses of Assembly candidates, which commenced on July 18, will continue until August 8, 2026.
INEC has scheduled August 29, 2026, for the publication of the personal particulars of governorship and State House of Assembly candidates through Form EC9.
The commission had earlier conducted party primaries for all elective positions between April 23 and May 30, 2026.
According to INEC’s election timetable, the presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on January 16, 2027, while the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections are scheduled for February 6, 2027
By Gloria Ikibah
A coalition of civil society organisations and youth groups has announced plans to convene a national dialogue on proposed reforms to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), seeking to ensure that the review process reflects the views of Nigerians before the Federal Government takes a final position.
The initiative, being organised by the Centre for Equity, Justice and Transparency in partnership with the Save Nigeria Movement, is expected to bring together policymakers, academics, former corps members, youth organisations, security agencies and other stakeholders to examine the future of the scheme and recommend practical reforms.
Convened by legal practitioners Sorkaa Tsembelee and Patrick Agbese, the one-day dialogue aims to generate a comprehensive working document that will be presented to the Federal Government as part of ongoing efforts to review the NYSC Act.
In a statement issued on Friday, the organisers said the forum was intended to provide an inclusive platform where stakeholders could contribute meaningfully to the reform process.
The statementread: “The essence of this dialogue is for critical stakeholders to make input into the proposed NYSC reforms before the President’s administration takes final decisions.
“We will have senior academics, former corps members, youth groups and other members of society to dissect the proposed reforms thoroughly.
“It will thereafter catalyse into a working document for the Federal Government. We will invite the CDS, the Army and others. Let everyone look at it and say their own.”
Established in 1973 after the Nigerian Civil War, the NYSC was designed to promote national unity, encourage integration among young graduates and foster national development through compulsory service outside their states of origin. Over the decades, corps members have played significant roles in education, healthcare, agriculture and community development, particularly in underserved communities.
However, growing concerns over the safety and welfare of corps members, inadequate funding, deployment policies and questions surrounding the relevance of some aspects of the programme have fuelled calls for a comprehensive review.
The organisers said the dialogue will assess whether the scheme still aligns with its founding objectives while identifying legislative and policy changes needed to address present-day realities.
They maintained that while reforms were necessary, the NYSC’s central mission of promoting national cohesion should be preserved alongside efforts to strengthen skills development, entrepreneurship and youth empowerment.
“This is not about tearing down an institution that has served Nigeria well; it is about refining it with the collective wisdom of those who have lived the experience and those who study its impact.
“Former corps members carry practical insights that policymakers often miss, and we want those voices at the table.
“Youth groups and civil society must not be spectators while decisions that will shape the next generation of Nigerian graduates are taken. The dialogue creates the space for genuine, structured input”, it added,.
According to the organisers, discussions will focus on critical issues including corps members’ welfare, security, orientation camp facilities, deployment procedures, funding mechanisms and the effectiveness of the Community Development Service (CDS) programme.
They added that academics will provide comparative analyses of national service models in other countries, while security agencies would offer institutional perspectives on improving the protection of corps members, particularly those posted to areas affected by insecurity.
“We cannot discuss NYSC reforms without hearing from those who secure the environment in which corps members serve. The CDS and the Army have institutional knowledge that is indispensable.
“Their perspectives on logistics, security and inter-agency coordination will enrich the final document.
“Senior academicians will help us situate the proposed reforms within the broader context of nation-building. We need evidence-based contributions, not just opinions”, the said.
The organisers said the ultimate goal was to produce practical recommendations capable of informing both legislative and executive action.
They explained that the final report would reflect contributions from former corps members, scholars, security agencies, youth organisations and civil society groups, providing government with workable proposals for strengthening the scheme without compromising its original mandate.
“The working document that emerges from this dialogue must be something the government can work with.
“It should reflect the views of those who have served, those who teach, those who protect, and those who advocate.
“Anything less would be a missed opportunity. We are calling on all stakeholders to come prepared to engage constructively.
“The future of the NYSC is too important to be decided in isolation. This national dialogue is our contribution to an open, inclusive process”, the statement further read.
The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, has declared that President Bola Tinubu’s administration has no intention to jerk up electricity tariffs beyond the current level.
He disclosed this during a media briefing in Abuja on Friday.
According to him, the Tinubu administration’s priorities are improving electricity service delivery, expanding access to electricity, and ensuring that Nigerians pay only for the electricity they consume.
The minister said that, over the last two weeks, the country has consistently generated 5,000 megawatts of electricity.
“We are already witnessing encouraging improvements in electricity generation. Over the course of the last two weeks, we have consistently generated 5,000MW.
“Permit me to address two issues that have generated considerable public discussion. First, there is no policy by this administration to increase electricity tariffs beyond the current level. Our priority is not a tariff increase in the immediate term. Our priority is service improvement, universal metering, and ensuring Nigerians pay only for the electricity they actually consume,” he stated.
He added that the objective of the Federal Government is to provide reliable electricity to homes across the country.
“Our ambition is clear: reliable electricity that powers our homes.”
Tegbe’s comments come amid debate over a fresh electricity tariff hike, fuelled by remarks made by Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Power Infrastructure, Sadiq Wanka.
Nigerian electricity consumers have kicked against the proposed electricity tariff hike.
INEC set to publish details of 2027 Presidential, National Assembly candidates on August 1
CSOs, Youth Groups Push for Inclusive NYSC Reform, Convene National Dialogue
No plans to increase electricity tariffs – Power Minister assures Nigerians
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