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OPINION: Death Of World’s Nicest Judge

Published

16 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

He was just a municipal court judge in a US city. Some years ago, he was asked: “In your 38 years of sitting on the bench, is there a case you still think about today?” This judge looked up, and did not hesitate before answering yes, there was a case, and he told the story:

“I get upset even thinking about it. I felt crumbled at that moment. I’ve never forgotten that (case) up to this day and I was on the bench for 38 years… It was my first day on the bench. I asked my dad, I said ‘dad why don’t you come down and view me, I am sitting on the bench today for the first time.’ A woman came before me who had three kids. She owed, I think, $300 in parking tickets. And she said ‘I just can’t pay the money, I don’t have the money.’ And I said ‘maybe I can place you on a payment programme.’ She said ‘you can place me on a payment programme but I can’t pay anyway.’ So, I said, ‘okay, the fine is $300, see the clerk. If you don’t pay, the car is going to be booted.’

“The court is over and I said ‘Dad, how did I do?’ He said ‘Frank, that woman, you failed her.’ I said ‘dad, she was arrogant, she was rude.’ He said ‘she was scared. You should have talked to her, you should have understood her problem; you can’t treat people like that, Frank.’ And, I can tell you without fear of contradiction, it never happened again after that. Never.”

Judge Frank Caprio of Providence, United States, was that judge. Several headlines hailed him as “the nicest judge in the world” as he passed away at age 88 on Wednesday, last week (August 20, 2025). His official social media accounts which announced his passing said he “passed away peacefully” after “a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.”

If you are an Internet-captured person as I am, your addiction must have included hours watching Judge Caprio’s hit TV show ‘Caught in Providence.’ The show documents the latter years of his career which ended when he retired in 2023. You watch him episode after episode, you see law and empathy meshing with compassion to deliver justice.

The Economic Times reported the case of a single mother who appeared before Caprio with her child for a speeding ticket. The judge asked the child to give the appropriate sentence for the mum. The child suggested “five days in jail.” The court heard the child and burst into great laughter. Judge Caprio dismissed the case.

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Gulf News published what it called the man’s “five most humane cases that moved the world.” The cases, in Gulf News’ voice and words, are summarised here: “A young motorist who was caught running a red light argued that the signal changed suddenly. Judge Caprio, upon learning the defendant was a high school student with dreams of college, decided to waive the violation on the condition the student must graduate from college. A father was charged with speeding 10mph over the limit. Judge Caprio called the defendant’s son to give a verdict on his father’s guilt. The boy admitted his father was guilty with no hesitation. Instead of punishing the father, the judge praised the boy’s honesty and dismissed the case. A man, Jose Barrientos, was ticketed for parking near a fire hydrant while his son picked him up from hospital after a brain surgery. After hearing the emotional context, Judge Caprio immediately dismissed the ticket and inquired about Jose’s health. A veteran pleaded guilty to parking illegally near a VA hospital. Judge Caprio acknowledged the parking challenges veterans face and commended the defendant for service. Recognising the fine as too harsh, he dismissed the ticket and all fees. A woman received a ticket for parking two minutes early before allowed hours. Judge Caprio found the violation absurd and playfully threatened jail but then dismissed the case, sparking laughter in court.”

The Irish Sun newspaper recalled one of his gracious moments on the Bench: “He received multiple Daytime Emmy Award nominations and left social media users in tears for the way he handled a speeding ticket involving a 96-year-old Victor Colella. Colella appeared in an episode of Caprio’s show and was in court, representing himself, after being fined for speeding in a school zone. Caprio immediately dismissed Colella’s case after the elderly man explained to him that he was not a fast driver, and was only driving to take his 63-year-old son, who is handicapped, to get his blood work because he had cancer. ‘You are a good man. You really are what America is all about. Here you are in your 90s and you’re still taking care of your family. That’s just a wonderful thing for you,’ Caprio told Colella in admiration.”

On Instagram, the man had 3.4 million followers. On that platform, he shared stories of spectacular compassion and of mercy around the world. It is there I saw one of his quotes: “Kindness is the verdict I hope we all deliver more often.”

