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In the theater of Nigerian criminal justice, bail is the sparkling prop they wheel out to dazzle the audience with tales of constitutional benevolence, only for the curtain to fall on a punchline so absurd it would make a stand-up comedian blush. Our dear leaders preach presumption of innocence while tying defendants in knots tighter …
In season three of The Wire, when Avon Barksdale hesitates over a gangland war sparked by flawed premises, his pragmatically ruthless lieutenant, Slim Charles, cuts through the existential noise with cold street poetry: “If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.”
There is a peculiarly Nigerian brand of optimism that believes the Supreme Court exists to do the dirty work politicians were too distracted to handle during campaign season. Whenever an election outcome tastes like ash, the losing side inevitably sprints to the appellate bench clutching heavy binders, confident that the judiciary will casually unravel an entire presidential mandate on a crisp technicality.
WHEREAS Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) declares—perhaps optimistically—that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”;
The Nigerian voter, having spent considerable time queueing at polling stations, arguing about PVCs, fighting over results and eventually accepting that Nigeria had chosen its president, might reasonably have expected the new administration to get on with the business of governing.
