Down With Kangaroo Courts
By
In assessing the performance of the Obasanjo government as its mandatory term gradually grinds to a halt, most objective commentators will have no difficulty in defining Nigerian democracy as a rule of the incompetent. We have witnessed four years of failed dreams and betrayed trust. But I don't think anybody should be scandalized by this. Civilian democracy, viewed against the backdrop of our past autocratic military regimes, is an untried form of government in Nigeria. More importantly, democracy, our democracy is continuously be-deviled from within by ignorance, corruption and bad ethnic politics. A bad tree cannot bear a good fruit. Because the so-called masses revel in these vices they are likely to choose those who are as incompetent as themselves when making a choice at elections. Besides, President Obasanjo, in addition to all we know about him, is a trained combatant soldier who is used to commanding soldiers rather than discussing with men in an air-conditioned office. Of course you know our legislators inside out by now. You know that they are made of dirty stuff. What haven't we witnessed or heard in these four years? At times the stories are so nauseating that they induce belly aching especially stories connected with an Authur Nzeribe or the like. But this is democracy for you whether you like it or not. And we have to tolerate all these nonsense not only in this dispensation but in the next until our learning processes are over, if at all we are learning anything.
But what we cannot tolerate at all in any civilian government is a kangaroo court. A kangaroo court,(name derived from Australian marsupial with four limps and
very long hind-legs), elusively indefinable as it might seem, is simply a court or a tribunal that is improperly constituted which operates with unfair rules
producing kangaroo justice. We witnessed an upsurge of kangaroo courts during our military era. Or, better put, a kangaroo court or tribunal is a special
feature of a typical military government. When the military comes to power, it destroys the pre-existing legal order including the constitution and creates a
new grundnorm in draconian decrees. These decrees, which some eminent lawyers are recruited to draft for a handsome fee, oust the jurisdiction of the regular
courts. The military then establishes many tribunals, quasi-tribunals, panels of inquiries, mushroom and kangaroo courts where they could apply these draconian
decrees in the determination of the rights and obligations of citizens. The practices in these Kangaroo courts and tribunals violate the rule of law and rules
of natural justice. In a typical Kangaroo court a suspect is regarded as an accused. He is not given an opportunity to defend himself or to confront his
accuser. Even if he is to be invited to answer any charge, he is presumed guilty before the invitation. In most cases, one person, the man who preside over the
Kangaroo court, is both the complainant and the prosecutor. The chairman of the kangaroo sees the defence lawyer as an enemy of the establishment and
antagonizes him as such. The chairman of a Kangaroo Court is paid to be rude, wicked and impatient. He is only interested in convicting the targeted "accused"
person. It was in a Kangaroo court that Ken Saro-Wiwa, the environmentalist rights activist was hurriedly sentenced to death and thereafter hurriedly executed.
Also, the Nigerian military was famous for establishing some kangaroo courts which they termed task forces which also tried cases and wrongly determined
people's rights. I remember being led by a senior advocate of Nigeria to appear in one of the military task forces called the Presidential Task Force on
Financial Malpractice then located along Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos. There the Chairman of the Task Force, a somewhat arrogant soldier, plainly
warned us that no Jupiter on earth (not even an ex parte court order, which the task force did not obey, any way) would save our client from being thrown into
one of the dreadful Sani Abacha gulags unless we played ball, to wit, deposit a staggering sum of N2 million to buy the freedom of our client
Now after all these harrowing experiences under the kangaroo courts during the military rule, one would have thought that we would have done away with those
courts under the civilian democracy . But we haven't. The misconception that the executive is above the law which held sway during the military rules also holds
sway today in some cases. The latest is that in order to stop the fraudulent transactions relating to the importation of fertilizer and educational books,
President Obasanjo has re-inaugurated a new committee called the Presidential Committee on Illegal siphoning of Foreign Exchange. To the best of my knowledge,
there is no law backing up the setting up of this Presidential Committee. The committee is above the law. The modus operandi of this committee resembles that of
any kangaroo court. Upon the receipt of a petition from any complainant against any suspect, the committee just goes and does its investigation behind the
suspect. If the committee is satisfied that the suspect is guilty, they will write and invite him to appear before them in their office. When the suspect gets
there, the members of the committee will just arrest him without listening to his defend or giving him time to brief a lawyer to defend him. And if the suspect
wants to regain his freedom they will, among other things, tell him to deposit a copy of a deed of title to land, 10% of the total amount allegedly siphoned and
his international passport, failure for which they will detain him indefinitely.
Certainly, aside from the Presidential committee court, there are other courts without any legal backing which determine the rights and obligations of the
public without recourse to rule of law. These days we see many local government hatchet men going about, arresting and detaining innocent citizens under one
pretext or the other. Even in small neighborhoods, villages and associations, we still find one task force or the other infringing on people's right. Trial by
ordeal and jungle justice are still rampart. For being suspected of stealing a bar of soap in the market, I saw a woman being set ablaze one day by an anonymous
crowd. Of course the OPC and Bakkasi courts now have the jurisdictions to try both in civil and criminal cases. It has long been decided in several landmark
Nigerian cases that the liability of any citizen either to the government or to a fellow citizen or to any other authority cannot be assumed by a task force but
must be decided by a court of law or an impartial arbiter who must have considered all the circumstances including inviting the parties and giving them fair
hearing before pronouncing a judgement. Therefore, the power of a task force or a Presidential Committee is unconstitutional. As regards Presidential Task
Force, it amounts to a breach of natural justice for the same executive arm of government who is the complainant in this case to preside over its own case
through the same executive arm (Presidential committee). Above all judicial powers in criminal matters are not vested in a Presidential Committee or
administrative tribunals or investigative body. But even if there were so vested once an administrative or investigative body has decided to exercise judicial
power or quasi judicial decision; once it has to determine the liability of a person, then it is bound to do so according to the rule of law. To act otherwise
is to make a mockery of justice.
In sum, it beats the imagination that kangaroo courts are still rearing their ugly heads under our civilian democracy. The rule of law remains an indispensable
ingredient of a viable democracy. In fact, our democracy will be meaningless without a viable judiciary. The establishment of kangaroo courts to operate with
regular courts testifies to the fact that the judiciary is still sidelined and has been allowed to play the role it is supposed to play in the society. It also
speaks volumes about executive lawlessness. The government might succeed in using the Kangaroo courts in achieving a short term selfish objectives. But on the
long the whole polity will be wrecked and all of us will suffer for it. Therefore, I suggest that the aforesaid Presidential Committee or any other such
committees be disbanded. Criminal suspects should be charged to our regular criminal courts where hopefully they will receive a fair trial.
May 2003