Watch his videos. The man sits a very patient judge. Justice Kayode Eso, late respected jurist and man of erudition, in his ‘The Mystery Gunman’ (1996) submits that ‘patience’ is one of the great attributes required of a judge sitting nisi prius. He says: “Patience in this context should never be confused with slow thinking. A trial court judge has to be endowed with a lot of patience. He listens to sense and nonsense with equanimity. His mind analyses the evidence simultaneously with watching the demeanor of witnesses…When the right judge is not in the right court, justice is never done.” (page 170-171). The American judge had patience in great abundance and it was manifestly deployed in service of justice.

In life, Caprio was celebrated across the world; in death, he came alive as a global hero. BBC’s announcement of his death came with the headline “Nicest judge in the world Frank Caprio dies aged 88′; The Guardian says ‘Frank Caprio, US judge who found fame online for his compassion, dies aged 88.’ The Associated Press and the CNN say: ‘Frank Caprio, Rhode Island judge who drew a huge online audience with his compassion, dies at age 88.’ The New York Times says: ‘Frank Caprio, Kind Judge on Rhode Island TV, Dies at 88.’ An online commenter said: “This is how men leave their mark on history… The date of birth and death does not matter as much as what is in between!”

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Caprio’s trademark phrase is: “I don’t wear a badge under my robe. I wear a heart.” In him, we find that judicial systems thrive when they temper rules with the most humane of the spirit of man. Nigerian judges can learn that integrating empathy into adjudication nurtures public trust and humanises the legal system. They can learn more from Caprio. The American judge did not run a rat race to be richer than the world’s richest. He did not set out for it, but he got a trophy richer than the treasures of Mansa Musa and King Solomon put together. He died as “the world’s nicest judge.” It is not likely that history will ever forget his humanity.

His story is almost identical with that of a judge who lived ten centuries ago in China. Bao Zheng (999–1062) dispensed justice fairly and evenly. He condemned the lowly of the low who erred just as he sentenced the Emperor’s family members who sinned. Dutch scholar, Sinologist and emeritus professor at Havard, Wilt L. Idema, in 2009 wrote ‘Judge Bao and the Rule of Law’. In that piece, Idema sums up Bao’s story in these words: “Pure, orthodox and incorruptible, Judge Bao has been serving as the preeminent embodiment of justice in China for almost a thousand years, so much so his court cases have been adapted as stories, novels and plays over the centuries.”

In Nigeria, our lawyers are currently meeting in Enugu. They call their congregation ‘Annual General Conference.’ Whatever the theme of their meeting is, I feel they should tell themselves and inform one another that the darkest hour of the judiciary since 1960 is now. They should ask why it is not possible to have a Caprio or a Bao in Nigeria and why, in recent times, almost every (political) decision that comes out of our courts is caught in the web of deliberate ambiguity and vagueness. What kind of judiciary feels no horror that court judgments are so capriciously ambivalent such that victories in them are claimed by both plaintiffs and defendants?

I wonder how both lawyers and judges felt when they heard the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, yesterday (Sunday) at the NBA conference, saying what everybody is saying: the integrity of the judicial system is being undermined by corruption, and justice is being sold to the highest bidder. He said: “Today, justice is increasingly becoming a purchasable commodity, and the poor are becoming victims of this kind of justice, while the rich commit all manner of crime and walk the streets scot-free.”

There is a trending excerpt from General Olusegun Obasanjo’s new book where he declares Nigeria’s judiciary as being “deeply compromised.” There is nothing new in what the former president wrote. Indeed, more than one lawyer have told me that they are afraid to go to court in this era because they are no longer sure that law and facts have a place in our courts; they are horrified that certainty and predictability of the law have taken a flight from our judiciary.

Obasanjo, in his new book, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future’, is quoted by a Nigerian news website, the Cable, as lamenting the “steady decline of the judiciary’s integrity” while ramming in this: “I went to a state in the North about ten years after I left public office. Next to the government guest house was a line of six duplex buildings. The governor pointed to the buildings and stated that they belonged to a judge who put them up from the money he made from being the chairman of election tribunals.” Obasanjo concludes that part with a warning that “where justice is only available to the highest bidder, despair, anarchy, and violence would substitute justice, order, and hope.”

