Who, really, was Justice Muhammad —former Chief Justice of Nigeria—now that death has spoken its final word? Titles have fallen silent. Robes have been folded. What remains is not office, but memory; not power, but judgement of a different kind.
In life, Justice Muhammad occupied the highest seat of the judiciary, a place meant to embody moral clarity, courage, and the last hope of the common man. Yet his public years were clouded by persistent allegations, controversies, and a widespread perception of ethical failure. Whether fully proven in courts of law or not, the weight of public opinion is itself a verdict: a judge may escape conviction, but not conscience—nor history.
Death has a cruel honesty. It strips away protocol and exposes the naked truth that power cannot bribe the grave, and corruption cannot negotiate eternity. At the deathbed, neither judicial immunity nor official escorts matter. What speaks then is character. What answers then is the soul.
A corrupt life is vain because it spends eternity’s capital on temporary applause. It is shameful because it trades trust for trinkets, justice for convenience, and legacy for luxury. The tragedy is not merely that such a life ends, but that it often ends empty—feared rather than loved, remembered with suspicion rather than honour.
What, then, can man say of Justice Muhammad at his death? Only this: that life is a moral examination whose results are released after the final breath. Offices expire. Ill-gotten wealth scatters. But the record of integrity—or its absence—endures.
Let his passing remind us all: tend carefully to your afterlife. For the court of eternity neither adjourns nor entertains technicalities. There, only truth sits as judge, and every life is called to the bar.
■ Dr Festus Goziem Okubor sent in this piece from Asaba.
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