By Okechukwu Nwanguma
Rochas Okorocha has rediscovered the virtues of the Nigerian judiciary. Following a Federal High Court judgment recognising him as the All Progressives Congress candidate for Imo West Senatorial District, the former Imo State governor is praising judges and admonishing his successor, Governor Hope Uzodimma, against allowing his aides and supporters to denigrate them.
According to Punch’s report of November 3, 2026, Okorocha condemned comments reportedly describing the judgment against Uzodimma as “rubbish and procured”. He urged the governor to pursue his appeal rather than attack the judiciary. The judgment, delivered on October 29 by Justice Obiora Egwuatu, recognised Okorocha as the lawful winner of the party’s senatorial primary.
The advice is sound. The messenger, however, invites scrutiny.
Respect for the judiciary cannot begin when a politician wins a case and disappear when a court obstructs his ambitions. Before Okorocha assumes the role of defender of judicial dignity, the people of Owerri are entitled to remind him of Eke-Ukwu.
On August 26, 2017, his administration demolished that ancestral market despite a reported subsisting High Court injunction restraining the government from demolishing or relocating it. In its September 10, 2017 report, “In Owerri, a Devt Exercise Goes Bad”, THISDAY expressly recorded that the injunction remained in force when the government moved in. The report described the deployment of armed security personnel, the destruction of traders’ livelihoods and the killing of ten-year-old Somtochukwu Ibeanusi during the operation.
This was no retrospective allegation invented by today’s political opponents. It was documented at the time.
Punch, reporting on August 29, 2017, stated that Imo leaders displayed a court order dated September 9, 2016, issued by Justice S. I. Opara, restraining the government from demolishing or destroying the market pending determination of the suit.
Where was Okorocha’s present reverence for the judiciary when that order stood between his government and the market?
An injunction protecting ordinary traders deserves the same obedience as a judgment awarding a powerful politician a senatorial ticket. Judicial authority does not acquire value only when its beneficiary is a former governor.
The contrast is disturbing. When traders sought judicial protection for their shops, livelihoods and ancestral heritage, the reported restraint did not stop the bulldozers. Today, with his own political ambition protected by a court, Okorocha asks everyone to respect judicial authority.
His present victory does not erase that record. Nor does his earlier conduct diminish his entitlement to justice today. It simply exposes the inconsistency of demanding a protection one denied others.
Uzodimma’s camp presents the other side of the same problem.
The attacks attributed to his aides and political allies remain allegations that should be assessed against their actual statements. But if accurately reported, they display an extraordinary failure of political memory. Few Nigerian politicians have benefited more dramatically from judicial intervention than Hope Uzodimma.
On January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court removed Emeka Ihedioha and declared Uzodimma governor. Uzodimma had finished fourth in the results announced by INEC. The court held that votes from 388 polling units had been wrongly excluded and ordered their inclusion, changing the outcome of the election.
That judgment had a stated legal rationale; it would therefore be inaccurate to suggest that the court offered none. But a judicial explanation and a publicly convincing explanation are different things. The decision generated profound controversy about evidence, electoral arithmetic and the relationship between judicial finality and electoral legitimacy. BusinessDay’s contemporary editorial specifically questioned the reconciliation of the revised vote totals with the number of accredited voters.
Those concerns cannot be answered merely by reminding citizens that the Supreme Court is final.
Yet a political camp whose principal entered office through such a consequential judicial decision should understand why an adverse judgment must be challenged through reasoned argument and appeal. It cannot celebrate judicial intervention when it delivers Government House and treat the judiciary as disreputable when it threatens a Senate ambition.
There is nothing improper about criticising a judgment. Judges are not beyond scrutiny. Their reasoning, treatment of evidence and application of the law must remain open to rigorous public examination. The APC has raised objections concerning jurisdiction and the timing of Okorocha’s suit; those are matters for legal argument and appellate determination.
But alleging that a judgment was purchased requires evidence. Personal abuse supplies none.
Together, these episodes reveal a familiar political attitude: the judiciary is treated as a plaything of power. Politicians praise it, pressure it, invoke it and disparage it according to the demands of their immediate interests.
The damage falls most heavily on ordinary people.
What reassurance can the Eke-Ukwu trader take from speeches about the courts as the last hope of the common man when a judicial restraint could not protect the market? What confidence can a poor litigant retain when powerful beneficiaries of judgments become the loudest attackers of judges after losing another case?
The judiciary must also confront its responsibility. Public confidence requires consistent reasoning, credible independence, accessible remedies and effective enforcement. An order that cannot protect a vulnerable citizen against executive power offers little practical comfort.
Okorocha is entitled to enjoy his victory. Uzodimma is entitled to appeal. Neither is entitled to make respect for the judiciary conditional on personal advantage.
For the poor citizen, the question is increasingly painful: if justice cannot restrain the powerful, where is the hope?
Okechukwu Nwanguma is Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC).
