In memory of martyrs in Rivers
“God commands you to render trusts to whom they are due, and when you judge between people, judge with justice…” (Quran 4:58)
BRETHREN, men and women of discernment would always remember that revolution is not like an apple or orange that falls when it is ripe; you have to make it fall. Nor is it like any other fruit that you could walk into a farm or bush and pluck; no, you have to consciously make it happen. Revolutions occur once human beings feel it has reached a point in its existence where silence is no more an option in the face of oppression, where inaction is not and can no more be a better option for action.
I thought the months of March and April in 2015 were months of action. They were months in which the Nigerian revolution was birthed. During those two months my compatriots spoke in one voice and voted for change. Nigerians not only spoke and voted for change, some of them even paid the ultimate price.
In other words, last year Nigerians confirmed the assumption that no revolution is and will ever be complete without its martyrs; there cannot be peaceful change when antagonists of change would want to maintain the status quo through violent means.
The above seemed to have come into sharp focus in Port Harcourt last year. Our compatriots in Rivers State came out in their multitude to cast their ballots. Some wanted ‘change’; others wanted ‘transformation’. They were all prepared to make it happen. They thought the future of Rivers State was and still is theirs; they were not willing to wait a little more for that change to happen. But unfortunately, some of them already had appointments with the Almighty. The month of April last year was destined to be the one in which some of them would expire. Thus, it came to pass. They went out to cast their ballots for the candidates of their choice. They thought they would participate in fashioning a new destiny for their children and generations yet unborn. But alas! Some of them did not make it back to their homesteads. They were brutally massacred. During the month of April last year, Rivers State occupied the front burners of international media discourse for the negative reason. It became the theatre of the absurd.
In line with the provisions of the law, recourse was eventually made to the court of law. But brethren, you and I know what has been the ultimate result of that process.
The Supreme Court ruled last week that nothing was wrong with the election process in Rivers State after-all. All their eminences could not see what the lawyers failed to see; it was not their brief to manufacture evidences for or against a case over which they would adjudicate.
When the Supreme Court issued its judgment on last year’s gubernatorial elections in Rivers State, when their justices unanimously validated, from the standpoint of law, what was considered by the ‘unlearned’ majority, to be a large-scale perversion of divine and human justice, I remembered the risk involved in being a judge; I remembered Imam Abu Hanifah.
Brethren, about 1360 years ago, Imam Abū Ḥanīfah was born. He later became the leader of the first school of Islamic law and jurisprudence. In 763, al-Mansur, the Abbasid monarch offered him the post of Chief Judge of the State, but he declined to accept the offer. Abu Hanifah declined the offer because he knew the risks involved in the position of a judge for a Muslim here on earth and in the hereafter; he was aware of the fact that to be a judge under the hegemony of leaders who treasure the world is dangerous. Thus Abu Hanifah told the king that he preferred to remain independent. When the king insisted he would appoint him the Chief Judge, Abu Hanifa excused himself by saying that he did not regard himself fit for the post. Al-Mansur, who had his own ideas and reasons for offering the post, lost his temper and accused Abu Hanifa of lying. Then Abu Hanifa said: “How does it appear seemly to you to appoint a liar as a judge…” In other words, to be a judge, is to be a symbol of truth and honesty; to be a judge is to be a mirror of transparency; to be a judge is to be incorruptible.
Incensed by this reply, the ruler had Abu Hanifa arrested, locked in prison and tortured. In 767, Abu Hanifa died a prisoner. But he never died. First, over 50,000 people gathered for his burial and the funeral prayers had to be done five times to accommodate the mourners’ zeal to pray for him. Though his body was interred, though he paid the ultimate price in defense of his honour and in affirmation of the authority of Allah, Abu Hanifah lives on as a symbol of judicial eminence.
Thus in Islamic worldview, justice denotes placing things in their rightful place. It also means giving others equal treatment. Justice is also a moral virtue and an attribute of human personality. Justice makes for peace; it guarantees security. Without justice, development cannot take place.
Brethren in faith, I wish to remind you of one other reason why justice is a sine qua non for peace. It is that, and quite ironically, without it armed robbery and corruption cannot take place. Thus, in order for the current anti-corruption drive of the present government to achieve its purpose, we need justices who would be contented with the little that the Almighty has provided them with not those who would take rams during the Id from politicians and Christmas baskets during the Christmas periods.
In other words, we need justices who would put lies to Francis Bacon’s opinion that laws are like cobwebs where the small flies are caught and the great break through. We need judges who would act like the Sindbad the Sailor; men and women of honour who would take the judiciary and indeed Nigeria on to the golden road of Samarkand; judges and justices who would revolutionize the dispensation of justice in the manner of the merchant princes of antiquity; we need judges who would willingly lay their heads on the scaffold and rise like the phoenix from the ashes of oppression of temporary authorities and conscience-less politicians; we need judges and justices whose judgment would be adulated in the high heavens, whose conduct would constantly remind us of the majestic pageantry of nature in her most sublime mood; judges and justices who, with regard to truth, honesty and integrity, would be as hard as adamant, rigid in moral firmness, ever glittering with the strong keen light of snow; we desire judges and justices who would dispense cases with dispatch like the strong flight of the eagle.
We need lawyers who would not be liars; senior advocates of Nigeria not senior advocates of destruction.
Brethren, let us all take solace in the fact that the Supreme Judge, the Almighty, would surely adjudicate over all these affairs at His own time. It is to Him that the justices of the Supreme court equally plead their own personal cases! (08122465111 for texts only)
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1 Comments
God bless you for your candid view of the travesty of justice in Rivers State and the enthronement of violence and thuggery as a means of actualizing political ambition by our Supreme Court judges.
We will review and take appropriate action.