Politicians are corrupting the court, Robert Clarke raises alarm

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Robert Clarke, has raised the alarm that politicians contribute majorly to the problem of governance in the country.

Speaking during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, the legal luminary decried that politicians have continued to corrupt the judicial arm of the government.

He said, “Judiciary is not a problem; judiciary is an institution that we need whether we like it or not, and it is the only force in the country today that one can still rely upon.

“Politicians are our problem; as I have said before in one of my interviews here that the politicians are corrupting the court; they are corrupting the judges and there is nothing we can do”.

Clarke believes the system itself is corrupt and the judiciary has a self-cleansing institution which is the Federal Judicial Service Commission which has the Chief Justice of Nigeria as its chairman.

He explained that the commission has the responsibility of sanctioning erring judges, but based on petitions received.

The senior advocate decried the situation where two judges of coordinate jurisdictions give different judgements on political cases.

“It is the rascality we think should not creep into the judiciary, but I still hold it that these events have been created by politicians,” he stressed.

Clarke also faulted the system of governance in the country, saying the 1999 Constitution was the problem of Nigeria.

“This Constitution allows power to be given to individual governors or Mr President to the extent that as soon as they get into the position of responsibility, their personal ego takes over and there is no instrument that can stop them except impeachment and how do you get impeachment when virtually all members of the House are under the portfolio of the governor?” he questioned.

The SAN added, “So, it is the system that is wrong. When you spend billions of naira to get the nomination for a gubernatorial election in a party or when campaigning as a president, you have to traverse the whole of Nigeria; you don’t need such a system.

“It is too expensive; we cannot afford it. We have to change it.”