Opinion by ChidiOdinkalu: Why philanthropy stops at building a courthouse via thecableng
Chief Olanipekun is arguably the most successful Nigerian lawyer of his generation. He runs one of the biggest law firms in the country and is the lawyer of choice to presidents, politicians, and profitable companies. He became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1991 before being elected President of the Nigerian Bar Association , eleven years later. He has served as Pro-Chancellor and Chair of Governing Council of several universities around the country.
Let us begin with the most basic. Courthouses go to the very essence of statehood. The state exists for the wellbeing of all who live within it. To protect them, it enjoys certain basic monopolies. One is a presumptive monopoly on the legitimate use of violence; the other is a monopoly of legitimate adjudication. The latter monopoly in fact precedes the former. If the state dispenses justice credibly, it diminishes the likelihood that grievances can boil over into violence.
Fourth, this idea of donation of courthouses invites the classic slippery slope. Let us begin from the premise that this donation is motivated by the purest of intentions. Not every person who may choose hereafter to invest in this model of “philanthropy” can be credited with the same purity of purpose. If one man can build and donate a courthouse, then every big man who has stolen money will sooner-or-later adopt that same model as their own down payment on impunity.
It is not in doubt that Nigeria’s judicial system has far reaching problems of both capital and recurrent kinds. The state may well be unable to fully pay for all that the courts need. If private contributions are needed, one response could be to adopt the model of the security trust fund established by many states to address insecurity and policing. A parallel for the judiciary could take the form of an Administration of Justice Trust Fund under suitable statutory guarantees.
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