Nigeria, March 8 -- "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged.." - Matthew 7:1-2 (NKJV)

In the first six months of 1986, Nigeria's Supreme Court delivered two judgments with far reaching consequences for the lives and careers of two senior judges of the High Court. If the facts were to recur today, forty years later, neither of these cases would come to trial. This fact says a lot about how the standards of judicial conduct and ethics as well as accountability for both have evolved - for worse - over the intervening period.

Donald Ikomi was a judge and Chairman of the Armed Robbery and Firearms Tribunal of Bendel State when - together with his cook, Reuben Udoh, and one Martins Ekezoka - he...