I have serving and retired judges as friends. They are as embarrassed as hell with what we have as judiciary in 2025 Nigeria. They all believe that the house has fallen.

Our lawyers are meeting in Enugu as a body, the NBA. I have heard some members of that association dismissing the conference as a mere jamboree. They may be wrong. And they will be wrong if the conference comes out with a definite cure for the ailments of our courts. If judges are the problem, they were lawyers before they became judges. The Yoruba say a bad head did not become bad in just one day; they say rot is always gradual and incremental. Now, because the courts are rotten, no one is safe; no business has rest of mind; and no position or property is secure. The courts have become as capricious as magicians; they conjure decisions to the shock of facts and the law.

Robert H. Jackson was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1953 when he published his ‘The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary’. In it, Jackson urges “that the lawyer, as a leader of public opinion, can do no greater service to our institutions than to see that the people are repeatedly warned and kept everlastingly aware that they must be their own guardians of liberty and that they cannot thrust that whole task on a handful of judges.”

Some Nigerians reading that quote will hiss. They will say our judges and lawyers are Siamese twins in behaviour and misbehavour. Lord Denning says as much in his ‘Road to Justice’: “It is the lawyers who have made the law what it is.” If we agree that lawyers are as guilty as the judges in the eclipse of the sun of justice in Nigeria, can we, therefore, re-examine the training process of lawyers and the recruitment process of judges? If we agree with Sean Kierkegaard that “life can only be understood backwards” then we must be ready to learn from those who had been here and who made life better than they met it. If there are persons among Nigerian judges and lawyers who still read, I suggest they consult Justice Kayode Eso on pages 169 to 171 of his book cited earlier here. He has some nuggets there on how we got it wrong and what should inform appointment of judges in Nigeria.

The United States had Frank Caprio, the nicest judge in the whole world. China had Bao Zheng, pure, orthodox and incorruptible. We also had a golden, glorious past before the affliction of today. If we will get it right again, we have to bleach dirt out of the Bar and drain the swamp of the Bench.

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OPINION: A Voyage To Caligula’s Rome

Published

12 minutes ago

August 26, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

Rome’s history offers timeless lessons for all nations to jealously guard their freedom. Consider one of its emperors, Caligula: Born Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, he reigned from AD 37 to AD 41. Known as Little Boots, Caligula’s four-year reign epitomised tyranny.

Albert Camus captured his ruthlessness in his 1938 play “Caligula”, while Stephen Dando-Collins’ 2019 book, “Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Rome”, and Kate Zusmann’s article, “Roman Emperor Caligula: The Mad Tyrant of Rome”, give vivid portraits of his excesses.

Zusmann wrote: “Caligula’s reign lasted only four years, but his cruel and unpredictable behavior earned him a reputation as one of the most notorious emperors in Roman history… He engaged in construction projects to emphasize his power and divine status. He humiliated senators by forcing them into menial tasks or public spectacles.”

Though he initially presented himself as a noble leader, he soon became Rome’s worst emperor. He wielded taxation and reckless spending as weapons of control.

One account records: “Caligula squandered 2.7 billion sesterces in his first year and addressed the deficit by confiscating estates, levying fines, and even imposing the death penalty to seize wealth. He crippled the Roman Senate in the process.”

Freed from opposition, he built an extravagant bridge at Baiae and introduced crippling taxes on everything, taverns, artisans, slaves, food, litigation, weddings, even prostitutes and their pimps. Taxes doubled in just four years, leaving ordinary Romans broken and resentful.

Is this not eerily familiar? In some places in Nigeria today, task force agents harass even mourners transporting corpses. They must pay the State.

Caligula’s Rome is a warning. When opposition disappears, tyranny grows unchecked, and taxation becomes limitless. Nigeria is already on that path.

Read this report: “It was gathered that governors on the shopping list of the APC include the Enugu State governor, Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, Bayelsa State governor, Douye Diri, Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwang and the Zamfara State governor, Alhaji Dauda Lawal.”

