Danladi Umar and Retributive Justice

By Olusegun Adeniyi

The rule of law is underwritten by fundamental assumptions. One, that the law is fair to all and that citizens can approach the court expecting to obtain justice irrespective of their station in life. Two, that judges who interpret the law and dispense justice will be above reproach and remain impartial. Three, that an independent, orderly judiciary will be self-regulating. Unfortunately, recent developments in Nigeria only point to a betrayal of nearly all these foregoing assumptions.

Last week, the Senate passed a resolution asking President Bola Tinubu to sack Danladi Umar as chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over sundry allegations of corruption and misconduct. But the provisions of Section 157 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on which the resolution was anchored do not support what the Senate did. There is a difference between the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the CCT and you expect Senators to know that. It would take the votes of two thirds of members of both chambers (Senate and the House of Representatives) for the president to remove the CCT chairman. Apparently mindful of this lacuna, the House on Tuesday invoked the proper law, Section 17 (3), Part 1, Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to complete the process with their concurrence that Umar be removed.  

The second issue is the presidential action that preceded the two resolutions. On 13th July this year, then presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, announced “the appointment of Dr. Mainasara Umar Kogo as the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT),” as directed by the president. “Kogo is a seasoned lawyer and analyst in the fields of law, security, economy, politics, and international diplomacy,” Ngelale further said. I assumed at the time that Umar’s tenure had lapsed, or he had quietly resigned. Evidently, that is not the case. With both Umar and Kogo claiming to be CCT chairman, the National Assembly has merely covered up for a presidential lapse of judgement on the matter.

The third and perhaps most substantive issue relates to the charges against Umar. First sworn-in as acting CCT chairman in 2007 at age 36 despite his thin résumé, Umar became the substantive chairman in 2011. And in the past 13 years, there have been several allegations of impropriety against him. In January 2018, for instance, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accused Umar of demanding and receiving bribes from one Rasheed Owolabi Taiwo, a defendant standing trial before the CCT for “favours to be afterwards shown” to him. Besides, Umar also has a notorious reputation in Abuja.

Asked to repark his vehicle that was obstructing other customers at Banex Plaza on 8th April 2021, Umar (who drove himself that day and would later make a big deal of it in a reckless statement) adopted the usual Nigerian Big Man disposition of ‘Do you know who I am?’ by assaulting a security man. When the video went viral, he claimed to be the victim of assault by ‘Biafran boys’, thus profiling shop owners at the commercial complex. In calling for a full investigation into the incident at the time, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) expressed its displeasure at the “display of naked power by a public officer especially one who, by virtue of his high office, is expected to exhibit a high standard of conduct.”

Given the foregoing, Umar’s removal is long overdue. But what I find rather surprising is that his defenders are citing the crisis orchestrated by the removal of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen to canvass for due process on the matter. This same Umar was a willing tool in the hands of President Muhammadu Buhari and his Attorney General and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, SAN, for that judicial act of infamy. Now that his misdeeds have caught up with him, Umar is seeking equity with unclean hands.

However, the bigger lesson in this saga is for the judiciary. In my presentation at the 2024/2025 Legal Year ceremony of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Abuja on 9th October, I made a general point about justice administration in Nigeria with a clear distinction between ‘rule of law’ and ‘rule of judges’. The latter, as I said, is a situation in which a judge places himself/herself above the law. “Regrettably, the loud and overpowering noise of the latter is becoming definitive of Nigeria’s judiciary in the perception of most people,” I concluded. “Nothing gives better expression to that than the statement, ‘Go to Court’ by conscious wrong-doers, often followed by ‘Go on appeal’ by their hand-in-glove judges.”

In his highly entertaining book, ‘Judges’ which I once referenced on this page, Lord David Philip Pannick used the lesson of history in both the United Kingdom and United States to highlight what could happen when the people lose faith in the judicial process. “Some judges have received more than their just deserts for injudicious behaviour. In the 13th century, Andrew Horn alleged that in one year, King Alfred caused 44 judges to be hanged as homicides for their false judgments. In 1381, a mob pursued the Lord Chancellor, Simon de Sudbury, and cut off his hand. One year later, Lord Chief Justice Cavendish was killed after being apprehended by a mob and subjected to a mock trial in which he was sentenced to death,” Pannick, a member of the House of Lords and the Blackstone Chambers, wrote. “In 1688, the infamous judge Jeffreys, by then the Lord Chancellor, went into hiding when James II fled the country. Jeffreys was captured in Wapping when he was recognized in a tavern by a man who had been a dissatisfied litigant in his court. (The man had won his case, but Jeffreys had been rude to him and kept him waiting). Jeffreys was put in the Tower of London, where he died in 1689.”

