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Time is not theatrical. It does not issue press statements or convene emergency briefings. It does not trend on social media or leak dossiers to friendly journalists. Time simply waits, calm, unhurried, almost amused, while men drunk in the office confuse a borrowed crown for permanent hair.
If time kept records, Nigeria’s political class would fill entire shelves. And in the volume titled The Illusion of Omnipotence, the name Abubakar Malami, former Attorney-General of the Federation, would appear not as the tragic hero of a fallen epic, but as a central figure in a biting satire, one in which irony does the heavy lifting.
Not long ago, Malami stood at the heart of Nigeria’s legal universe. As AGF, he was constitutionally the chief law officer of the federation. In practice, he became something more potent: an arbiter of obedience. He helped decide which court judgments were to be obeyed promptly, which were to be “appealed,” and which were to be placed in cryogenic storage, pending further review.
In that era, courts functioned like remote controls: useful when compliant, annoying when disobedient. Judgments were treated less as binding commands and more as polite advice. Obedience to court orders became a buffet, sample what suits your appetite, ignore what doesn’t.
This was swagger elevated to policy.
Office confers a peculiar confidence. Proximity to power breeds a dangerous theology: Because I am here today, I will always be here. And because I will always be here, the law must bend. Institutions older than the individual are reduced to irritants. Due process becomes “technicality.” The rule of law becomes “contextual.”
But time, unlike power, does not flatter.
Today, stripped of the insulation that office provides, the former AGF reportedly finds himself answering questions from the EFCC, seeking cover, protection, and procedural fairness from the same judicial ecosystem he once treated with casual disdain. The irony does not scream; it whispers. Courts once dismissed as “misguided” are suddenly “sacrosanct.” Due process, once an obstacle, is now a lifeline. The rule of law, formerly flexible, has become holy writ.
Such is the treachery of time.
Power does something curious to ordinary men: it persuades them that they have temporarily graduated from humanity. In office, officials begin to speak in absolutes, act with impunity, and dismiss restraints as nuisances. Institutions exist, in their view, to validate authority, not to restrain it.
Nigeria knows this script well. A court issues an order. Government replies with a statement explaining that the order is “under study.” Weeks stretch into months. The judgment gathers dust. Somewhere in a ministry, a file is stamped Awaiting Further Directives, bureaucratic code for we will obey this in the next republic.
In such seasons, the AGF’s office often becomes the theological centre of selective obedience. Legal acrobatics are performed. Latin maxims are summoned from retirement. Committees are constituted. Appeals are filed, not to test justice, but to buy time. Because in office, time appears to be an ally.
What is always forgotten is that time belongs to no one.
To be clear, Malami is not unique. He is simply the latest illustration. Nigerian history is crowded with former governors, ministers, security chiefs, and power brokers who once treated institutions like office furniture, movable, replaceable, only to later cling to those same institutions like life jackets in rough waters.
There was the governor who once bragged that “nobody can touch me,” mocking anti-corruption agencies with televised bravado. Years later, he arrived in court in a wheelchair, armed with medical reports thicker than the Constitution, pleading for adjournments and mercy.
There was the strongman who once ordered arrests with a phone call. When the tide turned, he discovered the healing power of the judiciary. Suddenly, human rights mattered. Suddenly, bail was not indulgence but entitlement. Suddenly, due process was not a Western imposition.
Time smiled quietly.
Malami’s situation fits neatly into this gallery. In office, the law was a tool. Out of office, the law is a shield. In power, courts were subordinate. Out of power, courts are saviours. This is not mere hypocrisy; it is arrogance colliding with the calendar.
Consider the familiar tale of Otunba Komolafe, fictional, yet painfully Nigerian. Court orders were “civilian distractions.” Journalists were detained for “national security.” He once declared that the law existed for the state, not against it. Years later, when old files resurfaced, he stood before the same courts, his lawyers invoking precedents, constitutional protections, and expedited hearings. Asked how it felt to rely on the judiciary, he reportedly replied, “We must respect institutions.”
Time had spoken.
Then there was Mallam Kabiru, who described the Constitution as “a living document that must bend to realities.” Under his watch, restraining orders were treated like background noise. After office, facing charges, the Constitution stopped bending. Every comma became sacred. Every clause was salvific.
When asked why such reverence was absent in power, silence responded. Mazi Kamalu experienced the same fate.
Time turned the page.
The tragedy, or comedy, of public office is institutional amnesia. Officials forget that tenure has an expiry date. They forget that files do not disappear; they only nap. They forget that today’s disregarded institution may become tomorrow’s judge.
Office creates a bubble. Applause replaces accountability. Security details distort reality. Aides curate truth. Criticism is dismissed as envy or opposition mischief. Inside that bubble, court orders look optional and institutions look ornamental.
But time does not live in that bubble.
There is something almost religious about how former officials rediscover faith in institutions once power slips away. The EFCC, once a “tool of persecution,” becomes “an agency that must follow due process”, when they are the subject. Courts once derided as corrupt suddenly become the last hope of justice.
In Malami’s reported predicament, the optics are stark: a former chief law officer appealing to the sanctity of the very system he once constrained. This is not vengeance. It is symmetry.
The law, like time, has a long memory.
If Nigeria were a learning nation, this cycle would end. But we are addicted to repetition. Each generation believes it has outsmarted history. Each assumes time will make an exception.
It NEVER does.
Power is a costume drama. The curtain always falls. The sirens stop. The aides scatter. The phones go silent. And when that day arrives, only institutions remain.
How you treat them will matter.
The treachery of time is not that it punishes. It is that it waits. It allows arrogance to mature fully. It lets men weaponise law, insult courts, and trample rights. It gives them enough rope, not for spectacle, but for procedure.
And when they finally turn around, breathless and afraid, time whispers: Now you need what you once abused.
That is the joke. That is the lesson.
Abubakar Malami’s journey, from swagger to supplication, is not an anomaly. It is a footnote written in bold across Nigeria’s political experience: Office is temporary. Institutions are permanent. Time is undefeated.
Those who forget this will learn it later, quietly, painfully, and without applause.
