Renowned legal scholar and former Chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, has raised the alarm about a “narrow cabal” that has captured Nigeria’s power structures, oppressing citizens under the guise of legality.
Odinkalu expressed these concerns while denouncing the detention of human rights lawyer Dele Farotimi, labeling the ordeal as “judicial and legal terrorism” rather than a lawful trial.
Speaking during an X Space discussion hosted by activist Omoyele Sowore on Thursday, Odinkalu described Farotimi’s detention as a “hostage-taking” strategy disguised as lawful prosecution.
He cautioned Nigerians against remaining silent, warning that the suppression of dissenting voices like Farotimi could become a broader threat to civil liberties.
“This Is Not About Dele, It’s About All of Us”
According to Odinkalu, Farotimi’s predicament reflects a broader issue of state-sponsored repression.
He pointed out that the detention reveals a systemic abuse of power, where a select few control critical state institutions, including the police, judiciary, and prison systems, for their personal agenda.
“This is not about Dele,” he said, insisting that Dele knows the score.
“It could happen to any of us… It should worry every Nigerian how one person can commander the police force, commander the judiciary, commander the political system, and commander the prison system and determine how long a Nigerian who is a lawyer actually, of considerable seniority can be held behind bars on a crime that does not exist in the state where it is being looked into.
“That should worry every one of us because it says that we don’t have a country. So this actually is a fight over whether or not we can be citizens of a country. Fundamentally that is what it is,” Odinkalu stated.
He added that the manipulation of Nigeria’s judicial system is part of a larger scheme to maintain the grip of an unaccountable elite over the country’s resources and institutions.
“Our Country Has Been Captured”
Odinkalu argued that Nigeria’s democracy has been hijacked by a small group determined to retain power.
He criticized the judiciary for legitimizing political irregularities, noting that when “a judge can declare that the person who came fourth in an election is the winner,” it signals the collapse of the rule of law.
According to him, the judiciary has become a battleground where justice is sacrificed for political expediency.
He urged Nigerians to shift their focus from election-day voting to the judicial process, as it is within the courts that democratic legitimacy is now decided.
“You accused a guy of corruption and then they decided to show that everything he said is valid. So, if Dele had orchestrated and written this as a script, he could not have done much better.
“So what can we do? Where are we? This is not about a story of one man. The story is that our country has been captured by a very narrow cabal who wants to keep us all oppressed using appearances of rule of law, because when a judge who is on big wig as jury and sit down and pronounce it as law that the man who came fourth in an election is first, it becomes rule of law.
“Unless we fight and win that battle, with the lawyers and the judges, and the politicians, their mistresses, girlfriends, children who have conspired to take over our court system in order to avoid the anger of the people who they no longer serve, we will not make any progress.
“We have to understand the fact that we will no longer win elections in the polling units, we will not win elections in the court systems. That delegitimises our democratic process. This is one thing it is fundamentally about and if we are not going to do that to scramble that conspiracy of the capture of the country, all of us will to have to consider exile for ourselves and our children,” he added.
He further called on Nigerians to confront the “conspiracy of capture” by corrupt politicians, judges, lawyers, and their associates, stating that only a unified resistance could dismantle the entrenched power structure.
“Judicial Terrorism, Not a Trial”
On Farotimi’s case, Odinkalu declared that the human rights lawyer is not being subjected to a fair trial but is instead a victim of “judicial terrorism.”
He argued that the case against Farotimi exemplifies the broader misuse of Nigeria’s legal system to silence dissenters.
“We have to end that, to end it let us train our thoughts on the judiciary and the law, all the other details can follow up. There so many Nigerians and Dele is one of those who are hostages of the law.
“Dele is not going through a legal trial; he is going through judicial terrorism and legal terrorism. This is hostage-taking using excuse of legality. We are going to make that case rigorously and vigorously across the board on behalf of Nigerians who are going through it at the moment,” Odinkalu stated.
