By Okoi Obono-Obla
Even when London was under intense bombardment from the formidable war machine of Adolf Hitler, dropping bombs and projectiles from aircraft in what was known as the Blitz, the Rule of Law did not falter. The court system continued to work and dispense justice without fear or favour, affection or ill-will. Lord Denning made a statement to this effect, which I have paraphrased here.
This is to demonstrate how powerful the Rule of Law is — that even in times of extraordinary emergency, the Rule of Law stands firm like the Rock of Gibraltar, which was named after General Tariq ibn Ziyad. He led the Moorish Army to cross from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula to conquer and colonize Spain, nearly 800 years before they were driven out.
If the Rule of Law could stand like that Rock in wartime England, how much more should it stand in peacetime Nigeria? This is why all men, from time immemorial, have always subjected themselves to the Rule of Law. But some politicians in Nigeria operate with impunity and lawlessness and hold the judiciary in deep-seated contempt. You leave your own party, invade another party, hijack its machinery, supplant its executive and replace them with your own handpicked executives without the slightest regard for the party’s constitution.
Then, when aggrieved members challenge your action, instead of employing dialogue and mediation to appease them, you continue to disrespect them. Even when a case filed by these aggrieved party members is in court, and wisdom demands that you apply the brakes and stay whatever action you are taking until the court decides the matter, you continue to show contempt for these aggrieved members and operate with arrogance and impunity.
You would rather heap the blame on the ruling party and the Federal Government and want Nigerians to believe that the government wants to foist a one-party system on them. Today, the chicken has come home to roost, yet they are still looking for scapegoats, abusing the judge who decided the case and threatening to unleash mayhem in the country if the judiciary does not interpret the law as it is, but in accordance with their whims.
Just as Macbeth was driven into frenzy by the witches’ prophecy that he would be King of Scotland, so too are some of our politicians driven by desperation for power and the prophecies of witch doctors or marabouts. When Macbeth told his wife, Lady Macbeth, who was equally megalomaniacal, about the prophecy, both were driven into a state of maniacal desperation which took leave of all their senses. They became overpowered by vaulting and naked ambition that consumed them both. Ambition drove them mad, just as Festus told Apostle Paul that his great learning had turned him into a madman.
Conclusion: No ambition, no prophecy, and no desperation for power should ever place any man above the law. The law remains above all, and those who scorn it in pursuit of power will, like Macbeth, ultimately be consumed by the very ambition that drove them.
