The ball is now in your court! ~ -by Justice C. Aninworie

“Battered ball whose every fibre has been conceded in the great concession which went in the making of the greatest purchase of power that broke through ranks, rules and reason in modern Africa!” #Juspoet

With great humility, I approach the Temple of Justice and last hope of the common man on earth in Nigeria. My Lords, my name is Justice Chukwubuike Aninworie. I write to Your Lordships as one from whose court the big Ball of Nigeria had been violently kicked to your own Court of even higher consequences and heavier conscience with Official-penalty unblown by the referee whose interest, as was that of the defending champions, was to score, offside or onside. Those whose oxen were gored in the illicit play may go to court. And, to your Court we have come!

Your Lordships, though I am also a Justice, I bear no lordship other than a burdenship for a Nigeria that is free and fair and open to both the commoners as the London-landlords. A place where the People’s will be so expressed that they become responsible for their government, and their government responsible to them. And that could only be where the People are seen as People, not as puppets from the lofty rendezvous where successful bankers and last-man-standing politicians seal the new deal that deals diplomatically with the People. Beings with inalienable rights of putting in one say each to arrive a compilation of says of majority as properly constituted in the rest of the civilized world. But the People were adjudged incapable in mind and fettered in action to say who leads them in a musk-world, by those with treasonable turn-table of rulership rollercoaster.

In my court in Lagos, Your Lordships, early on 25th morning of February, 2023, I arrived the court situated on the Street to see young girls and young men amongst the elderly, each standing resolutely Covid-distanced, to avoid infiltration of thoughts and sentiment. I stood aside The INEC came and the People lined up unguided and ungrumbling. When one dared to ask another which side he was, the young man declared that for three presidential elections of Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari he bothered not to vote. He added steely that presently, he just wanted to be the person to elect that man that will either deal with him or deal with our issues, that way he would be content to take what he got in the end!

What a point of both fact and law, the Court would only be judicious and just to give judgment in Favour!

On that queue, we looked over our shoulders and saw Yorubas, Igbos, Hausas, and Efiks and Igbiras in their tribally unmarked faces. We edged forward patiently and caringly. At noon, a group of boys, ragtag in brain and body who had camped nearby in near isolation of what was going on suddenly charged at the queue with menacing sticks in their hands, and in their typical guttural accent threatened to ‘scatter everything’. We implored ad locals, and they subsided like troubled sea with a snarl: “If you like vote, the president-elect is already waiting for announcement!”

What a Jagaban jolt to our patriotic brains! We swallowed the sting, and eased it off with affected grins. We stood our ground, and the queue inched on with the National service ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC regaining composure.

While the queue ebbed, we stood hands crossed on either side of the roads and watched in resolute vigil over the process. It ended without further escalated drama. Though we heard online and saw barren profiling and profligate performance of those who felt their candidate was the next in turn as proclaimed, we thought perhaps INEC had resolved to play the game according to the rules for the first time in living memory. Hence, we held our breaths and prayed for the end.

It came, and we all gathered together in a big circle around INEC and the ballot table. More people had returned, who had left earlier, at the chime of 2pm. And, INEC began the count.

In my court in the street of Lagos, adhoc staff of INEC raised the ballot papers and we counted alongside in line with the voted party, choir-chorused. In the end, Peter Obi counted 70, Tinubu counted 41, and Atiku counted 4. We rejoiced in the spirit of sportsmanship. Then the recording began by INEC supported and authenticated by the lingering crowd. Everything was hitch-free until we came to the uploading part, brainchild of the nee Electrical Act as sacrosanct sworn by INEC on real-time. The adhoc staff brought out a piece of paper. On it was written a set of figures and letters. She continued muttering to herself in futile effort until we asked what the matter was. She voiced frustrated that the password was not going. Advised to call for assistance from her bosses in INEC office, she spoke in a low tone on phone and announced to elevate our political blood pressure, she had been advised to come with the results to the Ward or Local Government for the upload as the network has malfunctioned. The day was a sad day, as the bright sun suddenly sank at noon, and darkness swallowed the destination in its evil bosom. Some said it will come up, but I declared, Your Lordships, my ruling that the INEC had issued deceptive passwords to cover the foil of the biggest patriotic push to save Nigeria post-civil-war era.

The Nation was at a crossroad, and time stopped over the bridge between the present and the future we saw and sought for, while water flowed in undercurrent beneath.

Early in the Morning on 1st of March, news trickled out that the ‘president-elect’ has been selected from the mutilated hodgepodge of a result as foretold!

We waited like those that woke up from a bad dream, mentally weeding out the dream from the reality, but we heard the pulpit-admonition:

The President said: “Go to Court”

The President-elect said “Go to Court!”

The tragic Trojans said: “Go to Court!”

All these while they began their much-vaulted martial and majestic march to May 29th Inauguration inchoately.

The ball is now in your court, Your Lordships!

Battered ball whose every fiber has been conceded in the great concession that went in the making of the greatest purchase of power that broke through ranks, rules and reason in modern Africa!

Every kick killed an embryo of competence.

Every kick aborts the character that incubates excellence and equity.

Every kick on the beaten ball mauls capacity!

The ball is now in your court, Your Lordships!

Same way Jesus of Nazareth was brought from Herod’s court to Pilate’s, the ball of a dying Nigeria has been rolled all through the traditional and political courts, even the spiritual courts have had their share. All were given a cut in the courts until all that is left is the presidency, while we sat as dismal on-lookers of a sour game whose goalpost we’ve lost track of.

The ball is now in your courts, I dare submit with grave humility, Your Lordships.

Will you hit it with rules and reason, or with truce and treason?

Would you restore to it its threads and fibres that made it whole, or would you take a fibre for yourselves and your constituency, the last fibre, the life-fibre.

Justice is for the courts, and no one should pre-empt the court. But, Justice is a self-evident truth, and all human beings in the court of law, in the royal courts, or caught in the annals of civilization are imbued with mental capacity to detect it and gravitate towards its assuaging desire. Nigerians, being proper humans and very intelligent ones, like roots trapped in the dry cod of political hard crust could sense justice like water flowing from the water table. We only need you to break the hard crust, shatter its immobilizing forces on us, and let us meet ourselves as brothers and sisters in the oasis of a New Nigeria.

INEC had prevailed with a technical glitch. If Your Lordships would be minded of technical hitches, then Nigeria itself will suffer a technical snitch, in your Court, under your watch.

May it not so please the Court!

-Justice Chukwubuike Aninworie (Juspoet) is a Poet, Author, Constitutional Lawyer, and advocate of public human respect, equity and justice in Nigeria.

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