That was how the Nigerian Tribune concluded its lead story on page five of its Monday, August 25, 2025, edition, titled: “Tension grips PDP leaders as APC targets more govs.” Two riders followed: “South-East, South-South, North-Central govs on shopping list” and “Tinubu to receive another PDP gov on arrival.”

An average student of Nigeria’s political history should be deeply troubled by this report. The concern is not just the well-known fact that Nigeria’s political elite rarely show fidelity to principles, loyalty, or decency, but rather the imminent danger this trend poses to the survival of democracy and to the ordinary masses.

We must ask ourselves: what awaits the common man if Nigeria slides into a one-party state? Can the current wielder of power – the architect of this emerging no-opposition order – truly manage such a system? If today, under the pretense of multiparty democracy, impunity has already reached its peak, what happens when there is no one left to challenge those in power?

History warns us that we are about to repeat our mistakes. Nigeria has a peculiar habit of forgetting her sordid past. Some call it resilience; I disagree. What we parade as resilience is actually a battered psyche. Nigerians have been beaten into submission by those who weaponized poverty. With crumbs thrown here and there, leaders get away with political robbery. We have been conquered.

The sages warned us that thunder must not be allowed to strike twice in the same place. Their reasoning was simple: if bad history repeats itself, its second coming will be catastrophic – so tragic that no one will have the words to describe it.

That Nigeria is gradually sliding into a one-party state should raise an alarm. Euphemism has no place here. A one-party Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an invitation to disaster. The consequences will not stop with the opposition; even those within the president’s inner circle will eventually taste the venom. Tyrants spare no one—not even their favourites. We are headed down that perilous road.

Make no mistake: a one-party state will kill this democracy. It has happened before—not once, but twice. Some of us lived through it, others read about it. Nigeria lost two republics because those in power chose tyranny and crushed opposition.

The First Republic collapsed when the ruling Northern People’s Congress (NPC) attempted to monopolise political power. It formed alliances, coerced defections, and silenced dissent. Opposition leaders were detained on trumped-up charges. Resistance sparked the violent Operation Wetie in Western Nigeria in 1962. By January 15, 1966, the First Republic was dead.

What followed were the January and July 1966 coups, and then a 30-month civil war that consumed over two million lives. Yet we learnt nothing. When the chance came again in 1979, we squandered it.

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By mid-1982, the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had perfected its plan to decimate opposition. It swallowed the PRP in Kano and Kaduna, captured the NPP in old Anambra, and went after the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Oyo and Bendel fell to its onslaught, while only Ondo resisted—and that resistance produced bloodshed. By December 1983, the Second Republic collapsed, swept away by the military coup of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari. For the next 16 years, Nigeria was under the jackboot.

Whichever way we spin it, the truth is clear: the destruction of opposition in both the First and Second Republics laid the foundation for their collapse.

Those who defend the current defections as freedom of association miss the point. We are not disputing that right. What we warn against is the danger of acquiescing while political and economic power concentrate in the hands of one man. As Aesop warned: “Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves.”

Those who think they can collaborate with the ruling party, pledging loyalty in opposition but serving power in secret, should think again. When tyranny consumes a nation, no one is spared. As the proverb goes, when heaven falls, it falls on everyone; the rain has no enemy.

Caligula reigned until his own guards turned on him. Tyranny and rebellion are monozygotic twins. Let today’s plotters of a one-party Nigeria take note.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in “How Democracies Die” (2018), explain it best: democracies rarely collapse through external invasion. They are destroyed from within, through the slow erosion of norms and the ambitions of authoritarian leaders. Nigeria is walking that path again.

Chude Jideonwo and Adebola Williams, in How to Win Elections in Africa (2017), observe that political parties in Nigeria are not built on coherent ideology but on opportunism. The APC, they argue, never stood on any deep philosophy; it merely capitalized on the weaknesses of the PDP. That explains why even serving PDP governors are defecting in droves to join it. But what exactly is the attraction? To answer that, let us revisit one of our old moonlight tales.

Long ago, when animals behaved like humans, Ikún, the deaf squirrel, desired to live as long as mortals. It went to a diviner to seek the Oracle’s blessing.

The divination was swift and stern: for Ikún to live long, it must avoid anything sweet that came from the enemy.

