Prince Justice Faloye
I disagree with those claiming that corruption becoming rife in Judiciary is a recent phenomenon. A commentator on Seun Okinbaloye show on Channels TV articulated that corruption started in our magistrate courts and only seeped into the High Courts in the Nineties and Supreme Court in the 2000s. This also is an incorrect historiography and chronology of corruption in our Judiciary. The judiciary has been rotten from its roots and contravenes our natural African spiritual sciences and concept of Justice.
What has made corruption in our Judiciary more evident is not only the spread of media, but the democratic dispensation of governance. Under military rule, there is more discipline through a scalar management, with the military leadership unattached to many civil issues. Therefore the military had shielded us from the effects of the shaky unnatural foundations of neocolonial justice systems. Those that believe the present crop of politicians since 1999 corrupted the judiciary are not looking far back enough to the previous democratic dispensations whose fall could be attributed to the failures of the Judiciary.
As a teenager whose parents were law officers, and also had holiday job stints, I was fully aware of some rotten eggs on the bench in the Eighties. The most memorable were the three Ibadan Judges that were unduly influenced by the ‘Omo wa ni e je kose’ bias in their judgement of the Olunloyo versus Bola Ige Oyo state governorship electoral dispute. The judicial mayhem across Nigeria that followed the 1983 election cumulated or was used as an excuse in the December 1983 Buhari coup. The army rebottled the evil Judiciary gene for sixteen years until we returned in 1999 to the current democratic dispensation.
The misconception and misapplication of our legal system and laws were first witnessed as an independent nation with the political motivated jailing of Obafemi Awolowo and removal of Ooni of Ife as Western Region Governor. With hindsight, it was an attempted Afro-Arabic civilizational takeover of the Indigenous African civilization aided by the courts. When challenged at the British Privvy Courts, the Afro-Arabic civilizationally led Nigeria government cut the ties with the British and declared a Republic. This civilizational tampering and misapplication of the Judiciary was not new or a result of being a young nation, if we go back to Herbert Macaulay’s challenge of British colonial justice that cheated Lagosians out of lands, which inspired Macaulay and others into a fight for independence.
Like Constitutions are the laws guiding the corporate existence of a nation, while constitutionalism is the spirit used to apply the constitution, there is a huge difference between the laws and the spirit used to apply them. Many scholars would argue that the evolution of the constitution and laws reflects on the type of spirit used to apply them. If the laws organically evolve from the society based on natural laws, it is most likely to be applied in good spirits. But if the laws are introduced from external sources, like in the case of coloniality, it is likely to be anti-people, exploitative, irrelevant and unfair. Especially in the case of Western sources that departed from natural laws like with John Marshall, the fourth USA Chief Justice, whose positive laws placed property law over and above human rights in an attempt to institutionalize racial injustice.
The philosophy of law is influenced by civilizational philosophies and socioeconomic influences, therefore it is fundamentally wrong to apply Western Civilizational philosophy of Binary Opposition to the indigenous African civilization based on Binary Complementarity philosophy. Socioeconomic factors, especially those tied to racial economics, also differentiated the Anglo Saxon adversarial legal systems of UK and USA from the inquisitorial legal system of continental Europe. While the inquisitorial legal system was based on finding the truth which was best thought to be led by a judge seeking information himself, the adversarial legal system was based on competition between prosecutor and defense teams which was influenced by money and social influence. The Anglo-Saxon named the judges workstation as the Bench, which was the civilizational symbol of money changers dating back to Jerusalem temple, and Italy where the word Bench was derived from the word Banc which became bank.
Before 1700s written constitutions led bu USA, knowledge and legal systems were codified in religious and spiritual systems across the world. As known, the first and oldest knowledge bank was the indigenous African civilization sixteen sector knowledge bank Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa-Efa, which spread civilization across the world before it was overwhelmed and adapted in a shortened form by other races during what is known as the Axial Age (700BC to 1BC). The ancient knowledge system known as astrology adopted by the Greeks, Romans and later other Europeans is where they evolved their concept of Justice. Justice was represented by the Aquarius/Uranus/Shango/Amadiora sector, which like all twelve sectors of the 360 degrees circle had 30 degrees that were divided into three decans of ten degrees each.