We are living in an age when the past bears an uncanny resemblance to the present. It is therefore important for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to begin dealing with deviant behaviours among its members. Authorities in the judicial sector must not allow a situation in which the people would openly turn against our men and women on the bench. This requires an urgent need for internal cleansing. May the day never come in Nigeria when an enraged public would begin to disrobe otherwise eminent judges in the marketplace!

What the Yoruba People Have Lost

“Chief Lóògò Bámútùlá explains, ‘I grew up amid deities…In the house, the gods talked audibly and clearly. They spoke precise human language…’ This is a Chief who actively remembers his ancestors, who offers his own stories of a life lived through the Nigerian Civil War and beyond, and whose clients include those of many different affiliations. His practices include prayer, festival, charms, psychiatric care, pharmaceutical and medical interventions, and resolving curses, reminding us of the complex rituals and acts that make up what we call religion…”

The foreword by Laura Nasarallah, Scholar of Ancient Christianity and Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale University, United States, leads us to the story of an extraordinary man who had no formal education yet imbued with the power/knowledge to cure many ailments. Described as a “ritual specialist, native botanist and family patriarch” by Arthur Kleinman, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in the blurb, Chief David Akinsawe Bámútùlá of Ile-Oluji in Ondo State is not only a cultural avatar but also a symbol of the body of knowledge in Yorubaland that is gradually going into extinction. But how did I get to read the manuscript of the coming book by Harvard Professor, Jacob Olupona, co-authored with Oluwole Akinyosoye who worked briefly at The Guardian newspaper before venturing into the oil and gas industry?

To get away from the drama of ‘birthday’ which holds no significance for me (village people don’t celebrate birthday), I try to take my annual holiday from the first week in November though the get-away gambit almost failed this year due to a delayed visa renewal process. But in the past two weeks, I have visited New York, Washington DC and Toronto (Canada) before finally arriving at my main destination in Boston, Massachusetts. For the past 15 years, Professor Olupona and his wife, Josephine Modupe, have been guardian angels for my family. But for me the real attraction in always holidaying with them is not so much the warm hospitality but rather the knowledge and insights I gain from Professor Olupona who always enjoys having me around. It’s much like being in school. In the process of discussing the current situation with the traditional institution in Yorubaland, Olupona told me of a coming book, ‘In the Twilight of Time: A Biography of an African Medicine Man’ he co-authored with Akinyosoye. And the moment he handed me the manuscript, I could not put it down.

Chief Lóògò and the late Professor Thomas Adeoye Lambo were contemporaries and friends who pursued the same vocation in psychiatric healing though the latter was trained by the best Universities around the world. Lambo, a globally renowned psychiatrist and former Vice Chancellor, University of Ibadan (1967 to 1971) later became the World Health Organisation (WHO) Deputy Director General. Being senior to Lambo who was born on 29 March 1923, that means Chief Lóògò is well beyond 100 years in age. Lambo, Chief Lóògò recalls, usually sent a vehicle to pick him up for meetings of the association of Nigerian traditional healers where they always sat beside each other. “He was not much of a herbalist; he was a professor, an audacious fellow, ever ready to experiment,” Chief Lóògò told the authors in one of the numerous interviews conducted for the book. “Lambo chose to test me, when we needed to display the efficacy of charms at a conference in Iganmu, Lagos. Everybody was thrilled at the results.”  

The second foreword to the manuscript, by HRM Oba Olufaderin Oluwole Adetimehin, Jimoko II of Ile-Oluji Kingdom, Ondo State, is significant in several respects. “I found his (Baba Lóògò’s) elucidation on Yoruba culture fascinating, especially his explanations of conceptual nuances of Olóògún (Ògún devotees) and Olóògùn (traditional pharmacist) and the differences between Babaláwo (Ifá diviner) and Onísègùn (traditional healer)” wrote the royal father, a former president of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN). “The elucidations reveal Baba Lóògò’s rich repository of Yoruba lore and culture.”

I am sure the Ile Oluji Monarch must also have learnt a great deal about our past, especially considering how Yoruba Obas are now being abducted right in their palaces. In the days of yore, criminals who dared such a sacrilegious enterprise would have had to contend with ‘Sìgìdì’. Explaining how Sìgìdì provided security for powerful people in the past, Chief Lóògò illustrated his point with the experience of his own father from whom he inherited trado-medicine. “If an evil person is approaching, the Sìgìdì would ambush them before we know and announce their arrival after the task, ‘Baba, we are back.’ Father would respond, ‘You are welcome…You will eat tomorrow. Your mealtime is tomorrow’. I knew then that a goat would be slaughtered the following day. The Sìgìdì often alerted my father whenever danger lurked. Sometimes, Father would command the Sìgìdì to confront the attackers, and they (the attackers) would shoot, unaware that they were not aiming at physical objects.”

