THE RULE OF LAW AND THE RULE OF MAN By Oluwashayo Taiwo

In ecosystem, all animals are mechanized to protect their territory by default. They always want the best thing in every situation – the best food to feed on, the best niche for residence and so on.

Much more complex and sophisticated is human beings. They are adherent to hedonistic and unfettered freedom. Yet they are fallible. Inherently, man is truculent – he’s more probable to evil than good.

Naturally, no one wants his ox to be gored. Everybody wants to be a law unto him or her self. They want to be unquestionable and still enjoy serenity and sanctity.

Much more significant is the profound emotional faculty possessed by human, which read meaning to virtually all happenings in the microcosmic realm.

You can not eat and have your cake at the same time. One has to be sacrificed for the other. It is perfidious to the ethics of moral justification to spank a child and expect the eyes of the child to be devoid of tears. As much as it is morally wrong to blame the body for ejecting blood when it is bruised.

In nature, certain conditions are parallel, they can never stand together, even under stellar arrangement. It is absolutely unreasonable and a paradox for a hired assassin to expect a friendly hug from his victim’s family. Peace and lawlessness can never reside on the same plane.
Humans are complex and erratic.

They are capable of interpreting the same information with diverse and sometimes contradictory opinion.

So they need a common premise to compromise and shift grounds for mutual coexistence. Right and wrong must be well defined, to protect personality and morality violation.

Then, the constitution or rule of law became a necessity to set common boundaries, guild and regulate individuals flaws and to promote respect for each others peculiarities and invariably curb outrageous proclivities, which consequently foster meaningful development and ecological sanctity.

Every existing individual is peculiar in his or her own way. One man food might turn out to be a poison to another. We posses distinct mental wiring.
Still, we need each other for mutual and comfort living. As a vagary cohabitatant, everybody can’t have his way concurrently without contention. We need a common energy to drive and propel our mutual living.

For example, let assume a scenario where every student is entitled to a freewill on campus; where a student can smoke during a lecture section at will, where a lecturer can award grades by nepotism, where you can dress shabbily and immorally – sag your trousers and wear provocative claddings to class. Let me leave the consequences of such liberties to your imagination.

Beyond skeptism, liberty is good, but because we are humans and unpredictable, we have to put our liberties in proper check to avoid abuse.

It’s very understandable to factor religion into our guiding laws, but we must not be fanatic about it, most especially, in a pluralized environment like ours, where people are polarized along ethical, religious and political line. There must be a clear cut between Law and Religion.

This article was preconceived before the recently popularised sophistry of a Law student that forfeited and forlorn her call to bar by chauvinism and chutzpah.

Coincidentally, I’m blessed with her travail to drive my points home. And I beg for the indulgence of my distinguished audience, and I hope we can demystify all clouds of sentiments and fanaticism to peruse this particular issue.

Firstly, It is certain and undisprovable that she is well abreast of the rules and ethics of her choice of profession before subscribing to it.

She must have discovered Hijab or any veil is disallowed on the ceremonious day of ‘call to bar’, if she’s not convenient, she might carry her case to a court of law, or maybe, write a petition to the appropriate quarters to confront and question the status quo, or better still subject her case to public opinion poll for moral justification.

But she refuse to thread any of those noble paths, rather she decided to create a scene on the D-day. I believe her histrionic action was intentionally to flout the existing rule; which she ought to protect and teach.

In another parlance, hypocrisy is a major bane of our languid development as a nation. We choose to see only what we want to see, and outrightly shot our eyes on others.

Perhaps to fuel uncourted ego or to gain cheap popularity. Hypocrisy is when someone choose not to comply with an existing rule on religious basis, when he/she violate other teaching of the same religion.

This is an instance of what belongs to Caesar, which must be given to Caesar.

The fact is, there are many rights, but you have to sacrifice one right for another. Not because one true is truer than the other, in the same vein, any law that’s design to please and satisfy everyone is lawlessness.

The expressway to anarchy is to accommodate every thing under the law. If someone is allowed to flout the law on religious basis, then, an armed robber should be able to justify his pernicious and fiendish course on the credence of hunger and unemployment.

If the lady was allowed to have a go, based on religious excuse, then one day, an Ifa or Orunmila worshiper can as well come to the bar with a white regalia and ÈJÌ OGBÈ (Ifa corpus) on his forehead. Then the sanity and sanctity of the noble profession will become history with time.

Unfortunately, in this clime, we hypocritically and sentimentally subscribe to the rule of man, which is essentially a clog in our wheel of progress.

Most especially when our case is to stand behind the dock. The rule of man is subjective and sentimental. To some extent it can be said to be parochial.

It only views reality from a restricted prism. It is most times governed by empathy which makes it absolutely perfidious to the ethics of equity.

We need to protect the heritage and culture of the rule of law. Law is justified, it promotes equity and responsibility, it establishes standards, maintain orderliness, resolves disputes, and protect liberties and rights.
It must be strict and compelling. Under no condition should the standard be compromised. It must never be selective or sentimental.

Law must be intentional and candour. It must act justly and prevail always, no matter whose ox is gored.

Thanks for your time.

Oluwashayo Taiwo is a social media commentator and gifted writer @ Democrat Times.