Ikún protested. Why should it shun sweet things when everyone knew it delighted in them?

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The Oracle replied with finality: What is sweet kills faster than anything else.

Ikún left, troubled. It wondered who its enemy could be. The only one that came to mind was the groundnut farmer, whose produce it relished. Resolving to obey the warning, Ikún avoided the groundnut farm.

The farmer soon noticed that Ikún no longer raided his crops. Suspicious, he tried several tricks. He attempted to smoke Ikún out of its burrow, but failed—for as elders say, òrò burúkú kii ká ikún mó’lé (misfortune never meets the squirrel at home). He tried hunting it at night, but that too failed—for ikún kii jé l’óru (the squirrel never ventures out at night).

At last, the farmer set a trap, using ripe banana as bait. The fruit was carefully placed over the blade, waiting to spring at the slightest tug.

Not long after, Ikún wandered by and spotted the banana. Overjoyed, it rushed forward. Banana was a delicacy, and its sweetness irresistible. Ikún took a bite, wagged its tail, and forgot all about the Oracle’s warning. It bit again, wagged its tail, and then tried to carry the whole banana away.

In a flash, the trap snapped. Ikún was caught between the jaws of death. Too late, it realised the truth: the sweet gift from the enemy was a lure to destruction. With its dying breath, it remembered the Oracle’s words.

Our elders, who preserved this tale, summed it up in the saying: ikun ńjẹ ògèdè, ikún ńrè’dí; ikún ò mọ̀ pé ohun tó dùn mà únpa ènìyàn (the squirrel wags its tail while eating banana, not knowing that what is sweet is what kills a man).

And that, precisely, is what the defecting governors are doing today. The banana from the ruling APC is sweet, but beneath its sweetness lies a deadly trap.

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PHOTOS: Brazil Welcomes Tinubu With Full Military Honours In Brasília

Published

14 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

Brazil on Monday rolled out full military honours at the Planalto Palace in Brasília to receive President Bola Tinubu.

Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on X on Monday.

Onanuga said Tinubu was welcomed by his host, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He wrote, “More photos of the official reception for President Tinubu at the Planalto Palace in Brasília, Monday, August 25, 2025. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed President Bola Tinubu with full military honours.”

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Tinubu Signs Direct Flight, Other Agreements With Brazil

Published

14 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed a landmark Bilateral Air Service Agreement with Brazil, signalling the establishment of direct air links between Nigeria and South America’s largest economy.

The agreement was formalised on Monday during Tinubu’s official state visit to Brasília.

Media aide to the minister, Tunde Moshood, made this known through a statement, made available to The PUNCH.

At the signing ceremony which was witnessed by Messrs Nigerian President, Tinubu and the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia also had the Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, signed the agreement on behalf of Nigeria, while Brazil’s Minister of Transport, Silvio Costa Filho, also signed for the host country.

The BASA creates a new framework for direct flights between Nigeria and Brazil, with the potential to significantly enhance trade, tourism, investment, and diplomatic relations.

The statement further noted that, “ It also marks a key step in Nigeria’s broader efforts to strengthen international partnerships and improve global connectivity.”

Tinubu had arrived in Brazil with a delegation that included Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun; Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Ojukwu; Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari; and other senior government officials.

According to the statement, the Brazilian President welcomed the agreement, expressing his administration’s commitment to expanding cooperation with Nigeria in sectors such as aviation, agriculture, and infrastructure.

He described the BASA as a reflection of the strong ties between both countries and an opportunity to deepen economic and cultural collaboration.

Tinubu is also scheduled to hold meetings with key Brazilian government officials, including the President of the Senate, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, and the President of the Supreme Federal Court.

The two-day visit will include high-level discussions between Nigerian and Brazilian delegations across various sectors, as both nations explore opportunities for mutual growth and development.

The statement reads, “The ongoing state visit will also see President Tinubu meeting the President of the Brazilian Senate at the National Congress, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, and the President of the Supreme Federal Court.

“The working visit, which continues tomorrow, will also feature high-level engagements between Nigerian and Brazilian delegations across various sectors, underscoring both nations’ commitment to building a future of mutual growth and prosperity.”