Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that Nigeria’s judiciary is “deeply compromised,” warning that corruption among judges has turned the courts into “courts of corruption rather than courts of justice.”

In his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, published by the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Obasanjo lamented the “steady decline of the judiciary’s integrity,” describing the fall in standards since the Fourth Republic as “lamentable.”

“The great fear of most well-meaning Nigerians and good friends of Nigeria is that where ‘justice’ is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope,” he wrote.

The former military Head of State recalled visiting a northern state a decade after leaving office, where a governor pointed out six duplexes allegedly owned by a judge who “built them with money made from chairing election tribunals.”

Obasanjo also took aim at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, accusing him of compromising elections since 2015.

“No wonder politicians do not put much confidence in an election which the INEC of Professor Mahmood Yakubu polluted and grossly undermined to make a charade,” he said.