The sector relating to Justice, the judicious use of Information, was divided into three sectors – the first being pure Justice ruled by Uranus/Shango, the second ruled by Gemini/Mercury/Esu the essence of information, while the third decan was ruled Libra/Osun, the essence of money, balance and beauty. The adversarial legal systems of the English speaking nations tied their legal systems to Aquarius/Shango third decan ruled by Libra/Osun that is symbolised with the veiled woman carrying the scales of justice, while the inquisitorial legal system was tied to the second decan of Aquarius/Shango justice ruled by Mercury/Esu house of Gemini, representing the essence of using information as a weapon which was why the judges seek out information by themselves to make judgements.
The Anglo-Saxon civilizational judiciary, with its obviously flawed philosophical and spiritual foundations, is not the only aspect of African collective existence that needs decoloniality, but the entire Western civilizational traits imposed on Africans. Otherwise, if we pursue the decoloniality of the Judiciary from its roots, who will run it in a neocolonial society with coloniality of knowledge, power, ecology and self? Therefore, an entire reappraisal of the Western civilization and our Westernization has to be undertaken, since as noted Western and Abrahamic civilizations as a whole are based on diametrically opposite philosophical foundations to that of Africans.
Using our ancient astrology models, Civilization, laws and philosophy are tied to the Sagittarius/Obatala sector of the circle, divided into three decans – the first decan of ten days/degrees being the pure civilization essence of Jupiter/Obatala; the second decan is ruled by Aries/Mars/Ogun while the third decan is ruled by Leo/Sun/Orunmila. Abrahamic and other Asiatic civilizations were built on war, starting in the 2000 year Age of Aries/Mars/Ogun (2000BC to 1AD) waged across the world after emerging from the Central Asian Cave complex, while indigenous African civilization with Yoruba, the oldest full sized humans based on DNA studies, is tied to Leo/Sun/Orunmila traced to the beginning of the universe, solar system and humanity.
The different sources and philosophies of civilization gave birth to the different civilizational philosophies of Eurasiatic binary Opposition versus African binary Complementarity. Even the Westernization of Africa by replacing its civilization with the Western civilization was achieved through colonial war, not from evolution. Therefore not only the Judiciary but all other concepts of Western civilization and statehood can never be appropriately applied to Africa.
For example, the concept of tribal nations brought by Europeans, who had only 24 official languages out of 200 languages, can’t work in Africa with over 2,000 Niger Congo Indigenous African languages that could translated to over 200 nations if copied. Nigeria that has 512 languages, which is more than entire European languages, could breakup into 50 nations if followed. Which is why neither colonially created African nationstates work, nor would the separatist tribal nationalist revisions like Biafra and Odua. Instead we need to unite tribes into civilizational blocs according to shared origins, linkages and aspirations.
Africans need a reappraisal of their concept of statehood and its judiciary, legislature and executive. Though we might reassess these civilizational maladjustments, nothing could be done until the status quo runs its full lifecycle, complete revolution, and collapses due to its internal contradictions with the universe. As previously analyzed, the universe and humanity are moving into a new 2000yr cycle of civilization based on Justice/Shango which Abrahamists superficially label the Judgement Day.
In Yoruba mythology tied to the beginning of the Axial Age of universal Justice, Shango was married to Osun, Obba and Oya. While Osun conspired an injustice against Obba, Oya was the one to effect revolutionary changes to Shangos essence of Justice. As Shango lit fires of Justice with his thunder, Oya spread it with her wind.
Currently, our structures are being tested by the Oya essence of Revolutionary change, lighting up the quest of Justice (Shango) and those structures found to be corrupt and unjust will be blown into the dustbin of history as they fail. We have had the electoral system recently tested followed by our judicial system, and very soon the economic system will also fail bringing about a total collapse, only after which we can begin to rebuild on the right spiritual and philosophical foundations.
Ultimately, we need a civilizational democracy whose narrative doesn’t start with Edo’s Prince Ogun and Oyo’s Oranmiyans wars nor European conquest and colonization, but with our common origins and linkages. To get a just political system, we must start from selection of a truly independent electoral commission. We can’t leave it to unbridled adversarial competition between short term politicians, but must be guided by the long term cultural stakeholders. It is the civilizationally guided political system that can bring about decoloniality of our judicial, educational and other social systems.
It is then not only the corrupt foundations of our judiciary can be rectified but the operators of the system imbued with shared civilizational values that will naturally reduced personal corruption and nepotism. An African oriented judiciary, not only replacing the deep roots of Osun with Esu essences, but also Western civilizational symbolisms like the White wigs worn on a money changers bench. A bit like our kings traditional open court or modern customary courts, where the king or judge interrogates both sides in search of truth and justice. It is only then that Justice can be truly served based on truth, and not who has money to buy the best lawyers and SAN that use technicalities and cults to win judgements.
