By Tola Adeniyi.
For centuries people talk of ‘Justice for Sale’ or ‘Justice for the highest bidder’ but after submitting the common sayings to philosophical scrutiny I came to the conclusion that we all have been wrong all along. Just as I argued that ‘we are not born equal’ and ‘There are no Christian Names and no Muslim Names’ or, for that matter ‘No Black man, no White man’,
I submit today, my May 29 birthday, that nobody buys justice. Justice is not purchasable and no one actually ever buys justice. What crooked people pay for is injustice. When one snatches voter’s cards boxes, or cheats in an examination hall, or takes away someone else’s right and bribes a judge to declare him or the rightful owner or winner, what that felon has paid for is injustice.
Let us now dissect this transaction with the precision it deserves. Justice is Free; Injustice Costs.
In its pure state, justice requires nothing extra. It is the default alignment of truth and fairness. If a man owns a land, and the court declares him owner based on evidence, that is justice. It happens naturally. No money changes hands to make it happen. Justice is the baseline.
But when the baseline is disturbed, when the truth is flipped, when the rightful man becomes the wrong one in the eyes of the law, something must pay for that disturbance. That something is usually gold. Therefore, what we observe in the courtroom, the ballot box, and the marketplace is not justice being delivered; it is justice being corrupted. And corruption has a price tag.
Consider the felon who steals your voter’s card. He did not buy the right result (your card counted as yours). He bought the wrong result (your card counted as his). His bribe to the official purchased the deviation from reality. The official, once honest, becomes unjust because of the payment. The payment buys the unjustness. Hence, the felon is a customer of injustice. He walks out of the transaction with an unjust advantage, and you walk out with an unjust loss. Both are products of the same sale.
Just as in any marketplace, the magnitude of what you buy depends on how much you spend. A small bribe buys a minor injustice: a teacher overlooks one cheat sheet, a regulator ignores one faulty product, a policeman turns a blind eye to one petty theft. But a massive fortune buys a monumental injustice: a dynasty snatches a nation’s history, a corporation declares pollution as progress, a politician makes a thief the king.
The higher the bidder, the greater the injustice he can purchase. We have been saying “justice for the highest bidder” when we should say “injustice for the highest bidder.” The rich do not buy more justice; they buy more wrongness to be declared right.
The seller of injustice is the mechanism that should deliver truth but has been lubricated with money. The judge, the election officer, the examiner, the regulator—they are vendors of deviation. Their honest service is free; their dishonest service is for sale. When you pay them, you are not paying for justice to be done; you are paying for justice to be undone. You are purchasing the override of truth.
For too long, human language has misnamed this transaction. We say “he bought justice” when he actually bought the unjust outcome that suits him. We say “the court sold justice” when it actually sold a wrong verdict to the wealthy. This is not semantics; it is philosophy. If we correct our words, we correct our understanding of power. The powerful do not command justice; they command injustice and pay for its delivery. The poor suffer injustice because they cannot afford to buy their own wrongness declared right, or they cannot afford to buy the wrongness done to them declared fair.
So let us amend the marketplace of common wisdom. Justice is not a commodity. It is a state of being that requires only truth and fairness. Injustice is the commodity. It requires money to override truth. And it is sold to the highest bidder, who pays to make the wrong right, and the right wrong.
On this May 29 birthday, I declare: Nobody buys justice. Everyone buys injustice. And the sale never stops.
Written by me in my editorial suite to mark my official 81st Birthday on May 29, 2026. Published today July 4 to mark the US Day of all Deceptions.
The historical narrative of July 4th is often framed around liberty, but for marginalized groups, it historically marks events of profound injustice. Key milestones include the contradiction of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, which excluded enslaved people, Native Americans, and women, and the 1876 Hamburg Massacre.
The Fourth of July carries a complex history of exclusion and systemic oppression in the United States. While the Declaration of Independence declared that “all men are created equal,” it was written by Thomas Jefferson—a slaveholder.
Renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivered a scathing speech in Rochester, New York, on July 5th, highlighting the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom while millions remained enslaved. Douglass famously stated, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice; I must mourn.”
High Chief Tola Adeniyi is a Nigerian Veteran Journalist
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