Post by Simon-Peter Gom (@TerGom)

Even more disturbing is the growing concern about the judiciary. Judges deserve dignity, security, adequate pay, proper housing, and institutional support. No serious person should oppose the welfare of judicial officers. A hungry, insecure, poorly paid judiciary is vulnerable. But there is a difference between constitutionally guaranteed welfare and political patronage dressed up as generosity. There is a difference between strengthening the judiciary and making judges appear indebted to the executive arm of government.
When citizens see public officials celebrating houses and privileges for judges while politically sensitive cases are being decided in favour of the ruling establishment, they will naturally question the integrity of the system. When luxury benefits are presented in a manner that looks like executive benevolence, the public will ask whether justice is still blind or whether it now sees through the eyes of those who feed it. The mere appearance of compromised justice is dangerous enough. A judiciary does not only need to be independent; it must be seen, felt, and trusted to be independent.
The Nigerian judiciary must understand the gravity of this moment. Courts are not created to protect politicians from accountability. Judges are not appointed to assist ruling parties in achieving political dominance. The bench is not a workshop where democracy is disassembled for the convenience of power. If the judiciary aids and abets political rascality, history will not forget. If judges twist the arm of justice to favour the powerful, history will record their names not as guardians of the republic, but as undertakers of democracy.
There will be a day of reckoning — not a day of vengeance, but a day of moral, historical, and institutional accounting. Every generation eventually asks: who stood for justice when it was costly? Who defended truth when lies became profitable? Who protected democracy when power tried to murder it in the courtroom? Who remained silent because silence was convenient?
Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “he who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” He also reminded the world that “he who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” These words are not merely beautiful quotations for conferences and social media posts. They are a moral summons. They are a warning to citizens, judges, religious leaders, traditional rulers, journalists, professionals, students, workers, and politicians who know the truth but have chosen the comfort of silence.
Nigeria’s good people must not become spectators while tyranny builds its throne.
Where are the voices that once shook the streets against bad governance? Where are those who once marched, tweeted, preached, wrote, organized, and confronted power? Where are the defenders of democracy who once understood that freedom is never protected by wishes but by vigilance? Today, hardship has deepened. Insecurity continues to ravage communities. Kidnappings, killings, hunger, unemployment, and despair have become daily companions of ordinary Nigerians. Yet the state appears more determined to silence critics, prosecute dissenters, intimidate activists, and weaken opposition parties than to secure lives and restore hope.
People like Omoyele Sowore, Justice Chidiebere — known as Justice Crack — and other dissenting voices may be imperfect human beings, as all citizens are. One may agree or disagree with their tone, politics, or methods. But the central question is bigger than any individual: should a citizen be humiliated, detained, prosecuted, or dragged through the machinery of the state merely for speaking truth to power? If the answer is yes, then every Nigerian is already a potential prisoner. Today it is Sowore. Tomorrow it may be a journalist. Next week it may be a pastor, an imam, a doctor, a teacher, a student, or a market woman whose only offence is that she complained too loudly.
A government that cannot tolerate criticism is not strong; it is afraid. A leader who fears dissent is not democratic; he is insecure. A ruling party that must destroy opposition parties to survive is not popular; it is panicking. And a judiciary that lends itself to such a project is not serving justice; it is serving power.
Nigerians must therefore watch for the signs of tyranny.
Watch when the law is used more aggressively against critics than against criminals.
Watch when courts move with speed against opposition parties but crawl when citizens seek justice.
Watch when national security becomes the excuse for suppressing free speech.
Watch when public institutions begin to sound like departments of the ruling party.
Watch when judges are praised, rewarded, pressured, or pampered by the same political actors whose cases may come before them.
Watch when the government treats peaceful protest as rebellion.
Watch when citizens become too afraid to speak.
Watch when good people begin to say,

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