Jibrin Samuel Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has raised serious concern over rising cases of dictatorship in Nigeria, stressing that “Nigerians are being caged.”
Okutepa, who was speaking at a time when a popular human rights advocate, Dele Farotimi, was arrested, hurriedly arraigned and sent to prison, said that; “Dictatorship and King does no wrong are now the philosophy of every state actor in Nigeria.”
Continuing, the legal silk saif; “You have no right to complain. You have no right to criticize what is wrong.
“Those who exercise executive, judicial, and legislative powers are omnipotent and all-knowing. Even when they are wrong, we must celebrate them and not criticize them. Criticising them may land in misconduct or prison, depending on whom you criticized. So we are warned to be careful.”
In a post on his X account, Okutepa opined that; “In serious civilized countries, public opinions are vital in shaping the direction of governments. Those in power don’t treat public opinions with levity and disdain. No, they don’t. The reason is simple. Those civilized societies serve the public interest. Everything they do is for the public good.”
Taking a swipe at his own profession, he added, “Even judiciaries in such societies give judgments with justice as the cornerstone. Judgments are not delivered just to satisfy ethnic or clandestine interests. Judgments are not delivered in such societies to promote anarchy and to settle political godfathers.
“In such societies, purity of justice is at the heart of judgments. No judge in such societies is allowed or allowed himself to hear a matter when he has prior knowledge of the facts or has connections with any of the parties in the case.
“In such societies, judges run away from improprieties and even the appearances of it. In such societies, judgments are rendered to strengthen democracy and the rule of law. Judex is not allowed to short-change justice. No one from the top gives unlawful and illegal orders. No one lobbies for judgments and judgments are delivered to help the injured get remedies.
“In sane societies, judgments of courts can be criticized, and those whose judgments are criticized read such criticisms with maturity of understanding with a view to correcting themselves in the future or justifying their previous decisions in subsequent judgments. No citizen is threatened with sanctions or ganged for speaking to power.
“But here in Nigeria, criticizing decisions of the government may land you in trouble. Threats are freely offered to those who dared it. Nigerians in power so loved sycophancy. They love sycophantic praise singers. They think that those who engage in sycophantic praise singing are more patriotic than those who see things differently.
“Let me not be understood that everything is bad in Nigeria. No, I am not saying so. But the level of intolerance of public views in the DNA of those in power is irritating and amazing. They don’t want to be criticized. Those who exercise powers over us in every department of government appear to think that they are superior in thoughts and reasoning. Whatever wrongs they do that hurt us grievously, we, the oppressed, must learn to take it and praise them.
“Indeed, Nigerians are treated as slaves by those who should treat us like kings. They are doing so to us because there is no accountability in Nigeria. There are no consequences. Those who are to apply sanctions are themselves not clean. So we are in Nigeria where those who lord it over us are so perfect that they can not even be criticized.
“The crazy society called Nigeria, where the most intolerable misconduct is expected to be praised as perfect. That is the reality of the society we are in.”
