BY CHIEF MIKE OZEKHOME, SAN, OFR, FCIARB; Ph.D.
The abduction in broad daylight in Benin City;of the Honourable Justice Chioma Iheme-Nwosu, Ph.D, is the saddest reminder of a beleaguered nation in the asphixiating throes of death by installment. That her Police Orderly that accompanied her was brutally killed and dismembered in the process, in a most horrific manner, sends the chill down our spines. This is a noble woman of high virtue, a fecund mind and one of the finest Jurists of great erudition, currently dispensing justice in our intermediate Court, the Court of Appeal. It is heart-rending that Nigeria has been turned into a gruesome and crimson theatre of blood, with absolutely no government protection in sight. Whilst Nigerians are being mauled down across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, the politicians are ever busy politicking, instead of spreading democracy dividends. Whilst the ink is yet to dry on paper as regards the February, 2019 elections, mindless politicians are already busy, strategizing and plotting for 2023! Nigeria has become an over heated and over politicised enclave; with no space for real genuine governance. And the hapless masses are the victims of this societal degeneracy and misplaced values. The Judiciary,the weakest and whipping child of the three arms of government (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No 78), is mostly at the receiving end. A minister or Senator (both of the Executive and Legislative arms of government, respectively), can afford to travel in convoys of fully armed security operatives. A Judge is mercifully left with just one Policeman, usually armed with obsolete firearms. He is plucked down and dismembered like a chicken. Yet,the Judge, especially Justices of the Court of Appeal, must traverse the nation, handling never ending sensitive appeals from election petition Tribunals, in jurisdictions other than their ordinarily accustomed places of abode or sitting. They are thus compelled by the cause and course of duty to travel by road, the very bad roads that are unmanned by security personnel. They thus fall easy prey to marauders. Justice Iheme-Nwosu, JCA, has just suffered this fate. I beg you, captors or kidnappers of Justice Chioma, in the name of ALMIGHTY GOD,to please release her unhurt. See her as your mother that you would never do anything to hurt no matter the circumstances. I beg you also in the name of humanity and of womanhood, as you read this, to set free, unharmed, unmolested and unhurt, this judicial Amazon. Please, please,please. I BEG YOU.