President Bola Tinubu recently commissioned 10 housing units for Court of Appeal judges in Abuja’s Katampe District. Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, built them. The Federal Executive Council approved 40 units total -20 for FCT High Court judges, 10 for Federal High Court judges, and 10 for the Court of Appeal .
The government calls it welfare. A “Renewed Hope Housing” agenda to provide secure accommodation for judicial officers .
Let me call it what it is.
A bribe.
Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party, said it first. On Trust TV, he did not mince words:
“If this government genuinely built an estate for judges, literally, it’s a bribe. That’s the fact.”
He asked the obvious question: why not improve their salaries and allowances so they can build their own houses? Why build houses for judges and exempt other workers? Why not permanent secretaries? Why not doctors?
He gave the right advice: “If I were to advise the judges, I would straight up tell them not to accept the house gifts”.
Femi Falana (SAN) has stated plainly that the construction of houses for judges by the FCT Ministry is unconstitutional.
His reasoning is sound. The judiciary enjoys financial autonomy under the Constitution. The budget of the judiciary passes directly to the National Judicial Council. If judges need houses, those houses should be provided through the judiciary’s own budget, not by the executive arm that has cases before them.
“Justice must not just be done, it must be seen to have been done.”
That is not a slogan. It is the foundation of judicial independence. And the executive cannot be seen to be giving houses to judges who will determine its cases .
Wike’s defense is weak. He argues that the budget was approved by the National Assembly. He argues that the judiciary still needs land from the FCT Ministry. He argues that police provide security and anti-corruption agencies investigate judges, so why draw the line at housing?
This is a classic distraction. The issue is not that the executive interacts with the judiciary. The issue is that this interaction comes with a gift that creates a debt.
To understand why this matters, we must remember 2023.
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sat for 13 hours, delivering a judgment that many Nigerians have called “generous in technicalities and very short in delivering substantial justice” .
Academic analysis has confirmed what Nigerians witnessed: the Tribunal struck out subpoenaed witness depositions on procedural grounds, prioritizing technicalities over the merits of the case . The Supreme Court, in affirming the judgment, relied on technical rules that effectively shut out substantial justice.
The PDP itself rejected the judgment, stating it was “against the relevant electoral laws, guidelines and regulations as well as the Constitution”.
Chekwas Okorie, founder of APGA, admitted the petitioners failed to prove their case at the polling unit level, but even he acknowledged they were “relying on scoring technical points to win their petitions”.
Technical points. Procedural errors. Not evidence. Not justice.
The 2023 Tribunal demonstrated that the judiciary could be relied upon to validate whatever the executive wanted, so long as the right incentives were in place.
Now Tinubu is building houses for judges.
This is not an isolated incident, it is a pattern.
The ruling party’s grip on the judiciary has been cultivated methodically: through strategic appointments of pliant judicial officers, manipulation of postings and elevations, and the weaponization of judicial bodies as instruments of political gatekeeping .
Senate President Godswill Akpabio openly told senators who lost primary elections that they could “still have their way” through the courts. He did not whisper it. He spoke authoritatively from his seat as Senate President.
The National Judicial Council has been reduced to a “polluted sanctuary” that serves the President and his party .
The Supreme Court refuses to fix hearing dates for cases against the President’s allies.
The judiciary has become a marketplace. Justice is allocated not by merit or evidence, but by proximity to power and the depth of the wallet .
That house Tinubu built is not a house. It is a message.
A message that the judiciary belongs to the executive.
A message that the 2027 election will be decided not at the ballot box, but in a courtroom that has already been bought.
A message that the last pillar of the Nigerian project is being dismantled .
And what is the cost?
Young Nigerians are watching. They are educated, connected, and increasingly disposed to the conclusion that the Nigerian state is irredeemably broken and that no path through its institutions leads anywhere except corruption and frustration .
Every conflicted judgment, every transparently partisan ruling, every election result manufactured in a courtroom rather than a polling booth confirms this cynicism . It hardens the despair. It tells us that there is nowhere left to go.
If you accept that house, you have accepted a bribe.
Not because you are a bad person. But because the system has designed it so that accepting becomes almost inevitable.
Baba-Ahmed gave the right counsel: refuse it. Build your own house. Demand that the judiciary’s budget provide for your welfare, without the executive’s fingerprints on the deed.
Because once you accept that house, you will be asked to pay.
And the payment will come in the form of a judgment that serves the executive, not justice.
The house that Tinubu built for judges is not a house.
It is a prison for their integrity.
And every judge who steps into it should remember: you are not building a home. You are building a prison for your own integrity.
The Nigerian people are watching. And they will remember.