In Yoruba cosmology, according to the authors, “sacred beings are presented in hidden forms. When one greets a king, either he will move his Ìrùkẹ̀rẹ̀ (flywhisk, a symbol of office) or have his courtiers speak on his behalf,” while expanding on how traditional authority was revered in the past. “The king himself is an Òrìṣà, and silence reflects his elevation and divinity; it is part of the reason that the king garners respect and honour.” Not these days when traditional rulers compete with ‘slay queens’ to throw tantrums on social media!

Allow me to make an upfront admission here. I am a Christian who believes in the Bible, and I take my faith very seriously. But I have often wondered about some of the things I witnessed growing up in the village. I can still picture in my mind several traditional healing methods we now consider ‘occultic’. What makes knowledge and wisdom valid? Should knowledge be only those which cement or affirm the existing power structure and epistemology? These, according to Olupona, were some of the questions that prompted their research into the life and career of Chief Lóògò, and it is something I could relate with regarding the way we dismiss (or even criminalise) what we do not understand in Nigeria, because of a lack of curiosity that now defines public engagement and the intellectual space.

I recall the controversy that trailed the release about two decades ago of Tunde Kelani’s ‘Agogo Èèwò’ (the gong of taboo). Written by the late acclaimed authority on Yoruba tradition and culture and National Merit Award Winner, Professor Akinwumi Isola, the National Films and Censors Board wanted to ban it at the time. Some of the parts they queried were when the character played by Abiola Atanda (aka Madam Kofo) was carrying rituals and where the herbalist (Akinwunmi Isola) was consulting the Ifa oracle with chants. The verses they considered objectionable are: “Af’ipá l’ówó won kìí kádún” (Seekers of wealth by forceful means do not last); “Afi wàràwàrà l’ówó bí ológun kìí dòla…” (Seekers of instant wealth who employ military brute force do not live long). Not much has changed since then.

Chief Lóògò explained the different types of preventive traditional medicines to the authors. “Apparently, ‘Ayeta’ (bullet repellent medicine) as described by Chief Lóògò is not designed for a continuous assail of bullets but to protect against ambush or assassination and allow one to readjust himself for a fight or flight in a war situation,” they wrote. But the authors also lament how “Important trees, leaves and herbs are disappearing in their large numbers, even in Chief Lóògò’s backyard, due to human-induced climate change,” while revealing the contradictions in our society based on the revelations by Chief Lóògò fully captured in the manuscript. “Despite their outrage on his methods and their keeping public distance from him, we find from his dispositions that Christians and Muslims, including notable politicians, secretly patronise him.”

It is interesting that Chief Lóògò believes that only God can heal, while also admitting that the same God can use anything and any vessel. “Look at Moses with only a rod. He did great wonders. There was nothing in that rod; It was just a symbol of God’s power,” said Chief Lóògò who then argues, “God is not averse to using medicine to heal the sick. They call the ‘trado-medical’ practitioner ‘Agbomolà’, one who saves the lives of men and women, young and old. Can God be upset with someone for saving another man’s life?”

Meanwhile, Chief Lóògò has abandoned his practices and the family deities after embracing Christianity. “I converted to retrace, redirect my path, and change my family’s fortunes…I beg God daily to forgive my sins and those of my lineage.” When the authors inquired whether jettisoning Ògún, the deity he once served as its high priest, was due to pressure from his children, Chief Lóògò replied, “Ògún came to earth on his own volution just like Sàngó and other Yoruba deities. God did not send him here. I discovered that Ògún is opposed to God, so I decided to part ways with him and embrace God.” And the depth of his new-found faith can be glimpsed from this line: “I know my time (on earth) is far spent; my prayer is for Jesus to help me make it to heaven.”

The main concern for me is that we have lost the traditional healing methods embraced by other societies. Having visited China several times, I have had the opportunity of seeing expansive herbal/traditional medical centres. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, China’s National Health Commission revealed that about 90 percent of their nationals infected with the virus took some form of traditional medicine to treat their symptoms. These traditional remedies, according to the Chinese, helped to alleviate symptoms, reduced the severity of the virus, improved recovery and reduced mortality rate. Growing up in the village, most of us also took these herbs that are now being derided, so we are aware of their efficacy.

In the past, I have used Richard Niebuhr’s book, ‘Christ and Culture’, to demonstrate how Christians have attempted to deal with the challenge of their faith against the background of traditional beliefs and customs. Niebuhr identifies five approaches which he listed as: Christ against Culture; The Christ of Culture; Christ above Culture; Christ and Culture in Paradox and Christ the Transformer of Culture. Unfortunately, as I have also argued, the Pentecostalism embraced in Nigeria today fits into the paradigm of ‘Christ against Culture’, a notion which rejects all ancient mores and body of knowledge, including for traditional healing, as archaic, backward, and evil.

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com